Neal

Neal is the protagonist and narrator of the story. He narrates the story retrospectively, looking back on his life from after his death. In the story, Neal explains that throughout his entire life, he has operated in an inherently fraudulent matter, motivated in all of his pursuits simply by the desire to appear to others as successful and admirable. However, due to this habitual self-consciousness, Neal never actually felt happy or fulfilled despite seeming to others to strongly possess those traits. As an adult, Neal lived in Chicago and was successful in the advertising industry due to natural abilities regarding the manipulation of others.

Neal, in an attempt to escape his habitual fraudulence, attended psychotherapy sessions, which he found generally unhelpful. One idea that he found promising in therapy was the idea that Neal’s unhappiness stems from an inability to love. However, he soon began to view...