My Unlikely Saint began as a short story called "Chasing Sammy," about a high school...

My Unlikely Saint began as a short story called "Chasing Sammy," about a high school classmate who, after college and a law degree and a few auspicious summers, suddenly disappeared. Many of us thought he had met some awful fate, because it did not seem probable that Sammy would voluntarily walk away from this Garrison Keillor small town, charmed life: sailing on Lake Minnewaska, working in his father's pharmacy, discussing Nietzsche with his cousin, reading Chabon and Martin Amis. He had to have suffered an involuntary and untimely death. There was no other explanation.

Not so.

Sammy was alive and well and living in the Cities. Sammy chose his forever separation. What compels people to walk away from the good life? From friends and family? From that Garrison Keillor town on the prairie? The compelling part of the equation is that Sammy wasn't posing or pouting, only to return into the folds of community once he'd found himself and excised this vernal rebellion from his system. No. Sammy's departure was permanent.

How do you abandon your life? Few people walk away and mean it.