Significant critical studies on Lelchuk have been Philip Roth in Esquire, Wilfrid Sheed in Book-of-the-Month Club News, Benjamin DeMott in The Atlantic, Mordechai Richler in the Chicago Tribune, and Sven Birkerts in The New Republic.

In 1999-2000 he was the recipient of the Otto Salgo Chair in American Literature and Writing at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary.

[3] In 2005 he was a Fulbright Senior Specialist Professor, giving seminars in fiction writing and American Literature at Moscow State University, Universita di Napoli (Naples, Italy), and Die Freie Universität, Berlin.

Commentary on his work American Mischief "No novelist has written with such knowledge and eloquence of the consequences of carnal passion in Massachusetts since The Scarlet Letter."

Denver Rocky Mountain News[full citation needed] “Fun and passion… clever and feverish!” The New York Times (A NYT notable book of the year.

Samuel Shem, The New York Times Book Review[full citation needed] "Miriam is not a model or an ideal, but is precisely for her individuality that we value her most.