Leonard Schiller is a novelist in his seventies, a second-string but respectable talent who produced only a small handful of books. Heather Wolfe is an attractive graduate student in her twenties. She read Schiller s novels when she was growing up and they changed her life. When the ambitious Heather decides to write her master s thesis about Schiller s work and sets out to meet him convinced she can bring Schiller back into the literary world s spotlight the unexpected consequences of their meeting alter everything in Schiller s ordered life. What follows is a quasi-romantic friendship and intellectual engagement that investigates the meaning of art, fame, and personal connection. "Nothing less than a triumph" ("The New York Times Book Review"), "Starting Out in the Evening" is Brian Morton s most widely acclaimed novel to date.