Michael Chabon's Grady Tripp is one messed up college writing professor - his marriage is breaking up, his girlfriend (wife of the dean) is pregnant, his marijuana habit is taking over and his editor is just about out of a job. Tripp has published a few moderately successful novels but is strangling his creativity with introspection and marijuana - never finishing a 2,000-plus-page novel called Wonder Boys.

When his editor and best friend, Terry Crabtree, comes to town and spreads chaos, Tripp goes along for the ride. Farcical misadventures dominate, from a picked-up transvestite to a wild ride in a stolen car that contains a tuba and the corpses of a dog and a boa constrictor. Chabon writes with a wry, vulnerable wit that cleaves open the minds of his wonderful characters while his clean prose keeps the madcap story going so well that you'll want it to never end.