SOURCE: "Roman Soap," in The New York Times Book Review, November 4, 1990, p. 19.

In the following review, Rinzler commends McCullough's research for The First Man in Rome but faults the novel for excessive length and slow plot development.

When I finally get around to writing the history of 20th-century literature, I plan to devote a chapter to the withering away of the story, the virtual disappearance of the literate page-turner that Wharton, O'Hara, Nabokov and Cheever used to toss off every few years.

The pickings aren't much fatter if you're willing to settle for novels merely zippy enough to see you through a bout with the flu. Judith Krantz and Dominick Dunne are beginning to tire. Scott Turow and Jonathan Kellerman don't write fast enough to fill the shelves that are emptied of new Stouts and Creaseys. Because the historical novel is in a similar state of disarray, flu...