SOURCE: Keene, Frances. “One Moment in History.” Nation 173 (21 July 1951): 54-5.

In the following review, Keene provides a laudatory assessment of The Watch and views it within the context of Levi's oeuvre.

First of all, of course, this isn't a novel, as the jacket and its blurb would have you believe. It would be a mistake to expect Levi to construct, out of historical incident and personal experience, a technically acceptable work of fiction. So let's get the idea out of the way that The Watch even pretends to be a novel, complete with plot, sub-plot and, if possible, love interest. Then perhaps we can talk fairly about the book.

It is, instead, a prolonged meditation upon one moment in recent history. Levi's work has always had to do with man in relation to the historical moment, and the present book gives it continuity and cumulative force. He is...