[Chesapeake] is, at times, impressive, for Michener is a tireless researcher; he always has the story—if not the reader—by the throat, and some of his passages of action and violence are vividly written. On the whole, however, I found [it] exasperating to read.

When the moment calls for humor, subtlety, or even silence, Michener too often either leaps onstage to lecture on the obvious, or he reaches for Pomp and Circumstance and proceeds to play it on an atomic pipe organ…. Characters in this book tend to make timpanic pronouncements in empty places. Edmund Steed, after finding his wilderness island "a fascinating place," announces, apparently to the grackles and squirrels: "This is the island of Devon, proprietary of the Steeds, and so it shall remain forever." (pp. E1, E4)

Chesapeake is full of … flat superlatives and cliches, of saucy little slatterns, pert little princesses, rollicking rascals...