In a telephone interview with Jane Perlez of The New York Times, Johnson explained: "I thought it was appropriate that the people in hell wouldn't have any names.

[4][3] Publishers Weekly gave the novel a mixed review, writing, "Short as it is, the book could be trimmed by half without loss of substance.

"[3] People gave the novel a positive review, calling Johnson "an original, exciting writer, worth every minute spent in his nightmarish creation.

"[5] John Blades of the Chicago Tribune called the novel "intensely mystical and poetic; it has the texture and illogic of a nightmare.

"[6] Writing for The Guardian in 2012, Scottish novelist Alan Warner cited The Stars at Noon as evidence that Johnson is "one of America's greatest fiction writers.

"[7] Writing for The Daily Beast in 2017, Jeremy Kryt called the novel "excellent" and compared its "shiftless gringo's point of view" to that of Oliver Stone's film Salvador (1986), writing, "Yet one could argue that Johnson's lost and nameless heroine is the more sympathetic character—and a more tragic figure—than Stone's protagonist.

[12] Claire Denis read Johnson's novel a decade earlier and assessed it as a love story between two people who develop a relationship solely due to the context of the revolution.