Ishmael Reed can hardly be called a camp follower. [The Free-Lance Pall Bearers] inverts conventional attitudes for sustained comic effect; his feints are brilliant and his punches swift…. [However], he is prone to rely on the injoke, and to join in a growing army of writers who "grotest" too much. This army is losing some of its power to surprise. (p. 508)

Martin Tucker, in Commonweal (copyright © 1968 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.; reprinted by permission of Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.), January 26, 1968.