When I close my eyes at night, I review their lives before falling asleep. After a certain interval, rereading something of mine can bring tears to my eyes. Though I haven't reread the manuscript of Shipwreck in some years, all three were immediately at hand, ready to perform their bit parts in Hope . Characters originally imbued with a sufficient life are timeless in memory, springing up complete like friends of childhood. By contrast, I never wrote personal nonfiction until The Ethical Spectacle came along.
Fiction is for oneself, but essays are for an audience.
In the absence of any prospect for getting them read by anyone, essays on race and other topics fell lifeless, abandoned after a few paragraphs. All the ideas I have ever had since childhood, most never written down, I am mining today for the Spectacle . I first pursued the opportunity to write a book for publication in 1983. I had left that first awful job and was trying to create a clientele for myself as a solo practitioner, hoping to specialize in computer law. I spent a few hours of every quiet week in the Brooklyn Public Library, where I found a series of little computer books, the Handy Guides from Alfred Publishing.