Much of the power of Snakes derives from its felt authenticity, its evocations of life in the Detroit ghetto; scene, characterization, and action are rendered in a low-mimetic, "autobiographical" manner which persuades the reader of the truth of what he finds before him…. [Each] figure unobtrusively advances and expands the thematic line of the novel while possessing sufficient identity and interest to exist in his own right for the reader….

The novel traces the gradual emancipation of the central figure, MC, from the repressive and debilitating forces about him to the threshold of maturity and enlarged self-awareness; at the novel's end MC is ready to begin his symbolic journey from home and youth to the beckoning world of the new and unknown. That the journey is a relatively limited one, at least in terms of the physical distance involved, and that no unearned great expectations are granted either...