Mordecai Richler's latest novel, Joshua Then and Now, is, in spite of the vengeance, meanness, envy, hatred, mindless japery and cruelty that trouble its pages, a love story—often oxygen-deprived, harsh, battering, but, nevertheless, a love story, even, in a way, a happy-ending fairy tale…. (p. 58)

Jack Ludwig, "Keeping a Sheet on Everybody: The New Richler Novel" (copyright © 1980 by Saturday Night; reprinted by permission of the author), in Saturday Night, Vol. 95, No. 5, June, 1980, pp. 58-9.