Rarely does an author manage to capture the suburban scene with the painful fidelity achieved [in The Dream Watcher]…. [Albert Scully] is constantly being urged to "get with it." "It" is the Pepsi generation life in his development, "Blitherwood, New Jersey."… Readers will be reminded of The Catcher in the Rye. The theme is similar and the same bitter-sweet humor runs through it. But this is no imitation. It's an eloquent restatement of the old plea for the individual. (pp. 288-89)