In this charming, clever, and darkly satiric novel set at a writers' conference, one man finds himself caught in a whirlwind of literary pretention, a suspect in a criminal investigation, and hopelessly in love with a woman who thinks he's someone else.

Mistaken for a famous but reclusive author of the same name, lonely Shriver attends a writers' conference at a small Midwestern liberal arts college. Completely unfamiliar with the novel he supposedly wrote and utterly unprepared for the magnitude of the reputation that precedes him, Shriver is feted, fawned over, featured at stuffy...