Louis Lynch and his wife Sarah are preparing for the trip of a lifetime in Italy, where they hope to reconnect with one another and their oldest friend, a reclusive artist whose long-standing love for Sarah may threaten their vacation and their future together.

"William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a goose, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and...