What a strange book. When I heard its premise I had to read it. A middle-aged man becomes obsessed with a game he invents that is a secret world in which he is the commissioner of a make-believe baseball league. By the time we find him he has gone deep into his rabbit hole and starts to neglect his day job, his acquaintances, and society in general. It's so vividly rendered you find yourself burrowing down with him deep into this alternative fantasy world of fictional people he has drawn so vividly, you, along with him, start to forget what's real and what's inside his head. But of course all writing is inside the author's head so in a way it's a metaphor for books themselves and stories and the inner lives we live as an escape from the so-called real one. It also gets at a particular phenomenon of middle-aged men and their yearning for the boyish dreams they hold onto so tightly. Mired in the grayness of practical compromise there is a little Walter Mitty in us all. But what happens if we decide not to row that boat back to shore and instead let it drift and drift...This is also a really funny book but the tragic moments are a gut punch... It's so effective because it feels as if it's been written on the walls of someone's subconscious and at one point the main character asks a question I haven't been able to forget...(to be continued)