Excerpt from Blood Test by Charles Baxter, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Anyway, you want this test, totally your decision by the way, we can order it up for you. Results take two or three weeks to come back. Did I say that already? But I should warn you: it's expensive — couple of thousand dollars." She turned away from me and fastened her gaze on the computer screen on her desk. I noticed that she repeated herself, pure absentmindedness on her part, an inability to live in the moment thanks to routine boredom.

"I'll do it," I told her decisively, and she signed the test order sheet before handing it to me. Maybe I should have been more careful, done a bit of research first, but I've always been curious about what I was about to do. Everybody including me says I'm as predictable as a clock. I have had very few problems with impulsive behavior. And addictions? They never had a grip on me. But what the hell. For the two thousand dollars, I could buy this fortune cookie and find out my future and then eat the cookie. What was I going to do with what remains of my life? I would have liked to know myself. Know thyself! A directive from ancient times. Besides, who doesn't want to know the future?

Call it an impulse purchase.

Someone came in and took a vial of my blood. That was it. That simple. They gave me the questionnaires, etc. Something about all this was fishy, but I was in. I had signed up. There was a dotted line and my name was on it.

Excerpted from Blood Test by Charles Baxter. Copyright © 2024 by Charles Baxter. Excerpted by permission of Pantheon Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.