The Sportswriter

Frank Bascombe, a failed writer and divorced father, lives in the suburban New Jersey town of Haddam, a place as unremarkable and routine as Frank's own daily life. Solitary and melancholic, Frank goes through the motions of work and social life until he meets and begins an affair with Vicki Arcenault, a nurse at the local hospital who treats his cut hand. Although he wants to marry Vicki, she balks at attaching herself to someone who has so thoroughly anesthetized himself. As the story progresses, the real source of Frank anomie--as well as of his marriage's collapse--becomes clear.