Horrible as his view of the world was, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for a man who had descended into such pessimism, who so willfully shunned the possibility of finding any compassion, grace, or beauty in his fellow human beings. Born was just thirty-six, but already he was a burnt-out soul, a shattered wreck of a person, and at his core I

That was the end of it. Several swings of the bat, failure to make contact on any pitch, and the game was over. The world fell apart, the world put itself together again, and I muddled on. To my great good fortune, I have been with the same woman for close to thirty years now. I can’t imagine my life without her, and yet every time Gwyn enters my

I found the whole business ugly, off-kilter, sick. Perhaps I should have spoken up and told him what I thought, but I was afraid—not of Born exactly, but of causing a rift that might lead him to change his mind about our project. I desperately wanted the magazine to work, and as long as he was willing to back it, I was prepared to put up with any

I found it revolting and brilliant. My faux ancestor was a true samurai madman, wasn’t he? But at least he had the courage of his convictions. At least he knew what he stood for. How little the world has changed since eleven eighty-six, no matter how much we prefer to think otherwise. If the magazine gets off the ground, I think we should publish

I spent the next nine hours in a torment of anticipation, daydreaming through my afternoon classes, pondering the mysteries of carnal attraction, and trying to understand what it was about Margot that had worked me up to such a pitch of excitement. My first impression of her had not been particularly favorable. She had struck me as an odd and vapid

She wasn’t curious about my past, she didn’t care about my opinions on literature or politics, and she had no interest in what I was studying. She simply took me for what I represented in her own mind—her choice of the moment, the physical being she desired—and every time I looked at her, I sensed that she was drinking me in, as if just having me

In the meantime, maybe you can tell us something about Westfield, New Jersey. Westfield? I said, surprised to discover that Born knew where I had grown up. How did you find out about Westfield?

He talked about the Nazis and the war, and then he advanced the startling theory that Hitler’s admiration of the United States had inspired him to use American history as a model for his conquest of Europe. Look at the parallels, Born said, and it’s not as far-fetched as you’d think: extermination of the Indians is turned into the extermination of

When I thought back to our conversation at the West End on Monday, I realized that I had probably given him the idea in the first place. I had mentioned that I might look for work with a publisher or a magazine after I graduated from college, and a minute later he was telling me about his inheritance and how he was considering starting up a