I have no doubt that Charles Baxter will be noted as one of our most thoughtful and philosophic American writers of this time period.  He has moved impressively from short story collections (my experience with his work started with _A Relative Stranger_) to a full-blown novelist.  Even from his first novel, _First Light_, Baxter has shown a great mixture of a kind of old-school character depth, with high school teachers able to discuss railroad companies and quote classics in normal conversation, mixed in with a clearly modern sense of the world.  His characters remind me somewhat of people who occupy Tony Hoagland poems--people who seem to be stuck in a netherworld of intelligentsia and down-home simplicity.  _The Feast of Love_ was a good choice as a finalist for an NBA--perhaps it should have won, but I haven't yet read the competition and winner.