Patrick Radden Keefe

And rather than be angry, he seems only to feel compassion and a desperate desire to help us track our son down.

And so that was really the way they felt, I think, about Akbar in the moment.

They didn't buy it.

It's funny, when Akbar told them initially that Zach had been claiming to be the son of a Russian oligarch, that he had this whole secret alter ego and that he was a fabulist, essentially, Rochelle and Matthew were really shocked by this,

but they believed it.

They were kind of thunderstruck to think that their son could have been doing this, but it sort of fit.

It made sense.

Yes.

Now, this was taking it to a level that they never could have imagined, but it didn't seem entirely out of character.

When Akbar said, Zach...

told us that he was addicted to heroin.

Actually, what happened was that Zach had confessed to Akbar and Verinder that night that he was addicted to heroin, and they sort of all agreed that they would get him help in the morning.

And then when Verinder woke up in the morning, Akbar was gone, and their assumption was he was off trying to score dope.

Rochelle and Matthew didn't believe that for a second.

They believed maybe Zach told these guys that he was addicted to heroin, but they didn't believe that.

They didn't think that he...

could have been addicted to heroin and that they wouldn't have noticed when he was living under the roof?

This is a story about a young, fabulous Zach Brettler pretending to be something that he's not.

But in fact, there's a trio of men in that apartment and all of them, they're all trying, they're each trying in a different way.

to be somebody that they aren't.