“A heterogeneous mass of capital and labour, love and catastrophe. Mr Wood’s masterful portrayal of the negro race, however, furnishes a background which puts his high-lights to shame and leaves us the hope that he will visualize the white race with equal clarity.”
− + Dial 69:663 D ’20 60w
“Love, it may be said, Mr Wood presents more convincingly than economics. The characters of his story, never clearly realized, make sudden and inexplicable shifts of attitude to meet the necessities of a somewhat vaguely conceived plot, just as his social theories are strained to make destructive facts work toward constructive ends.” H. S. H.
+ − Freeman 1:574 Ag 25 ’20 360w
“One looks in vain for a single passage of supreme beauty, for one arresting phrase; yet there is in the book an undercurrent of power rare in a first novel.”
+ − Grinnell R 15:285 N ’20 620w
“From the point of view of art the mind is unpersuaded and the imagination a blank. The book is all haste and over-eagerness. The creative hand has scarcely touched it yet.”
− Nation 111:276 S 4 ’20 340w
“This is an uncommonly fine bit of work, for a first novel. The working class type is a real one, not a caricature. Yet the chief protagonists, Pelham Judson in particular, do not come into the reader’s experience with that unerring finality which is always the mark of sure imaginative creation. They are not inconsistent; they are plausible; they are unfailingly interesting. But they are mere sketches, not realities.” H. S.