" I heartily agree with Irving Howe's comparison in the essay that follows the book--"The action of the novel moves like a series of waves, each surging forward to a peak of tension and then receding into quietness, and each, after the first one, reenacting in a more complex and perilous fashion the material of its predecessor." However, while Howe suggests that the gathering storm of Dresier's prose is to be admired, I'd rather stay ashore. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY pounds the reader with wave after wave of its author's idiocy. Eight hundred fourteen pages of boring breakers. Call an editor! Dresier's relentless description of this selfish age makes me tired. If you insist on reading this, the novel concludes with an interesting collision between faith, responsibility, and conscience. "
— Andrew, 2/6/2014