What happens when your idealism crashes into the harsh reality of life under capitalism? When your commitment to make the world a better place begins to directly conflict with your need for a stable income, health care, a home, and a family? This is a question that most radicals inevitably confront at some point. It’s also central to the new novel Testimony by Peter and Sarah Lazare.

Burned-out and broke, Sam Golden, Testimony’s central character, leaves the anti-globalization movement in the wake of 9/11 desperately in need of a decent job. By luck, he manages to land one at the Illinois Commerce Commission in Springfield, the state capital, where he is tasked with helping regulate privately owned utilities in the state.

The internal conflicts and rationalizations Sam experiences during his early days on the job are familiar to anyone who has ever wrestled with the thought of compromising their values and ideals for material improvement. In Testimony, these conflicts, along with the idiosyncrasies of working at a state regulatory agency, are presented with the detail and nuance that can only come from deep personal experience. In this case, that experience is the late Peter Lazare’s personal background of transitioning from a union organizer with the Socialist Workers Party to a twenty-year career at the Illinois Commerce Commission.