In the following excerpt, Bawer explains why he finds Seize the Day superior to other Bellow novels.

Bellow followed his longest novel with his shortest. Seize the Day (1956) is Bellow's most admirable work of fiction-concise, cogent, and finely controlled. Tommy Wilhelm is in his middle forties and is residing at the Hotel Gloriana on New York's Upper West Side, which is mostly occupied by elderly people, his physician father among them. Like Augie March, Tommy Wilhelm has energy-and it's done him nothing but harm. For years he tried to be a movie actor in Hollywood, but then "his ambition or delusion had ended," and he became a salesman, and now-that pursuit having failed as well, along with his marriage-another resident of the hotel, a shady character named Dr. Tamkin, has talked him into speculating in the commodities market. "Seize the Day," Tamkin advises.

The books is unique...