The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.
Walter KirnHe knows, as all the cleverest ones do, that no human being is so interesting that he can't make himself more interesting still by acting retarded at random intervals.
Walter KirnIt's no accident that most self-help groups use 'anonymous' in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out of the self, followed by the construction of a new one.
Walter KirnI disagree that Blood Will Out is a memoir in the conventional sense. It's the story of a relationship, primarily, not an individual. The "me" in the book is a specialized version of me, the person who Clark manipulated and fooled. I could cover the same years of my life from an entirely different perspective in another book, by concentrating on my experience as a husband, say. But I was selective. I focused on my duping.
Walter Kirn've always defined a truly alluring story as a journey we're not equipped to take ourselves with a person we're tempted but afraid to emulate. Impostor narratives are exactly that. When they end in disaster, as Clark's did, or as Gatsby's did, we can congratulate ourselves for our own wisdom. We can also experience, safely, at no cost, the terrible thrill of radical self-invention, of trading who we are for who we might be.
Walter Kirn