SEIZE THE DAY - Penguin Modern Classics

In his mid-forties, Tommy Wilhelms retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from his wife and children, at odds with his successful father, without gainful employment, and at the end of his rope both financually and emotionally. During the course of a day, Wilhelm reviews his past mistakens and his present confusions, sinking more deeply into despair - until a chance encounter grants him one glorious, illuminating moment of truth and understanding. Deftly interweaving humor and pathos, Saul Bellow evokes in the climatic events of one day to full drama of one man's seach to affirm his own worth and humanity.