In this extraordinary novel of mischief and menace, we see a young man's very self vanishing before his eyes—from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” ( Chicago Tribune ) "Entirely original.... So craftily construcyed that to appreciate how liberally Baxter plants creepy hints of what's to come a reader should really savor this book twice." — The Washington Post As a graduate student in upstate New York, Nathaniel Mason is drawn into a tangle of relationships with people who seem to hover just beyond his grasp. There's Theresa, alluring but elusive, and Jamie, who is fickle if not wholly unavailable. But Jerome Coolberg is the most mysterious and compelling. Not only cryptic about himself, he seems also to have appropriated parts of Nathaniel's past that Nathaniel cannot remember having told him about.