George Saunders

Went out there and I was just barely hanging in.

And that was a really jarring thing.

So along comes Atlas Shrugged.

And at least the way I read it was, you're special because you believe in selfishness.

And at that point, just I got caught up on you're special.

That was enough, you know.

So I think I started kind of just using it as the one way in that environment I could feel

You know, could feel that I, for all of my external defects inside, I was a glowing knight of objectivity.

And also, the other thing was, I remember reading Atlas Shrugged on a trip with some high school friends.

And at that point, I wasn't going to go to college.

I was in a band.

And there was a guy in the band who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy in the Eagles.

That was our, yeah.

Yeah.

So my career plan.

But I was reading Atlas Shrugged in His Car, and I hadn't read a novel since maybe Johnny Tremaine in third grade.

And just the novelness of it, you know, the places and the way it called up a world in my mind and the fact that it was 1,084 pages.

Right.

That was actually what I loved was she was a novelist.

And so I kind of, you know, I think I voted for Reagan the first time, a lifelong regret.