The final novel by John Gardner, originally published in 1982 just months before his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, is a tour de force. The protagonist peter mickelsson, a former star philosophy professor at br...The final novel by John Gardner, originally published in 1982 just months before his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, is a tour de force. The protagonist peter mickelsson, a former star philosophy professor at brown, relocates to binghamton university.