HISTORICAL REVISION

摘要

not long after my mother died, her best friend became a real-estate agent. Dorothy had enjoyed a successful career as a psychologist, but losing my mother made her too sad to take on additional depressed patients, she explained; what she had liked best about her work was snooping through the lives of strangers and helping solve their problems, and she figured she could do so equally well in this new career. When I returned to New York in the summer of 1992 from South Africa, where I had been reporting on the end of apartheid, I had a phone message from Dorothy, saying, "I've found the house you're going to live in for the rest of your life. Call me as soon as you can." I told her I wasn't even sure I wanted to stay in New York. She said, "When you see this house, you'll stay."