Testing the Current (New York Review Books Classics)
"The dawning of the world's hard truths upon this boy's consciousness is depicted with a subtlety that...is something close to breathtaking...We have here a book that looks for all the world like a piece of art." —Jonathan Yardley,The Washington Post “I can’t remember another novel which captures a Midwestern childhood—that mysterious unwritten-about world. . . . It could have been my town and my life.”  —Diane Johnson“William McPherson’s first novel is an extraordinary, intelligent, powerful and, I believe, permanent contribution to the literature of family, childhood and memory….From the first sentence ofTesting the Currentto the last, there is not one false note, one forced image. It is a novel written with great skill, and with love. It’s what most good first novels aspire to be.” —Russell Banks,The New York Times