John Fist is a talented overachiever who has become restless and bored in his second year at Sheldon, an elite New England college. He is losing motivation, increasingly finding it &;too far to walk&; to his philosophy class across campus. So when the devil in sophomore&;s clothing (a fellow student named Chum Breed) offers him all the most intense experiences of the modern world in exchange for a twenty-six-week lease on his soul, Fist eagerly signs up. The anticipated adventures, however, turn out not to be quite what he had bargained for. Pulitzer Prize&;winner John Hersey&;s Too Far to Walk is a bracing updating of the classic Faust legend, a compelling coming-of-age novel, and a masterful work of mid-century fiction.