Good Evening Friends,

Another quick note before we get back into the groove. You know, at some point in these speculations we must also find the space to discuss another masterful novel, Richard Wright's The Outsider. This is my favorite book by Mr. Wright, and though I am clearly biased, I think it is his best.

The Outsider is a dramatic, almost clinical study of the nature of identity and the ways we may try to manipulate it, and like Arthur Phillips's The Egyptologist, crafted in the form of a highly entertaining, literary crime novel.

The Outsider is about a Chicago postal worker called Cross Damon. Damon is married with children. The "love is gone" from his marriage (cue violins here) and he is emotionally removed from his children. He has a mistress, a young woman twenty years his junior, who is pregnant with Damon's baby.

His wife has found out about the affair and is preparing to divorce him, vindictively (but her vindictiveness is understandable) promising to squeeze Damon, but good, for all she can get from him for alimony and child support. The young mistress, on the advice of a friend, is also preparing to squeeze Damon [I use the word 'squeeze' only to describe Damon's perspective] for child support for their joint creation.

Cross Damon goes on to fake his own death, opportunistically taking advantage of a bad train accident. He changes his name and gets fraudulent papers and so forth, has various adventures. Damon's end, like Ralph Trilipush's end came the way it had to come and the story ended the way it had to end.

If you get the chance, friends, you should read both novels, The Egyptologist and The Outsider. They're both thrilling reads as well as virtual case studies of the complexities of identity.

Until next time,

wingedcentaur