“Benedick Scott was on his way to freedom or profound failure or, if the usual order of things held up, both. Two chests, strapped closed and marked for delivery to an apartment in Manhattan, sat at the end of his bed. On his person he needed only his typewriter, slung over his shoulder in a battered case. He’d stuffed the case with socks to cushion any dinging, along with his shaving kit, a worn copy of Middlemarch, and thirty-four pages of typed future.”
