Book summary

Baker writes amusingly and insightfully about his obsession with John Updike, telling us in the process a great deal about himself. Updike himself, in a review, calls Baker's book "a close and self-pitiless examination of his relationship with a mental figment derived from a fractional perusal and a few personal glimpses of the author John Updike," and comments, "[O]ut of the books of others we sift a book of our own, wherein we read the lessons we want to hear."

Media reviews

"Nicholson Baker is one of the most remarkable and one of the oddest talents to have appeared in the past decade."