SOURCE: A review of Fathers, in Commonweal, Vol. 86, No. 17, July 28, 1967, p. 474.

In the following negative review, Sklar argues that the father-son relationship is not fully developed in Fathers.

Fathers really defies criticism, for who, when you get right down to it, can say anything bad about fathers? And especially about good fathers, who give their sons love, education, freedom, money, and the independence of mind to use them? And more especially, about good fathers who are interesting, forthright men in themselves?

In this “novel in the form of a memoir,” Herbert Gold's father Sam Gold is a mentsch: he has all the right virtues. At twelve, in Kamenets-Podolsk, Russia, he wanted to ride away to America and pick up the gold in the streets; at thirteen he crossed the ocean alone. He saved his money to bring his brothers and sister over one by one. He learned English...