Published in 1953, this text represents Wright's first major work in formal existentialist ideas, although similar themes run through his earlier novels. One of the criticisms leveled at the text is that Wright did not take sufficient time to digest the ideas, and the result is an uneven text that reads more like a philosophical tract than a novel.

In fact, Steven Marcus, in a review for Commentary in 1953, savaged the text, claiming, "Most of the book is very boring, with long passages of didactic and quasi-philosophical prose."[1]

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[1] Appiah, K.A., and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present