SOURCE: A review of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, in The New York Times Book Review, September 1, 1985, p. 14.

In the following review, Portales offers a mixed assessment of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance.

[Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, Powers's first novel,] is an extended meditation provoked by a May 1914 picture taken by the photographer August Sander of three young German men on their way to a dance. Mr. Powers's nameless narrator becomes fascinated by the photograph and creates the World War I experiences of the young men. The novel chronicles five lives—those of the three farmers in the photograph, the narrator (an "amateur historian" trained in physics), and a character named Peter Mays, a copy editor for a computer design magazine. Mr. Powers allows the narrator and Mays to make their separate ways toward the significance the photograph...