'"[2] The tale centres on Moses Berger, an alcoholic failed writer who is obsessed with Solomon Gursky, the brother of Bernard and Morrie and absent from the family empire after a fatal plane crash.

Reviewing the book in The New York Times, Francine Prose noted, "In this, his ninth and most complex novel, Mr. Richler, a Canadian, is after something ambitious and risky, something slightly Dickensian, magical realist", adding that, "Regardless of what its author may actually have experienced, Solomon Gursky Was Here reads as if it were great fun to write.

Dense, intricately plotted, it takes exuberant, nose-thumbing joy in traditional storytelling with all its nervy cliffhangers and narrative hooks, its windfall legacies, stolen portraits, murders and revenges, its clues that drop on the story line with a satisfying thud".

However, Prose judged that, "while the novel's plot turns are seldom predictable, its characters often are: the bigot is a repressed religious nut, the millionaire a pompous slob and, most upsettingly, the Eskimos a bunch of whoop-em-up mystic blubber-chewers and wife-swappers.

Nevertheless, Prose found that in "the book's final paragraph, we discover that Solomon Gursky (and Mordecai Richler) have shaped their clever plot in a perfect circle, a narrative design that restores order and brings a welcome reassurance of closure, two things we so rarely expect from life and cherish, all the more, in the novel".