Excerpt
To what degree had his secret determined his daily
life and permeated his everyday thinking? Did it alter
over the years from being a hot secret to being a cool
secret to being a forgotten secret of no importance .
. .a wager he'd made himself way, way back when he
began? Did he get, from his decision, the adventure he
was after or was that in itself the adventure? Was it
the misleading that provided his pleasure, the
carrying off of the stunt that he liked best, the
traveling ghrough life incognito, or had he simply
been closing the door to a past . . that he wanted
nothing intimate or official to do with?
--from THE HUMAN STAIN