Books: Latter-Day Babbitt

JEFFERSON SELLECK (303 pp.) — Carl Jonas—Little, Brown ($3).

With his daughter's wedding reception going full tilt, and the expensive pop of champagne corks in his ears, Jefferson Selleck slinks off behind the potted palms to a corner sofa and collapses. Later that day, the family doctor gives his illness a medical name—"coronary occlusion." But Jeff Selleck, a successful Midwestern businessman, has more than heart trouble, he has a troubled heart. Slowed to an invalid's pace, Jeff begins to ask himself some embarrassing questions: "What does it all mean? Who am I? ... Why am I here, and where am I going?"

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