As a teenager, I shared her dread of a lifetime of mindless work. Back in the seventies, my hope of ascent came not from fiction, but from biography. Specifically, the life of world chess champion Bobby Fischer. I was a good-enough chess player to be seduced by his script (but, sadly, nowhere near good enough to replicate his success on the sixty-four squares). The teenage Fischer always brought a pocket chess set to school, for use during “boring” classes. When teachers confiscated the chess set, he continued analyzing the moves in his head. Inspired by his example, I would bring a chess set
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