["Soul Clap Hands and Sing"] is something of a renaissance in authentic feeling for real men, women and life. Named for its geographic setting—Barbados, Brooklyn, British Guiana and Brazil—each story describes in terms of natural action and reaction how an aging and dying man attempts to face up to the decline of his virile powers. Each man portrayed is conceived in terms of his relationship with a woman; in fact, Mrs. Marshall—herself the mother of a male child to whom this volume is dedicated—is saying that a man is truly a man when he commits himself to a genuine, creative love, and that a woman realizes her womanliness through her man. And she etches character and setting with descriptive power and insight….
Paule Marshall's art is serious, wholesome and strong.
Vernon Hall, Jr., "A Stellar Performance," in New York Herald Tribune (© I.H.T. Corporation; reprinted by permission), September 17, 1961, p. 6.
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