The Fishmonger Returns

Rebecca was so appallingly nervous and weird that all who sat witness wanted to douse her with water, throw a Red Cross blanket over her, and lead her to safety.

Published February 24, 2004 10:00PM (EST)

On a blistering Thursday in late August, Rebecca made the drive, down I-57, from Chicago to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, a small town just next to Mattoon. An old law school friend of Rebecca's, Max McArsnep, taught an ethics course there and had asked Rebecca to come speak; he promised to arrange for a more general audience in the student union afterward. It would be Rebecca's first speech on a college campus in about seven years, and Giacomo and Charlie were hoping Rebecca's low-key style, her clear lack of pretense, would appeal to the students. At the very least, she might relax a bit on the stump.

The rest of this story is no longer online, but does appear in the book "The Unforbidden Is Compulsory, or Optimism."


By Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is the author of "You Shall Know Our Velocity" and "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

MORE FROM Dave Eggers


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Books