Alva Review-Courier -

The Sunday, October 25, 1964, issue of the “New York Times Book Review” featured a glowing critique of Henry Roth’s lost novel “Call It Sleep” on its cover.

This was the first time that the editors of that influential journal had given such a coveted placement to a novel that had been published years earlier and – equally rare – to the paperback edition of a book rather than a hardcover version. The results were astonishing!

Bookstores began selling copies of the book as fast as the publisher could manufacture them. The novel, which had sold only 4,000 copies when first publ...