This Isn't Going to End Well by Daniel Wallace & William Nealy

Author:Daniel Wallace & William Nealy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was a hectic day. So much to deal with. Some friends came over to help and left with a memento or two. I took bag after bag of trash to the truck; Laura and I gathered Holly’s art supplies to donate to a school.

I took the journals outside, just to get them out of the way. I should have put them in the truck—it was almost time for a dump run—but I didn’t. Without saying anything about it to anybody—even to myself, if that’s possible—I put the journals in the trunk of my car. I didn’t think about why I was doing this, did not examine too closely what my motivation might be, which is just like me, expert compartmentalizer that I am. But they were books—books by a writer, a famous writer, my brother-in-law. They were one-of-a-kind, handwritten, illustrated, works of art themselves.

But Laura was right: I didn’t have permission. I did think of Kafka, of course, and his friend and lawyer, Max Brod. Brod promised Kafka that he would burn Kafka’s manuscripts after he died—but didn’t. As much of a betrayal as that was, weren’t we happy now, happy that his friend betrayed him? I wasn’t comparing William to Kafka when I thought this. I was thinking about the cost-benefit analysis of posthumous treachery.

I took them home without a word to anybody, even Laura. I slipped the journals in the glass-doored cabinet where we kept our rotating collection of ashes. But I didn’t look at them again, not for a long, long time.

I think you know where this is going.

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