'American literature's philosopher king - and its sharpest satirist' - The New Yorker Craig Suder, third baseman for the Seattle Mariners, is in a slump. His batting average is shocking, his marriage somehow worse, and he secretly fears he's inherited his mother's insanity. Ordered to take a midseason rest, Suder instead takes his LP of Charlie Parker's "Ornithology" and flees. A dazzling tale of madness, confinement and the need for escape, Suder introduced Percival Everett to the world as a writer already fully capable of conjuring whole lives and worlds on the page. Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature. Read Percival's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel James in paperback now.