Real Americans: A novel

Nick was aware it wasn’t a real solution. The future was bigger than he was—bigger than the Maiers, even. Science would always move forward and not back—and that was good, of course. It meant less needless suffering. He couldn’t personally allow some progress and not others. If it wasn’t their company, it would be another. People would seek to cont

You might not believe that—that being your mother was my other great work. But it was always both, I swear to you: the work and the love hand in hand.

I wanted to tell Betty’s granddaughter that it wasn’t too late. That I had been like her, once, resentful of any interruptions. Later, I learned that life lay in the interruptions—that I had been wrong about life, entirely.

My mother never described herself as an outsider, she just was one—that was obvious to me. From the perimeter, she could see what was invisible to everyone in the middle.

Time passes, indifferent to me. So much of my life I have let slip by, because I have not attended to it. All this while, instead of seeking more time, I could have been paying attention. I notice it now, my present: my grandson’s kind face, his warm hand in mine, and the smell and sensation—here the words, in any language, fail—of being alive.

All this while, instead of seeking more time, I could have been paying attention. I notice it now, my present: my grandson’s kind face, his warm hand in mine, and the smell and sensation—here the words, in any language, fail—of being alive. Chinese is a language that exists in the present tense. In this way, it is unlike English, a language in whic

Outside, I regarded my surroundings with suspicion, as though they were a dream I might wake up from. Like everyone, I had recently watched The Matrix. Would it be so bad to discover that life until now, or some portion of it, had been illusory—an advanced society’s highly realistic simulation? It might actually be a relief.

Was it inherited, their compulsion? This shared need to be productive, to do good, to right some wrong? He wanted his life to mean something; he had yet to prove it.

“You know, you don’t have to work so hard.” “You can say that, Mom,” Nick says with a sigh, “but I still will.” How can he explain to his mother that he does, in fact, have to work so hard? He can’t exactly see another way to be. Besides, what’s so bad about not having a social life, or being consumed by work that aims to make the world a fairer pl