“That guy’s a fuckin’ saint.” It wasn’t the first time Farmer had heard himself called that. When I asked him his reaction, he said that he felt like the thief in Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun, who steals something from a Catholic church and, before making his escape, dips his hand in holy water. “I don’t care how often people say, ‘You’re a saint.’ It’s not that I mind it. It’s that it’s inaccurate.” This was seemly, I thought, resisting beatification. But then he told me, “People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.” I felt a
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