SOURCE: Bethune, Brian. “Sex and Contempt.” Maclean's 115, no. 25 (24 June 2002): 26.

In the following review, Bethune debates the quality of Richler's first novel, The Acrobats, concluding that the work is “pretty good on its own merits and full of promise for the future.”

In 1951 Mordecai Richler, 19 years old and burning with writerly ambition, left Montreal for a two-year stay in Paris and Spain. There he completed his first novel, The Acrobats, published in 1954 and long out of print. Now reissued by McClelland & Stewart, The Acrobats takes place in Valencia in 1951, during the Spanish city's famous spring fiesta. A large cast of characters somersault past—and into—one another: Jews and Gentiles, straights and gays, fascists and communists, impoverished Europeans and rich American tourists. In the midst of this madhouse—the Valencians are every bit as incendiary as the foreigners, nightly setting ablaze huge effigies stuffed with fireworks—is painter Andr...