SOURCE: A review of Working Men and Paper Trail, in The Bloomsbury Review, May-June, 1995, pp. 19, 21.

[In the following review, Lyons observes "the breath and richness of contemporary American culture" in Working Men and Paper Trail.]

In the current diminished relationship of literature and journalism, where the line between fact and fiction grows more incestuous with each tabloid headline and insta-book, it's a good thing we have the writings of Michael Dorris to show us the difference. No doubt exists as to which genre Dorris is writing for, whether he is reporting about world politics and hunger in Rooms in the House of Stone (1994), or tracing a life caught in the whirl of search in the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987).

But it was Dorris' true story of his son's Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, The Broken Cord (1989), that most captured the nation's attention. The book was the National...