To chronicle the small pleasures, the larger troubles and the rare triumphs of the somewhat seedy poor in such a way as to make the characters interesting and even strangely attractive is no small achievement. Mr. Cormier is apparently fully launched on a career of detailing the annals of the poor, and his special cachet is that he manages this intractable material without sentimentality, without crying out at the culpability of society (that convenient scapegoat of the sociologically-minded novelist), and even with a deep respect for the human dignity of his people. He did this quite impressively in his earlier A Little Raw on Monday Mornings, and if [Take Me Where the Good Times Are] is not quite as impressive, it still deserves a thoughtful reading….

This is a good, sound, if unspectacular book. It is deceptively simple. And it rings true. Mr. Cormier has staked out a...