[Now and at the Hour] has the ring of personal experience, which the setting, a New England factory town, and the social level, that of skilled labor just below the promotable-to-management level, unobtrusively reinforce. It is not likely that a writer who did not know this particular kind of world at first hand could present it so casually or with such conviction. Mr. Cormier does not give much attention to his background, for his interest runs in another direction, but every detail that he provides is right….

It is quite a task to make an interesting hero of a man who has done no great deeds, committed no crimes, suffered no psychological upheavals, never been painfully poor or even mildly rich, and who has in the course of the book nothing to do but think, an activity which he carries on at a quite uncomplicated level and without...