Underground Christmas

the long version

"Underground Christmas" is the story of a man named Jay who has come rather late to his midlife crisis. Nearing fifty, Jay finds himself dislocated by a divorce (from a lesbian wife) and by his only child's attempted suicide. Seeking stability, he has taken a temporary teaching position at his alma mater, St. Andrew's College (which sounds suspiciously like Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where Jon taught creative writing for seventeen years). The book opens in the school's potting shed, which in earlier days had been a root cellar, where Jay and his close friend Charlie, who is on the brink of ordination to the priesthood, are part of a small Christmas Eve gathering.