Waiting for the World to End

Raised in upper-class Boston as the only child of two economists, Thomas Olsen grows up feeling like a perpetual outsider. Athletic and poetic, he eventually settles with more kindred spirits in suburban Indiana. But no one realizes Olsen is hiding a devastating secret.

As English department chairman and basketball coach at an Indiana high school, Olsen endears himself to the locals—yet despite his popularity, he can’t shake the loneliness that dogs him. After years of keeping a guilty silence around part of his past, his body and soul have learned to lead separate lives.

Then Olsen develops a father-son bond with Ben Wendling, his student and player, and falls in love with Ben’s enigmatic married mother. With Mary and Ben, the missing pieces of Olsen’s life somehow feel restored—until a surreal accident changes the course of all their futures.