The difficulties inherent in the creation of a fictional genius have undone this extremely interesting book [My Name Is Asher Lev], which is ironic since it brilliantly transcends the impediment of being yet another novel about a Jewish family in New York, by reason of its seriousness and doggedness for truth…. The prayers, greetings, customs and attitudes of Hasidic Jews toll through the book; the writer is on intimate, respectful, but his own terms with them, and they are naturally and objectively ...

Why is it no one seems able to write a convincing novel about the life work of a painter?… Chaim Potok, I'm afraid, is one more name to add to the list of failures. His dull, ponderous, humorless account of the rise of Asher Lev, Jewish artist extraordinary ["My Name Is Asher Lev"], cannot convince anyone who has held a brush loaded with oil paint and tried to make some meaningful strokes on a canvas, that this is what it's like.