Meet Jay.

Meet Ben.

Jay has summoned his old friend Ben to a hotel room not far from the nation's capitol. During the course of an afternoon, they will share a delicious lunch and will crack open a bottle of wine from the hotel minibar. They will chat about everything from Ben's new camera to Iraq to the unfortunate fate of a particular free-range chicken.

And Jay will explain to Ben exactly why and how he is planning to commit a murder that will change the course of history.



Checkpoint is a work of fiction by acclaimed author Nicholson Baker, a novella that explores the peculiar angst many Americans are feeling right now about their country and their president. The book is set up as a conversation between two old high school buddies. One of them, in despair about the direction the country is going, is convinced he must kill the president; the other tries to talk him out of it.

Baker wrote Checkpoint in response to the powerless, seething fury many Americans felt when President Bush decided to take the nation to war. "How do you react to something that you think is so hideously wrong?" asks Baker. "How do you keep it from driving you nuts? What do you do with your life while this wrong is being carried out? What are the thoughts -- the secret thoughts, the unpublishable thoughts, so to speak -- that go through your head?"

Some people have rational responses. Others do not. Baker's book does not suggest violence is ever an appropriate response. But in order to understand the reasons why a violent act is always a mistake, one must first look at the contemplation of such an act.

The dialogue in Checkpoint is angry, funny, pointed and absurd. All of it has relevance to our world. And it is through the conversation in this novel that Baker hopes to raise important questions about how we react to violence -- both individually and as a nation.