Excerpt from the novel-in-progress Faithful Unbeliever

. After lunch we all file into the auditorium for the next presentation. There is a long introduction about how the next person who will take the stage is the reason we’re all here. How when, years ago, he was fired from the university, it created a rupture, an opening through which so much of our current thinking so actively flowed. He’s been abroad all of these years, in some sense in exile, and it was difficult to convince him to return, even for this relatively brief yet important gathering. For obvious reasons, he no longer wants anything to do with this country, so this is likely the last time we’ll see him on these shores. Other than that he needs no introduction. We wouldn’t all be here if we didn’t already know the contours of his essential project. As he walks on stage to generous applause, Mousy whispers to me: “That’s our professor.” And I realize I had thought we were gathering here in memoriam to this esteemed professor, but he appears to be very much alive. And I…