"When I was a child. When I was unborn. I felt destined for solitude, very certain that one day it would find me, so when it did I was not surprised & even welcomed it."

Told in alternating narratives, Heft is about Arthur, an agoraphobic ex-professor who weighs 500-600 pounds and has not left his Brooklyn home in 10 years and Kel, an 18 going on 40 year old kid who is struggling to take care of his sick and alcoholic mother and make it to the major leagues.

They don't know it but Arthur and Kel are connected by Kel's mother, Charlene, who was once Arthur's student and long time friend through letters and phone calls. When Charlene proposes a visit with her son no one will be the same again.

I...This is one of those books that grows and builds in your mind as you read it and when you are finished it lingers. The themes are universal-loneliness, misfits, making your own family and path in a most unforgiving world but the way they are expressed is simply beautiful. Moderate pace; character driven.