Fool (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscovery)

“For Christ sake don’t become a fluffmeister,” are the last words Barnaby Griswold gets from his father. But despite trying to turn out otherwise, Barnaby knows himself a fool and already makes his living as a fluffmeister, as a puffer-up of investments. Well-bred, more or less educated, friendly to everyone, Barnaby is in fact foolishly successful. Until he blows it all.At forty-six, disgraced and broke and lonely, Barnaby must repair his life. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll find out that doing the foolish thing can lead to redemption.Book Lust Rediscoveries is a series devoted to reprinting some of the best (and now out of print) novels originally published from 1960 to 2000. Each book is personally selected by NPR commentator and Book Lust author Nancy Pearl and includes an introduction by her, as well as discussion questions for book groups and a list of recommended further reading.

Frederick G. Dillen was born in Greenwich Village to a family on fire, raised in a New Hampshire boarding school, and graduated from Stanford. To pay for his writing, he worked odd jobs from Lahaina to Taos and New York to L.A., managing a hotel and running a fake ranch, carrying plates and shilling for business. His short fiction has appeared in literary quarterlies and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. His Hero was named Best First Novel of 1994 by the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Dillen and his wife Leslie are parents of two grown daughters and three dogs and have settled, for good they hope, in New Mexico.