A graduate student in upstate New York is drawn into a tangle of relationships with the people around him--an alluring but elusive woman, a fickle bisexual sculptor, and an enigmatic and compelling man who seems to have appropriated parts of the student's past--until a total breakdown forces him to reconstruct his life. A national Book Award finalist and recipient of the Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Charles Baxter has earned sweeping critical acclaim and comparisons to Anton Chekhov and William Trevor with his fiction. This imaginative, sinister novel is Baxter at his most gripping. Graduate student Nathaniel Mason's life is populated by people just out of reach. There are the two women - the captivating Theresa and the fickle Jamie. And then there's the unusual yet compelling Jerome Coolberg, who appropriates bits of Nathaniel's identity, telling personal stories as though they are his own experiences. After Nathaniel experiences a breakdown and three decades slide by, it is Jerome who resurfaces with a startling revelation. Baster notches a stunning success with THE SOUL THIEF, a visionary masterwork from a writer of unparalleled skill
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