Stay True: A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

we would come to recognize that concepts that seem natural to us are full of contradictions. Perhaps accepting this messiness would lead us to a more conscious and intelligent way of living.

Suburbs are about the leisurely conquest of space, an alternative to the uncomfortable density of the city. They seem to run free from history itself, offering a sense that nothing was there before. But the illusion of tranquility frays at the edges: the neurosis required to maintain so neatly manicured a lawn, the pristine sidewalks that nobody wa

had never heard Mojave 3, but their songs were perfect, like witnessing something beautiful happening in slow motion. I aspired to move through the world this deliberately.

Somehow, he remains optimistic. There’s no other way to be. The only constant in this life, in this work, is the passage of time, and with it, change.

I was quickly coming to the realization that my creative anxieties about whether there was anything original or new left to say about the world were quite generic.

We weren’t in search of answers. These weren’t debates to be won: certainty was boring. We were in search of patterns that would bring the world into focus.

Taylor called this authenticity, and it became the unreachable horizon of modern life. It’s a concept that makes sense only in its absence; we recognize inauthenticity, phoniness, when someone’s clearly being a poseur. Yet the struggle to feel authentic—this is very real, even if we know better. In Taylor’s telling, everyone becomes a kind of artis

I distinguished myself by the ferociousness of my attachments; there was something unique about my fascination with the film, something Ken couldn’t possibly understand. I was proprietary about liking things.

I was always thinking about the past, pursuing other people’s memories and dashed dreams. The aspect of my course work I loved was the archival research, snooping through boxes of old files, looking for ways to access some deeper understanding of someone’s art. I was fascinated by the kinds of stories you could tell with the things someone left beh