His preferred métier, inherited from Edmund Wilson and sharply differentiated from the specialized academic criticism that dominated his era, was what he called "the long, analytical essay-review".
Using American modernist writing of the 1920s as his lofty standard, Aldridge wrote of the creative dilemmas faced by those writers who arrived on the literary scene a generation later, yet still hoped to create fresh depictions of their experience.
[6] Aldridge's work includes one of the first favorable notices of Joseph Heller's novel Something Happened and several essays on the creative strengths of Norman Mailer.
Aldridge had advised young writers in the audience to depart the academy in order to gain life experience and artistic authenticity.
"A friend, with whom I had published in the college literary magazine, dropped out immediately and hitchhiked to New York, where he got a job and began living and writing in the Village, subsequently producing a remarkable series of plays.