flâneur

YOUTH - by Jared Young - Tolstoyan

tolstoyan.substack.com · 2,596 words · saved by 4 readers

And what happens when it's gone.

When he was in his early-20s, he hung a timeline above his desk. He had drawn it himself, meticulously, with a ruler and professional illustration pen. It spanned from 18 to 30, and he glue-sticked little pictures of his favorite authors next to the age at which they’d published their first novels. At 21, Bret Easton Ellis. At 24, Martin Amis. At 25, Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith. At 26, Philip Roth. At 27, John Updike. He cut out a picture of his own face, and stuck it to the timeline among them. Every year, on his birthday, he moved his face one spot forward. Every year, he passed another…

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