In this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable. From his good-as-gold, gentle girlfriend to the macho subcontractor guy his ex-wife left him for, not to mention his well-raised teenage kids, now exploring sex and sexuality, the secondary characters in Brock's life all contribute meaningfully to the drama, as increasing challenges to his sense of self and purpose crash over him. The final battle --- no spoilers, but there is one --- couldn't be more delightful, as this quick and bracing novel reminds us to choose the best people to love, accept the ones we love even if we didn’t choose them, and love them all well.

Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. And though she knows he left on purpose, his mother has been searching for him all over their home city of Minneapolis. She checks the usual places --- churches, storefronts, benches --- and stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who’s convinced he may start a revolution.

THERE’S SOMETHING I WANT YOU TO DO is a collection of 10 interrelated stories, the first five named after virtues, the second after vices. Charles Baxter’s point is that all of us cover the spectrum of moral qualities, as do his characters --- from the pediatrician conflicted about his work to the altruistic missionary who contracts a disease in Ethiopia and, upon returning stateside, commits robbery to pay for medicine. In Baxter’s world, as in life, decisions are rarely easy.