Baumgartner: A tender masterpiece of love, memory and loss from one of the world’s great writers.

Because the girl is alone in the house, and because she has been locked in a state of pure, petrified panic ever since her mother left for the hospital, Baumgartner goes on talking to her for another ten minutes. At one point toward the end of the conversation, he manages to coax something that resembles a laugh from her, and when they finally hang up, that tiny excuse of a laugh is what stays with him, for he is almost certain it will stand as the single most important thing he has accomplished all day.

Baumgartner still feels, still loves, still lusts, still wants to live, but the innermost part of him is dead. He has known that for the past ten years, and for the past ten years he has done everything in his power not to know it.

To live is to feel pain, he told himself, and to live in fear of pain is to refuse to live.