I asked his father to talk about the three decades he spent working in a coal mine. He said, “All mines are dangerous. It was very hard at that time. We earned about sixty yuan per month.” And that was all he had to say on the subject. Michael, by contrast, saw his own life as an epic fable of frustration and triumph. He wrote, “I was extremely lonely and confused from 2002 to 2007. I wanted to be someone great. I didn’t want a commonplace life … Was I really destined to be a failure? What should I do? Maybe I was doomed to be an ordinary person.” The prospect of conformity offended him. He
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