SOURCE: Craniford, Ada. “Solomon Gursky Was Here: Fiction or Fact?” In Fiction and Fact in Mordecai Richler's Novels, pp. 115-35. Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Craniford surveys the critical reaction to Solomon Gursky Was Here and investigates Richler's inspirations for the Gursky family. Craniford notes that the “most compelling quality of Richler's novel is the fact that it is based on and made out of other works of fact and fiction.”

In Mordecai Richler's ninth novel [Solomon Gursky Was Here], the Gurskys are here there and everywhere. The book celebrates and parodies not only the Jewish contribution to world civilization and the underworld of crime, but also the central role of the artist as embroiderer of history and mythologizer of mankind. In this story, for the first time in Richler's writing, the teller and the tale are one.

Of all the book's...