["Home Is the Sailor" is] a deftly written, lighthearted, and genuinely funny comic novel. Its hero is an old gentleman who enjoys years of tranquil happiness late in life by masquerading as a retired sea captain and telling the most outrageous lies…. Amado's humor is fresh, innocent, and inventive, and his altogether delightful comedy … has some profound things to say, in passing, about the human desire for importance…. (pp. 89-90)

Anthony West, in The New Yorker (© 1964 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.), August 8, 1964.