Chapter 28 - Novak
THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN was a talker. He talked about the size of Madison and how once upon a time the town was supposed to grow into a huge city. It was where all the work was, where people, rich people with families and suburbanite attitudes were going to move, because they wanted a booming economy, but also the safety of small town life. But it all fell apart when it turned out there was no oil, the trees were protected federally, and the river was controlled farther up north. Then he talked about how he and his wife, who had recently left him for a twenty-something young woman who used to be a man, after getting a half a dozen tattoos and dying her hair black, had lived there half their lives, moving in with the boom and getting left behind when the once-bright promise
