by Jordan Ellenberg

Set on the campus of a college in Nowheresville, U.S.A., this satirical novel features as a main character Stanley Higgs, who becomes unexpectedly famous while working on the long-lost manuscripts of an obscure English expatriate poet named Henderson, who is presumed dead, but may, after all, be still alive. In addition to his academic researches, Higgs is a fanatical checkers player; he also develops an increasing reluctance to speak. Meanwhile, Sam Grapearbor is dispatched to help Higgs begin to talk again, bringing with him his girlfriend Julia and his ambivalent attitudes toward marriage and commitment.