SOURCE: A review of Raintree County, in Commonweal, Vol. 47, February 13, 1948, p. 450.

In the following review, Johnson finds Raintree County verbose, overrated, and “sophomoric.”

Accolades of hysterical praise have greeted Raintree County since its publication. There have been boomings from some sagacious critics proclaiming it the turning point in American fiction, the renaissance of the American novel. True, the savants have more than once accused Mr. Lockridge of crying “Wolfe!” too often, not to mention the author's being hypnotized by Joyce and Faulkner. But that apparently does not detract from the broad panorama bulging with the humans and historical events that Mr. Lockridge has re-created.

By this time, the American reading public knows that Raintree County is the story of one day in the life of its Indiana hero, John Wickliff Shawnessy; that through a series of flash-backs, we learn of Shawnessy's boyhood, manhood, his physical as well as...