The Doorman: A Novel

Once you’ve compromised yourself the first time, it’s not that hard to justify doing it a second time, a third. Once you’re guilty, you can never again be innocent. You never know when the guilt is going to catch up to you.

People tossed around anti-racism like a grenade, which they then counterattacked with machine-gun-fire accusations of Critical Race Theory.

For years Chicky had felt his life narrowing. At first little by little and then massively, removing this, removing that. People leaving. People dying.

Sometimes the whole setup didn’t look like financial aid so much as financial entrapment.

Only one percent of the NFL was Hispanic in a country that’s nineteen percent Hispanic. One percent. How was that possible?

one hundred percent of the starting cornerbacks in the NFL were Black while eighty percent of starting centers were white.

many people started referring to themselves as independents, which Emily believed usually meant Republicans who didn’t want to be aligned with the increasingly berserk national party.

wielded the frenetic activity of her political activism as a cudgel, an excuse to be not only sanctimonious but also rude, substituting the performance of being good for actually being good.

Hudson referred to diarrhea—a word he did not know—as poop juice, which was that special combination of disgusting with brilliant that Emily thought was the superpower of six-year-olds.