After eight novels—Battle Cry, The Angry Hills, Exodus, Mila 18, Armageddon, Topaz, QB VII, and Trinity—Leon Uris continues to prompt conflicting assessments. Literary critics disparagingly dismiss his work as something less than "serious."… On the other hand, Uris has nurtured in the last thirty years a loyal American readership which renders almost every Uris novel a runaway bestseller. In short, Uris remains a reader's writer and a critic's nightmare.

The easy and conventional explanation for this discrepancy would be to acknowledge the sorry state of the audience and point to critics as having higher levels of taste. Admittedly, when judged by traditional literary canons, Uris is a poor writer. But that Uris's critics are at odds with his readers does not necessarily mean the latter have lower standards; it is equally plausible to assert they merely embrace different standards…. [While] surface appearances suggest that Uris's is a...