A mind like a CT scan, that could clinically and comprehensively render a complete psychological cavity search, but that still, in the end, functioned like a machine.

He whose status as a chronically underrated author (if largely in his own mind) was almost mythic, who in private tended to wear his natural feelings of competitive envy toward his famous old friends on his sleeve in a way that was likably, neurotically funny but painful too, because it wasn’t delusional: He was less well known, his books were weird, he didn’t write blockbuster suburban-sexual family dramas, he didn’t write massive postmodern game-changers — and though he wrote funny, his funny was dark. He ought to feel lucky to have a readership! (And he did feel so, in his strongest moments.) Now, “the culture” had turned its gigantic mechanical eye toward him and blinked and said: You, you are real. You must keep writing. Here is $625,000.

JJS ON DT