SOURCE: Kurzweil, Edith. “Contextualizing Freud.” Partisan Review 56, no. 3 (summer 1989): 486–89.

In the following positive review, Kurzweil praises Freud: A Life for Our Time, complimenting Gay's clear explanations of Freud's theories and the wealth of new information presented.

Reviewers of this brilliant book [Freud: A Life for Our Time] who accept psychoanalysis, such as Richard Wollheim, appreciate Mr. Gay's ability “to conjure up a scene, a panorama, a story line by using some telling detail” of Freud's life and work. But detractors of psychoanalysis, such as Thomas Szasz (writing in The Wall Street Journal,) have used the book to savage Freud and the Freudians once again, to compare them to “our gurus and televangelists with whom American analysts must now compete.” Proponents of feminist and deconstructionist criticism, such as Jill Johnston, who believe, for instance, in Mary Balmary's speculations about Freud's father's “hidden fault” (which, if analyzed, allegedly would make...