SOURCE: "Creation and Analysis," in The Nation, Vol. 111, No. 2872, 1920, pp. 74-75.

In the following review, Lewisohn finds An Imperfect Mother absorbing and interesting, but faults the novel's concentration on scientific information.

Mr. J. D. Beresford explained, in two recent articles of very high interest, the uses to which the novelist could put the discoveries of the Freudian psychology. The problem is an extraordinarily fascinating one. For whatever criticism may be made in detail, there is no doubt that Freud has discovered a very great truth which, like all great truths, is simple enough: Repressed impulses and impressions passively received do not glide through, but become, for better or worse, permanent elements in the affected soul. So soon as we know this the activities of our memory undergo a change in character. Moments that were before but faintly lit leap dazzlingly out of the dim past and help us...