[7][8][9] The short story "Tell Me a Riddle" has been called "a powerful study of the politics of voice",[10] "an American Classic",[11] and described as "beautifully crafted and painfully real in the issues of family that it raises".

[16] One of the outstanding features of Olsen's literary form is the “extraordinary compression” of her short stories.

The origins of this form lie in the “immediate circumstances” under which Olsen wrote: a low-income working-class mother raising four daughters, who recognized both the limitations and possibilities these hardships presented her as a writer.

[17] Literary critic Joanne S. Fry explains that Olsen's social realities and her awareness of herself as subject to the larger historical influences in the 20th century led her to create short stories and novellas that are “novelistic” in form.

[21]Literary critic Mara Faulkner comments on the feminist component in the collection: Olsen’s writing is alive with the conviction that creativity, strength, and adaptability are far more common in women than most people think, though one’s vision has to shift to see the unconventional, sometimes desperate, manifestations of these qualities.