5. HOW I CAME TO DOUBT
MYSELF IN EVERY WAY
“Back-story (or backstory): the things that have happened to a fictional character before you first see or read about them in a movie, television show, or novel.”
In this case, that of one Stewart Detweiler: Renaissance Man, man of singular promise and potential, the tale — nay, the saga — of his precipitous rise and equally swift fall, a tragic tale of promises unfulfilled, of potential squandered, of one who, seeing his “bright future” swirl down the drain along with much of his hair, said to himself in disbelief, This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening — to me!
Oh, but it can happen. It did happen.
Some may argue that I got what I deserved, that the failures that met me with middle age were the price exacted by youthful hubris. In my
