Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's second novel, winner of a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, the story of Irving Bender's life - the "uncle" of the title - over the years beginning with his decision to drop out of school at 16 during the Depression, so his younger brother would be able to attend college and through his final days in a Miami condo. A brief novel, but on which illuminates many lives - John Casey called it "wonderfully cystallized." 178 pp. ISBN: 0-395270987.