Call It Sleep was Henry Roth's first novel, published in 1934 when the author was just twenty-eight years old. Critical reception of the book was overwhelmingly positive, particularly for a first novel, but coming as it did in the midst of the Great Depression, the book failed to make a dramatic impact on the reading public and literary scholars until decades later.

One of the novel's most laudatory reviews appeared in a February 1935 edition of Books, and was written by F. T. Marsh. Marsh calls the book "the most accurate and profound study of an American slum childhood that has yet appeared." Marsh's praise continues:

To discerning readers, I believe, for its profound intensity, its rare virtuosity, its sensitive realism, its sheer weight, its power, circumference and depth, this first novel of this Mr. Roth will be remembered for some time to come. I should like to...