Michael Storrs, the hero of Irwin Shaw's … novel, "The Top of the Hill," can't seem to adapt himself…. Despite the glib self-knowledge that permits him to best his wife in the game of psychoanalysis, he goes right on "jumping out of airplanes etcetera"—which to him means taking risks that make him feel more alive, and to [his wife] means that one day soon she may be married to a corpse. So what with his failing marriage and job as a management consultant growing steadily more oppressive, Michael decides to run away…. (p. 535)

Now, Michael's "textbook case" is so familiar that it's almost a cliché of an American type. So you might expect that Mr. Shaw dreamed it up to make some observation about the American culture—to probe, for example, what it is about our heritage that produces Michael Storrses in such abundance. But you would be...