 In the final weeks before they left the city, Henry began to jot down a few ideas, notes, dictums, data points, pages of them from a man who had all but abandoned writing since his unexpected release from the prison collectors 14 years before. Later, when we spoke, he shared these folios with me, apologetic, even embarrassed, as if they proved something about the ill-fated tour or his state of mind in the days prior. I was unconvinced, but I scanned the pages anyway trying to make sense of them. Here's a sampling. Bus was 12 minutes late today, read a line scrolled on a page dated March 16, 2001. Reasons unknown and unknowable, mystery, could have driven. Two days later, woke to a serviceable erection at 7 AM, sat up in bed, turned on the light to observe it, watched it wilt like time-lapse photography, my very own nature special. I should have been on television when I was young before I got ugly, slept a while longer, three eggs for breakfast, no coffee, pants feeling tight in the thighs, a woman got in the cab today, black hair. She asked if I would, the following week. For eight months, I hardly talked about life outside, except Rogelio, but because he asked me. March 27, a play for Rogelio, finally, a love story, a man learning to read in a rented jail cell, being taught to read in exchange for sex, a plainly capitalist transaction between two men pretending to be in love, perhaps they are, but are as lubricant stolen from the commissary and warm between the palms, between thumbs and form fingers, strange that such a simple gesture could be so arousing. A woman got in my cab today, black hair, ruby lips, asked if I would climb in the back and make love to her. And then in these journals, there was pages of lists. For example, dead things I've seen, telephones, light bulbs, street corners, nightclubs, also pigs, painters, passengers, plays, presidents, prisoners. On and on like this. Was Henry losing it? I don't think so, or perhaps. Far worse things have been published as poetry in one awards, which is what I told him in so many words as I tried to hand this journal back. He wanted me to keep it. Correction, he insisted I keep it, as if the pages contained something toxic he wanted to be desperately rid of, and I obliged. The important thing for us to understand is this, Henry thought he was losing his mind, and it worried him. He entered the prison every night in his dreams, walked its dark hallways, inhaled its fetid air. He'd forgotten so many details about his time inside that it terrified him. The color of Rogelio's eyes, for example, the number of the cell they shared on block seven, the meal they shared on the last night before his release. But every afternoon at every rehearsal something struck him. Some bit of the past emerging with surprising clarity. Henry began to remember, began to piece things together. This particular play of the dozen or so he'd written had special characteristics. It was the last one he'd finished, the one that had brought his career to a premature close. It had been performed by men who died only a few months later, dead men who'd begun to appear in his dreams. Perhaps the script itself was cursed. These men, these ghosts, hovered about the stage at every rehearsal, sat in the ragged seats of the Olympic to critique every line of dialogue. They booed each poorly rehearsed scene, whispered their doubts in his ears. It was impossible not to feel unsteady when confronted with this text. After all, the man who wrote it had lived another life and that life was gone. That's what Henry was dealing with. Nelson, unfortunately, through no fault of his own had to watch this up close. It wasn't pretty. The kicking incident, for example, which Patelarga described so vividly. Henry recalled it too, answering all of my questions politely and without hesitation. He had experienced it this way. A feeling of looseness, a momentary disorientation, anger, impotence, and then an image. In August, 1986, he'd seen a man kicked to death or nearly to death by a mob that formed unexpectedly at the door of block 12. He and Rogelio had stood by at first, horrified, and then simply frightened. Then, almost instantaneously, they'd accepted the logic of the attack. Every victim was guilty of something. The chatter, what did he do? Who did he cross? The men watching felt safer, less helpless. A crowd had formed around the victim, but no one moved. Henry took Rogelio's hand and squeezed. Do you see what I mean, Henry asked me now. I said that I did, but I couldn't tell if he believed me. Not every memory was so poisonous. For example, one day, in prison, Henry gathered up his courage and went to see Espejo, the boss, who was doing the idiot present, about doing the idiot president in block seven. Surely, this was one of his fondest memories. Espejo was a small but well-bid man who was lazy grin, belied a long history of violence, a man who'd risen far enough from the streets to relax and now control the block through sheer force of reputation. He was languorous and content, occasionally dispensing pointed but very persuasive doses of rage should any inmate question his authority. Mostly, though, he protected them. There was less than 200 men on the block, and after nightfall, they were in constant danger of being overrun by one of the larger, more ferocious sections of the prison. Espejo directed a small army of warriors tasked with keeping those potential invaders at bay. Henry was afraid of this man, but he had to remind himself, me and Espejo, we're block seven, we're on the same side. Espejo's cell reminded Henry of a small but comfortable student apartment with a squat refrigerator, a black and white television and a coffee maker plugged into a naked outlet. Espejo kept a photo of himself from his younger days, framed above his bed. An image Henry had never been able to shake in all the years, hence, he described it to me, and I'll describe it to you. In the picture, Espejo is shirtless, astride a white horse, riding the majestic animal up the steps of a swimming pool toward the camera. He is handsome and powerful. A few delighted women stand behind him, long-legged and bronze, gleaming in the bright sun. Everything is colorful, saturated with tropical light. A child, Espejo's son, one might guess, sits on the edge of the diving board, watching the horse maneuver its way out of the water. On the boy's face is an expression of admiration and wonder, but it's more than that. He's concentrating, he's watching the scene, watching his father, trying to learn. Henry would have liked to be left alone with this photograph to study it, to ask how and when it had been taken and what had happened to each of the people in the background, to the boy, most of all. He might have fled the country, or he might be dead, or the boy might be living now in a cell much like this one in another of the city's prisons. There was no way of knowing without asking directly, and of course, that was not an option. The photo, like the lives of the men with whom Henry now lived, was both real and startlingly unreal, like a frame still from one of Espejo's dreams. What did Espejo think when he looked at it? Did it make him happy to recall better times, or did the memory of them simply hurt? Rahelio had warned him not to stare, and so he didn't. A play, Espejo said, when Henry told him his idea, Henry nodded. Espejo lay back in his bed, his shoeless feet stretched toward the playwright, his head and his toes shook left to right in unison. That's what we get for taking in terrorists, as Espejo said, laughing. We don't do theater here, but I'm not a terrorist, Henry said. Along silence followed this clarification. Espejo's laughter replaced by a glare so intense and penetrating that Henry began to doubt himself. Perhaps he was a terrorist after all. Perhaps he always had been. That's what the authorities were accusing him of outside in the real world, and there were people arguing both sides of this very question. His freedom hung in the balance, his future. Henry had to look away down at the floor of the cell, which Espejo had redone with blue and white linoleum squares in honor of his favorite soccer club, Alianza. One of Espejo's deputies, a thick-chested brute named Aymar coughed into his fist, and it was only this that seemed to break the tension. So this play, did you write it? Henry nodded. Okay, so name a character after me, Espejo said. Henry began to protest. Espejo frowned, you think I have no culture? You think I've never read a book? No, no, Henry said. Then he stopped. It was useless to continue. Already he'd ruined himself. They were quiet for a moment. Go on, he said, Espejo said. If you can convince these savages, and he waved an uninterested hand in the direction of the yard, if you can convince them I have no objection. Henry thanked Espejo and left quickly before the boss could change his mind. I told Rogelio the news and we celebrated, Henry said to me, how did you celebrate? Henry blushed. We made love. Was that the first time? Yes, he said. His voice was very soft. And then he added, I don't remember. And then, no. I told Henry we could stop for a moment. If he wanted, he sat with his head at an angle. Eyes turned toward a corner of the room. He laughed. It's not because we were in prison together, you know. You're making it sound cliche. I didn't say that, and I'm not making it sound like anything. I'm not judging you, I said. You were thinking it. I wasn't, I said. He frowned, are you a cop? Is that what this is? I thought I'd lost him. I shook my head, I'm not a cop. I said in a very slow and calm voice. But at the time, I wasn't even sure what I was doing. Nelson and I were almost like family, I said. Henry's brow furrowed. He's never mentioned you. Silence. The play I said after a moment, was it easy to get inmates to volunteer for that play in prison? Henry sighed. That it turned out was easy. And he had a theory as to why everyone wanted to be the president because the president was the boss. Everyone wanted to be the servant because like them, the servant dreamed of murdering the boss. Everyone wanted to be the son because it was the son who got to do the killing. And it was this character, Alejo, whose name was changed. Alejo became Espejo. And indeed the project sold itself a week of talking to his peers and then the delicate process of auditions. Henry had to write in many extra parts to avoid disappointing them. Avoid disappointing some of the would-be actors. It was for his own safety, some of these men did not take rejection very well. At the end, he added a chorus of citizens to comment on the action. Ghosts of servants passed to stalk across the stage in fury, wearing costumes fashioned from old bed sheets. He even wrote a few lines for the president's wife, Nora, played with Verve by Carmen, the block's most fashionable transvestite. Things were going well. Someone from Diciembre alerted the press. How had this happened? And after he'd done an interview or two, there was no turning back. Even Espejo joined in the enthusiasm. It would be good for their image. He was heard to say, Rogelio wanted to audition too, but there was a problem. I can't read, he confessed to Henry and he was ashamed. How can I learn the script? At this point in our interview, Henry felt silent one more. He scratched the left side of his head with his right hand such that his arm reached across his face, hiding his eyes. It was a deliberate and evasive gesture. I was reminded of children who closed their eyes when they don't want anyone to see them. We sat in Henry's apartment where he'd lived since separating from Anna's mother more than four years before. There was a couch, two plastic lawn chairs that looked out of place indoors in a simple wooden table. One might have thought he'd just moved in. Rogelio was my best friend, you know? I know, I said. At a time when I needed a friend more than I've ever before, I loved him. I know, I said. And even so, before we went on tour again, just now, I hadn't thought of him in years and I find this a little shameful, you know? Do you see how awful that is? I nodded for him to go on, but he didn't. It's not your fault, I said. You didn't destroy that prison. You didn't send the soldiers in. You're right, Henry said. You taught him to read, but I didn't save him. You couldn't have, I said, precisely. We decided to break. It was time and I excused myself, wandered back to the bathroom at the end of the hallway and splashed cold water on my face. When I returned, Henry was standing on the narrow balcony of his apartment wearing the same look of exhaustion, of worry. In the tiny park in front of his building, some children were drawing on the sidewalk. My daughter draws much better, he said. Then we went back inside. I asked him what he'd expected from the tour, what his hopes were. He began to speak and then stopped, pausing to think. If the text of a play constructs a world, Henry said finally, then a tour is a journey into that world. And that's what we were preparing for. That's what I wanted, to enter the world of the play to escape my life. I wanted to leave the city and enter a universe where we were all someone different. He sighed, you know I forbade Nelson to call home. Why I asked. I wanted him to help me build this illusion. I needed his help. This sounds grandiose and dramatic, I know, but I told him not to worry about how it sounded. Did you have any misgivings about it? The tour. It was a poorly phrased question. What he'd been trying to tell me was this, his misgivings in those days were all encompassing, generalized, profound. He could push them away for hours at a time, but only with great effort. And they returned always. To be quite honest, it wasn't the tour I was afraid of, Henry told me. It was everything. At my request, Anna's mother took a look at Henry's notebook, spending a few moments with the pages, smiling occasionally as her eye lighted on a particular phrase or observation. This is obviously a different section. I should have said that. Usually I take a sip of water to indicate that there's like a page break. So I will do that now. At my request, Anna's mother, that's Henry's ex-wife, took a look at the notebook, spending a few moments with the pages, smiling occasionally as her eye lighted on a particular phrase or observation. She read a couple of lines out loud, letting out a short, bitter laugh now and then. When she was finished, she shook her head. He gave you these, Henry's ex-wife asked. Why died? Yes, I said. Henry's the moody type, she said. Nothing new, an artist, he always was, but he could enter those spirals of unpleasantness, just like what you described. Only he wouldn't write it down, not like this. In eight years, was it that long? Jesus, in eight years, you know, I never saw him write down anything that wasn't for the classes at that school where he taught, teaches, whatever. But he talked this way sometimes, stream of consciousness, chatter, at night mostly. Imagine living with this. She threw two hands in the air and the notebook tumbled to the floor. I can't believe I'm gonna tell you this, she said, but listen, toward the end, he was never home, God bless. He'd go to school and drive the cab till 10, he'd come home, climb into bed and say, baby, I fucked a passenger today on the way to the airport. Wonderful, I'd say, half asleep, but you still have to fuck me, I'm your wife. It was a game, see? And at first he would four times a week and then three and then once, but then he wouldn't sleep with me, I mean, not at all. He'd sleep beside me and I'd be awake, waiting, he'd snore and I'd wanna kill him. I'd put my hand on his cock, nothing, like touching a corpse. He would talk in his sleep, nonsense like the stuff you have in here. She picked up the fall and notebook, shaking the pages at me. And then one day, I realized it wasn't just stories. It was true, he actually was fucking his passengers and I said, Henry, I'm leaving. And do you know how he responded? Did he tell you this part? I shook my head. He said, oh no, the turtle's getting away, hurry. And I thought he was drunk or on drugs. I slapped him, I think. Do you hate me? I asked. I was hurt, you understand, angry. Do you hate me? I said, is that it? Do you hate our life? Are you trying to break my heart? How did he respond? I asked. He collapsed sobbing and told me no, that he hated himself and that he had for years. She laughed dryly now that his unhappiness was a monument like a statue in the old city. One of those nameless heroes covered in bird shit riding on a stone horse. I told him not to try his poetry now, that it was too late, he begged me to stay. But you didn't, of course not. I left him like any reasonable, self-respecting woman would have done. He'd slept with half the city, but it wasn't his fault because he was depressed. If I'd stayed a moment longer, I would have put a steak knife through his neck or through my own. So I took on and went to my mother's house. Did you ever meet Nelson? As it turns out, she had during the last week of rehearsals before the troop left the city. One afternoon, one afternoon Anna was dropped off at the Olympic, what a, I'm sorry. See, this is an advanced reader's copy so there's still some mistakes here. One afternoon Anna's mother dropped her daughter off at the Olympic. She got to see some of the play. It was the last week of rehearsals. What did she think about the play or about Nelson? Both I asked. She frowned. Nelson admired Henry without reservation. That much was clear to her. She saw about half a rehearsal, enough to get a sense of the dynamic between them. Henry was hard on Nelson. He interrupted him, chastised him, explained a scene, a beat once and again. And all the while, Nelson listened carefully to everything, suppressing the frustration he surely must have felt. But he was good. The kid was good, intense, very professional. You'd think they were preparing to tour the great halls of Europe and not a bunch of frost-bitten Andean villages. And the play I asked. Anna's mother responded with a question. Did I watch much theater? I told her I did, my fair share. You know what? I'd remembered it being funny. 15 years ago, Henry had a sense of humor. I didn't remember it being so fucking dark. It was always there in the script, I suppose, but he was emphasizing it now. What can I say? Life does that to a man. But that article was trying. He'd had a note of slap tick, but it just wasn't. I mean, it had its moments. I'll tell you this much, which I'm not sure Henry even knows. My daughter, Anna, she fell asleep. She's no critic, but there it is. She slept, soundly. When her interview was over, Henry's wife excused herself for having spoken so crudely. I don't hate him. I just wouldn't say Henry brought out the best in me. We're better off apart. She paused. Or at least I am, which is really what matters. To me, I mean. I told her that I appreciated her honesty. She asked that her name not be printed. It's been years, but I'm honoring that request. Thank you. So I obviously never read that section before. But yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions or talk about any aspect of the writing of the book or the research for the book or anything. Or not about the book about soccer or politics or anything. Yes, I just had a question about your influences. Who are some of the authors who influenced you? And also, who's your favorite football team? Arsenal. I mentioned Alianza Lima, which is the team that I support in Peru. Although that's kind of like a nominal thing since I can't really watch the Peruvian League up here. And the Peruvian League is pretty brutal. Like it's pretty, it's not the finest league. My reasons for supporting Arsenal. I'm going into soccer question first because it's just more interesting. My reasons for supporting Arsenal are completely arbitrary, like red and white for the Peruvian flag. And Arsene Begner is like, people have no idea what I'm talking about, right? Some of you? Okay, well, just very briefly, the coach of Arsenal is like this French philosopher named Arsene Begner. And I just have a crush on him, like a serious man crush on Arsene. Like I watch his press conferences on YouTube and stuff. And I just, when I want to reprimand my older child, I do it in Arsene's voice sometimes so that it carries more weight. So yeah, there's no good reason, but also like any league, it's more fun once you have some skin in the game. And so yeah, actually it's funny because living in California, specifically the games are on very early on the weekends. And I almost think it's the most convenient time to watch a soccer match, you know? And I almost, we're moving to New York now, which is three hours to the east, obviously. And I think that's just gonna be really difficult. You know, like I would rather watch the game at five in the morning, because I'm up anyway, because we have a two-year-old, you know? So I'm up anyway, so I might as well watch a soccer game. And then you have your whole day. So I don't know what we're gonna do once we move east. But anyway, other question about influences. I think, I mean, like all writers, I think my influences are multiple. Some of them are literary, some of them are cinematic, some of them are musical, artistic. I think, you know, there are certain pieces of art that I love so much that creates this kind of hurt. Like I wish I'd written that, you know? There's some pieces of art that I admire, but in a different way, like they make me wanna race home and sit down and write and create and draw. And, you know, I mean, there's, and it runs a gamut from like, there's like, you know, pieces of classical music, like photographs, like, you know, old, like, you know, rap songs from the 90s, you know, or like even like YouTube clips of like sublime soccer plays, you know? Like inspire me, like it's like, it's created, it's something that's collectively created that's perfect, you know? I listen to a lot of radio, obviously, now, and I'm very interested in those kinds of ways of telling stories. I'm very interested in interactive ways of telling stories, like, you know, that involve lots of different types of media. I've sort of stopped thinking myself as a novelist and more as a storyteller, and whether that takes the form of radio or a live event or an article or an essay in Spanish or in English or whatever the case, you know? I think it's a fiction or nonfiction. It just becomes a more fun way to think about the craft. It also lets me off the hook for not being actively writing a novel right now. So I don't feel bad about that. But, you know, literary, in terms of literary, you know, Chekhov would be like, if you weren't already dead, I'd take a bullet for him, you know, that kind of thing. And contemporary writers that I admire, you know, there's a number of them. I think Zadie Smith is fantastic. I think, you know, Junot Diaz is fantastic. I think, you know, I love the stories of Tobias Wolfe. I love Laurie Moore. I love Yuri Herrera, Alejandro Zambra, Francisco Goldman, you know, and just on and on and on. I think it's an exciting time to be a reader, for sure. I was wondering, have you read the novel called A World for Julius? Oh, A World for Julius, the Brayse Tynicki novel. You know, that, I haven't, I haven't. It's one of the most famous Peruvian novels that exists. But I had this thing, you know, where, and this happened to me with Brayse and with Vargas Llosa. So for example, La Tia Julia, you know, the Anjuli and the Scriptwriter. Fantastic, you know, amazing novel. The first time I read it, I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I didn't understand the humor. I couldn't understand why it was funny. And I had a similar experience when I tried to read A World for Julius. I just didn't get the jokes, you know? And then I read, you know, years past and I read La Tia Julia again. And I was that guy on Bart, like, laughing to himself like an idiot, you know? So, you know, it's probably one of those books that I just have to go back to, for sure. Because, you know, you meet books at the right time and they really speak to you and you meet them at the wrong time and you're like, hmm, so that's what happened with that book. But I think I just didn't get it. My mom was nodding her head in agreement. I really enjoyed the book, so I first wanted to say that. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. And then, also, I wanted to know how you decided the character of the narrator, because it's such a, I mean, I don't think it ruins anything to say, it's a very small relationship that the character has to the three actors who are on tour. And how did you decide on that person sort of being the narrator for the story versus somebody like Pada Laga being the narrator? Right. That's a great question. And I actually wish I'd talked about the narrator as I introduced this, because a lot of you were probably like, what? And I apologize for that. You know, it was a complete accident. I wrote a draft of this book that finished, that I finished at the end of 2010. And I always tell the story because I think it's useful for people who wanna write. I showed it to some friends. I thought it was not good. You know, I was afraid it wasn't good and I showed it to some friends and I was hoping they were gonna say, you know, it's not as bad as you think, it's pretty great, you know. And I showed it to a couple of friends and my friends, God bless them, were like, this is terrible. You really can't publish this. And I was crushed, but I was also very, and I remain extraordinarily grateful for their honesty. And so I threw the whole thing out and started over. But so I just started, I just put it in third person, which is my kind of default, you know, it's like my safe word, you know, it's like third person, third person. You know, it makes me feel really like, okay, I can do the third person, you know? And so I got it back to the third person, but then this eye just dropped in. I don't know where it came from, it was there in the, like page seven. And I was like, huh, okay. And then I just was like, well, okay, that's interesting. Let me just leave it there and keep going. And so then I just kept writing and writing and writing and every time I would try to resolve it, I'm like, oh, maybe the eye is Francisco, maybe the eye is this, maybe the eye is that. I would just say, well, I don't think I have to answer that question yet. And then it occurred to me that the longer I put off answering the question, the reader too would be like, huh, okay, who is this? Now I realize that for many readers, the resolution of that question will determine whether or not you like the book. You know, and if you get to that and you're like, you're like what? And you might throw it across the room. But if you do think that I stick that landing, then you're gonna think it's a, you might like the book. Hopefully you'll like the book. I'm wondering what's happening with Radio Ambulante, if you can take a little bit more, what you're doing these days. Yeah, so Radio Ambulante for those you don't know is a Spanish language podcast that my wife was sitting in the front row here, third row, and I and a couple of the partners founded four years ago now, kind of modeled on some of these great American shows that you've heard, public radio shows. So we're in our third full season now. We have grown tremendously. We had 70,000 total listens in 2013, and we had over a million in 2014. This year we have brand new partnerships with the New York Times Magazine. We co-produced a piece with Radio Lab. They just came out last month. We're, I think, doing the best work that we've done so far, in just in terms of the scope and the sophistication of the stories that we're doing, the production. And it's an incredibly exciting project. I really, really, really enjoy doing it. It's also very different from writing fiction because it's collaborative. Every piece is touched by many people on the team. We edit as a group on Google Docs, so you imagine trying to write a novel on Google Docs with five different people, you couldn't do it. And I enjoy sort of seeding some of that creative control to others, and we've certainly built a very talented team so that it doesn't feel scary anymore to give that up. We have a brand new story coming out on Friday, which we've just listened to the mix in the car. It's fantastic. I thought our last story with Radio Lab was one of the pieces that I'm most proud of. So yeah, things are going well. Things are going really well. I encourage you all to listen. Daniel, it's been such a pleasure to have you here tonight. Thank you. I'd like to invite everybody to go back and pick up a book to be signed, and hopefully there'll be just a little bit of time for you to chat with Daniel before he has to leave. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I really appreciate it. Thank you.