Tolstoy is on my mind; he doesn’t let up. I recently spent three hours rereading his story, Master and Man.

I first read Proust’s Swann’s Way as a sophomore in college. Not even 20 years old, what could I know about time?

I first read Moby Dick in a college literature course focused on Melville, Twain, James and Faulkner. Many big books there, but the outstanding one was Moby Dick.

In the 11th grade at a decent public high school in Memphis, I ran into extraordinary good luck. A brilliant young man in his mid-twenties, named Hazelwood, had arrived on our scene.