Most of the characters in The Universal Baseball Association are extensions of Henry's "protean" imagination. As indicated in the previous section, Damon is the ideal and Jock is a sacrificial victim. Only Hettie the prostitute, Zifferblatt the boss, and Lou Engle the friend, exist independent of Henry's imagination. Lou, a gourmet, is an interesting variation on Henry's quest for beauty and radiance. His zest for fine food is similar to Henry's need for his game to bring excitement into a dull life. After Damon's death, Henry invites Lou to join him in playing the game, but this last effort to share his experience with another person is a disaster because Lou cannot invest in the game the kind of seriousness Henry does. Instead of attending to the dice, Lou, like characters in The Public Burning (1977), talks about the plot of a film he has seen, again indicating Coover's...