In my salad days, when I was green in judgment, and never having asked to be born in the first place, I sought the advice of my then literary agent as to how to end stories without killing all the characters. He had been fiction editor of an important magazine, and a story consultant for a Hollywood studio as well. He said, “Nothing could be simpler, dear boy: The hero mounts his horse and rides off into the sunset.” Many years later, he would kill himself on purpose with a twelve-gauge shotgun.
