In Search of the 25th Parallel

In this sequel to Nobody Knows Where Frank Hutchison Is Buried, forty years have passed and Frank Hutchison, newly retired from his job as a library custodian, has discovered on the internet that his old friend, Dick Babcock, a successful Florida restauranteur, has died. At once, his dormant guilt for causing The Experiment, their attempt at communal living, to fail resurfaces. He decides that the only way to expiate it is to visit Babcock's grave. On the way he begins to recall the events of his own life since the breakup, and slowly his idealistic dreams and hopes are rekindled, including his youthful love for Cindy, who has always represented meaning, success, creativity, and truth to him.

In Florida Frank is reunited with Babcock's widow, Laurie, the fourth member of The Experiment, and the reclusive janitor suddenly finds himself entangled in a web of emotion and indecision with Laurie, his rekindled desire to locate Cindy, and a strange woman whom he meets at the beach and who also seems to represent the possibility of resurrecting his lost idealism.