Wonder Boys(1995)

Michael Chabon

Grady Tripp is a pot-bellied, pot-smoking, over-sexed, aging novelist, struggling to finish the long-awaited follow-up to his award-winning novel. He teaches creative writing at a Pittsburgh college while battling with his 2000-page masterpiece, Wonder Boys.

But a visit from his rumbustious, bizarre editor, Terry Crabtree, initiates a chaotic weekend, an odyssey, on which they are joined by Grady's brilliant student, his pregnant mistress and a beautiful student lodger, and which involves a tuba, a dead dog, Marilyn Monroe's jacket and a squashed boa constrictor.

The result is a hilarious, poignant search for past promise, future fame and a purpose to Grady's life.