years are not available; however, we know that in 1950 about 450 copies ofThe Functionwere
sold and the sales had been fairly steady^12. Reich and Wolfe were not disposed toward any
big promotional efforts. As Reich put it in a tribute to Wolfe, published in 1950: “We did not
wish to join those one-day celebrities who make up in publicity for what they lack in deep-
going search.”^13 Reich has said of him that Wolfe respected Reich’s way of expressing him-
self and Reich respected Wolfe’s way of rendering it in English^14. In fact, matters were
somewhat more complicated. In later years, Reich complained that Wolfe smoothed out the
“climaxes” that Reich liked in writing^15. Early in his translation work, Wolfe once bristled
when Reich tried to control his translation style. Reich backed off and from then on made
no complaints directly to Wolfe^16. It was a considerable relief to him when around 1948
his command of English was sufficient for him to write in that tongue, independently of
translators.
There were few reviews ofThe Function of the Orgasmwhen it first appeared. In 1942
a lukewarm, anonymous review was published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association^17 .The reviewer’s main emphasis was on Reich’s “rehashing” his disappointment
with Freud, the irrelevance of Reich’s political work, and his neglect of the contributions of
others to psychoanalysis.The American Journal of Psychiatrypublished a review by Abraham
Myerson, an eclectic psychiatrist of some repute. Myerson was largely caustic, focusing on
Reich’s tone of “absolute certainty” and his “monoideology” (i.e., orgastic potency). 18
Writing in Psychosomatic Medicine, Martin Grotjahn was entirely hostile. The book was “nutti-
er than a fruitcake ... a surrealistic creation,” yet it aroused “the same fascinating interest with
which an analyst listens to the strange associations of a patient.”^19
It was not until 1945, after The Sexual Revolutionand Character Analysishad been
translated and published by Wolfe, that more serious critical attention began to be paid. In
1946, the most laudatory and insightful review was published by Paul Goodman in Dwight
MacDonald’s periodical Politics, which reached a small but very influential audience^20.
Goodman contrasted Reich’s radical approach to political issues, combined with his depth-
psychological, sex-affirmative orientation to the individual, with Erich Fromm’s reformist
and sexually diluted approach. A talented anarchist writer, Marie-Louise Berneri, wrote one
of the first appreciations of Reich in England in the same year^21.
As well as establishing new relationships that fitted his current interests, Reich was
concerned to deal with past relationships that might or might not be compatible with his
new work. One such relationship was with Walter Briehl, who, interested in further thera-
peutic work with Reich,had some sessions with him.Reich charged him $20 an hour, a sum
to be deducted from the money Reich owed Briehl for subsidizing Reich’s teaching contract.
Briehl rather resented Reich’s fee: “It was a lot of money in those days.” Nor did he find
Reich’s new bodily techniques especially effective^22.
Briehl’s wife, Marie, a psychiatrist, and her sister, Rosetta Hurwitz, a psychologist,
also knew Reich from the Vienna days when he had been one of their analytic teachers.
They, too, resumed contact with Reich in New York. In his usual way, Reich was eager to
20 : Getting Settled in America: 1939-1941 251