Of all possible worlds this was the one in which I had landed. - Percival Everett

I considered the northern white stance against slavery. How much of the desire to end the institution was fueled by a need to quell and subdue white guilt and pain? Was it just too much to watch? Did it offend Christian sensibilities to live in a society that allowed that practice? I knew that whatever the cause of their war, freeing slaves was an incidental premise and would be an incidental result.

When does the war end?” I asked. “Does it end? That’s the question. Who gets to say that it’s over? A war continues until the victor says it’s over.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them,