SOURCE: "Semi-Samizdat and Other Matters," in The Yale Review, Vol. 77, No. 2, Winter, 1988, pp. 243-58.

In the following excerpt, Howard favorably assesses Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance.

[It] is not curious that a first novel that I consider the most alive and original in years, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers, had to win a Rosenthal Award (for work that's been overlooked) as a corrective. Published by Beech Tree Press, a fine imprint of a very commercial house (Morrow), this intricate work was never touted like the Yuppie novels that will pass as surely as the kiwi slice that adorned nouvelle cuisine. (Rich, disaffected kids seem to amuse and never disturb, like mall music.) We can only imagine that Powers, who is not yet thirty—he must have two heads or not wear Giorgio Armani suits to good effect—is condemned...