 Penguin Random House Audio Presents, Dancer by Collin McCann, Read For You by Deon Graham, for Allison, for Riva Hockerman, and for Ben Keiley, with my deepest thanks for your faith and inspiration. Would we, or at any rate, I, refer to confidently as a memory, meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion, is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw. William Maxwell. So long. See you tomorrow. Paris, 1961. What was flung on stage during his first season in Paris? Ten 100 Frank bills held together with an elastic band. A packet of Russian tea. A manifesto from the Front de Libération Nationale representing the Algerian nationalist movement, protesting the curfew imposed on Muslims after a series of car bombs in Paris. Daffodils stolen from the gardens in the Louvre, causing the gardeners to work overtime from five until seven in the evening to make sure the beds weren't further plundered. White lilies with some teams taped to the bottom of their stems so they were perfectly waited to reach the stage. So many flowers that a stagehand, Henri Long, who swept up the petals after the show, had the idea of creating a potpourri, which he sold on subsequent evenings, to fans at the stage door. A mink coat that sailed through the air on the twelfth night, causing the patrons in the front rows to think for a moment that some flying animal was above them. Eighteen pairs of women's underwear, a phenomenon that had never been seen in the theater before, most of them discreetly wrapped in ribbons, but at least two pairs that had been whipped off in a frenzy, one of which he picked up after the last curtain, delighting the stagehands by sniffing them flamboyantly. A headshot of Yuri Gagarin, the cosmonaut, with a message at the bottom reading, Soar, Rudy, Soar. A series of paper bombs filled with pepper. A precious pre-revolutionary coin thrown up by an emigre who had wrapped it in a note saying that if Rudy kept his cool, he would be as good as Nijinsky, if not better. Dozens of erotic polaroids with the name Sample complete. Ready to continue?