Eddie Hobson is quickly succumbing to a mysterious illness, and his children draw on the World War II veteran's dictaphone-recorded construction of an imaginary utopia for clues to their father's illness.
The magnificent second novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory and the forthcoming Bewilderment.“Accomplished . . . mature and assured. . . . A major American novelist.”— New RepublicSomething is wrong with Eddie Hobson, Sr., father of four, sometime history teacher, quiz master, black humorist, and virtuoso invalid. His recurring fainting spells have worsened, and given his ingrained aversion to doctors, his worried family tries to discover the nature of his sickness. Meanwhile, in private, Eddie puts the finishing touches on a secret project he calls Hobbstown, a place that he promises will save him, the world, and everything that’s in it. A dazzling novel of compassion and imagination, Prisoner’s Dilemma is a story of the power of individual experience.