Summary

Drew Larson was a college professor who occasionally wrote short stories that were torturous for him to get through. One, which he had written in grad school, had gotten into The New Yorker. In the twenty years since then, he had only written four other stories. He had tried to write three novels, but had failed at each one, and the last one he had tried to write had given him a nervous breakdown and nearly resulted in him burning down the house when he tried to burn the manuscript.

One day, his wife Lucy asked him to go pick up sandwiches for lunch. He decided to walk, and on his walk he got a brilliant idea for a novel all at once, one image after the other, just like a train engine. He went home and told Lucy that he had an...