SOURCE: "In Search of a Spiritual Pacifier," in The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 1985, p. 22.

In the following review, Grenier praises the "genuine seriousness and moral complexity" of Davita's Harp, but finds shortcomings in Potok's "stiff dialogue and stilted characters."

Chaim Potok owes much of his popularity as a writer to his handling of Judaic scenes in contemporary American life (The Chosen, The Promise, etc.).

This time, in Davita's Harp, Mr. Potok heads into new, highly topical territory—woman's role in the Jewish faith—set in the context of American communism in the 1930s. In what may have been a rash venture, he has chosen as his narrative voice that of his pre-pubescent heroine, who recounts her life from birth to menstruation.

Davita is the daughter of two deeply committed Communist Party members—he's the radical son of an old New England family, she's a Russian-Jewish victim of a...