検索キーワード： ナレーター "John Skelley" 文学・フィクション

Leo Runcible—of Runcible Realty—is too excitable and too pushy. His wife drinks too much. He may be a man of principle, but Liberal Jewish Leo is an outsider in the lilywhite Carquinez, Marin County. When he gets into a pointless argument with a customer over his neighbour Walt Dombrosio's house guests, the resulting ramifications follow a bizarre logic of cause and effect to lead in entirely unexpected directions ...

Stuart Hadley is a young radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life. He has a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement—but he still feels unfulfilled. Something is missing from his life. Hadley is also an angry young man—an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He tries to fill his void first with drinking, then sex, and then with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working and it is driving him crazy. He reacts to the love of his wife and the kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear.