Except that he, too, would resist the term. He is simply curious. What they . . . To get some answers, Rollins takes to the road to tail people, tape recorder in hand to keep a record of what he sees. Because he was a version of me, I suppose.
All journalists are stalkers of a sort, pursuing their quarry.
And I'd done my share of watching and waiting. As Rollins peers out through his windshield, he is simply dramatizing the strange new detached engagement, for lack of a better term, that is now nearly universal. But I regarded his detached engagement only as a place to start, and I'd like to think that Rollins is gradually humanized as the tale proceeds. He comes to understand why he is the way he is, and he struggles to do something about it. Curiously enough, I'd never actually tailed anyone in my car myself, and I didn't feel the need to do it for the book.