Richard Powers's novels are fundamentally novels of ideas rather than novels that depend heavily upon characterization. In this novel, readers learn the history of the three young men in the Sander photograph "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, 1914" — Hubert, Adolphe, and Peter — but this information is incidental to the author's concern with the social and political crosscurrents that determine their lives and shape their societies.

The narration is autobiographical but only in the broadest terms. One will not learn dependably about Powers's personal life through analyzing the narrator, although the actual incident that generated this novel occurred at a crossroads in his life when, after completing the master of arts degree, he set out, jobless, for Boston. His search for information about August Sander actually did extend over his early months in Boston. The photograph and the implications of its title continued to haunt...