BLOOD TEST

A novel in which a middle-aged man takes a blood test and discovers that he has a genetic predisposition crime & violence.

A middle-aged divorced dad, insurance salesman, and Sunday school teacher in the heartland of Ohio goes for an ordinary checkup and takes an experimental blood test whose results reveal crime and violence flowing through his veins. Funny, given he's just discovered an enemy in the midst: his ex-wife's new lover.

What follows is a story as emotionally packed as it is fast-paced and thrilling, our hero subtly and then more globally changed by what the algorithm has predicted. The voice is impertinent, searching, and comic, exploring how those we love are people both uniquely chosen and utterly random, and how to love them all well.

Charles Baxter is at his sly best in this novel that manages to be both a sendup of the American family and a heartfelt endorsement of its potential in difficult times.

CHARLES BAXTER is the author of the novels The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), First Light, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, The Soul Thief, and The Sun Collective, and the story collections Believers, Gryphon, Harmony of the World, A Relative Stranger, There's Something I Want You to Do, and Through the Safety Net. His stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories. He has won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Baxter lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.