A Visit from the Goon Squad

by Jennifer Egan

“I’m always happy,” Sasha said. “Sometimes I just forget.”

When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it’s happened?

I felt no shame whatsoever in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.

one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.