Summary

The narrator, Neal, begins by stating, “My whole life I’ve been a fraud” (141). He goes on to elaborate that everything he has done in life has been for the sole purpose of being admired and approved of by others. He states that in school, all of his athletic and academic activities, as well as his sexual activities, were simply motivated by a desire to be admired by others. Thus, he was so self-conscious about the activities that he could not actually enjoy them. As an adult, Neal worked as a creative associate at an advertising firm in Chicago, Illinois and was quite successful, but he found that he was deeply unhappy due to his continually fraudulent nature. Neal says that his story ends with him killing himself and discovering what happens after one dies. However, before then, Neal began seeing a therapist in...