“Too tired to cook, Justin ate 5-10 Oreos, called it dinner, leapt into his filthy car, and sped to Politics and Prose Bookstore. The muggy August air stuck to him, or he to it. He slipped into the bookstore a little before 7 p.m., smelling of Camel cigarettes and eyeing his mp3 recorder skeptically. He listened to James Wood speak about character – what it is and why it’s so hard to decode — for an hour.”