a trick of the mind that supports the perception that we are the same person over any significant span of time. My belief that telling lies is destructive of the human community formed through language might be a freak of my own imagination and have little application to the life of a drifter who made himself up along the course of his own private and secretive journey
I believed that my identification with James Hogue would help me understand him better.
It would help me write a better story. It was a habit that Hogue had warned me against, and the fact that he was a liar and a thief didn’t make his injunction any more or less binding. I would continue to see my life in his. I would continue to believe that the connection that I
acknowledged was somehow valuable on a human level—a proof of my own laudable capacity
for empathy At the same time, I would also have to consider that any assumptions I made about Hogue might be reflections of my own selfish motives and preoccupations which had nothing
whatsoever to do with my subject. Was Hogue afraid that I would see him for who he was? Was he annoyed by my invasion of his privacy? Did he court my attention because he wanted his
story to be known? The answer to all of the above questions is “yes.” For Hogue, the community of human beings that is formed through language was simply a figment of my imagination and
the imaginations of other people like me. Week after week, the manila folder containing the plans for his greatest con lay unopened on my desk.
As the trial date approached, I headed off to Telluride with the folder stuffed in my green army duffle. I would read it when I felt ready. Once his sentence was handed down, and he
refused for the last time to see me, I felt that it was time to look backwards through the wide lens of the telescope in the hopes that I might go back in time and see James Hogue whole, or glimpse the moment that led like all other moments to a place from which no escape is possible. I found more or less what I was looking for. I found myself rooting for him to succeed, even though I knew the story would turn out badly.
The folder contained a copy of an application to the Princeton University Class of 1992,
complete with the required personal essays, lists of books, and proof of a 1410 SAT score. Other essential items, like a high school transcript and letters of recommendation from teachers, were missing. Now that I had seen the effect that Hogue’s more ordinary deceptions had on the people of Telluride, I felt like I could better understand the spectacular self that he had invented to gain admission to Princeton, and the deeper significance of his greatest con.
Hogue’s application to Princeton was both a carefully considered con and an inspired
goof on the American college admissions process, an absurdist commentary on the larger
absurdity of a system that would never have accepted him for who he was. Reading through the items in his folder, I was reminded again of how little connection the Ivy League selection process has to the ability or the inclination to endure the rigors of high-level academic work.
Because we naturally abhor the geeky, antisocial personalities who tend to excel in the classroom and in the lab, Americas most prestigious universities have turned the admissions process into a beauty contest rigged to favor the kinds of students that might look good on a television reality show—a wholesome racial and ethnic mix of pretty faces and talent-show winners. The
often-celebrated search for lacrosse-playing cellists with 4.0 grade point averages and perfect SAT scores from disadvantaged neighborhoods also disguises a bushel of discriminatory policies that aim to cap the number of Jews and Asians and other minority groups who take education too seriously, in favor of the kinds of students that the admissions department and college alumni like better—namely, their own children.
Hogue gave the Princeton
I believed that my identification with James Hogue would help me understand him better.
It would help me write a better story. It was a habit that Hogue had warned me against, and the fact that he was a liar and a thief didn’t make his injunction any more or less binding. I would continue to see my life in his. I would continue to believe that the connection that I
acknowledged was somehow valuable on a human level—a proof of my own laudable capacity
for empathy At the same time, I would also have to consider that any assumptions I made about Hogue might be reflections of my own selfish motives and preoccupations which had nothing
whatsoever to do with my subject. Was Hogue afraid that I would see him for who he was? Was he annoyed by my invasion of his privacy? Did he court my attention because he wanted his
story to be known? The answer to all of the above questions is “yes.” For Hogue, the community of human beings that is formed through language was simply a figment of my imagination and
the imaginations of other people like me. Week after week, the manila folder containing the plans for his greatest con lay unopened on my desk.
As the trial date approached, I headed off to Telluride with the folder stuffed in my green army duffle. I would read it when I felt ready. Once his sentence was handed down, and he
refused for the last time to see me, I felt that it was time to look backwards through the wide lens of the telescope in the hopes that I might go back in time and see James Hogue whole, or glimpse the moment that led like all other moments to a place from which no escape is possible. I found more or less what I was looking for. I found myself rooting for him to succeed, even though I knew the story would turn out badly.
The folder contained a copy of an application to the Princeton University Class of 1992,
complete with the required personal essays, lists of books, and proof of a 1410 SAT score. Other essential items, like a high school transcript and letters of recommendation from teachers, were missing. Now that I had seen the effect that Hogue’s more ordinary deceptions had on the people of Telluride, I felt like I could better understand the spectacular self that he had invented to gain admission to Princeton, and the deeper significance of his greatest con.
Hogue’s application to Princeton was both a carefully considered con and an inspired
goof on the American college admissions process, an absurdist commentary on the larger
absurdity of a system that would never have accepted him for who he was. Reading through the items in his folder, I was reminded again of how little connection the Ivy League selection process has to the ability or the inclination to endure the rigors of high-level academic work.
Because we naturally abhor the geeky, antisocial personalities who tend to excel in the classroom and in the lab, Americas most prestigious universities have turned the admissions process into a beauty contest rigged to favor the kinds of students that might look good on a television reality show—a wholesome racial and ethnic mix of pretty faces and talent-show winners. The
often-celebrated search for lacrosse-playing cellists with 4.0 grade point averages and perfect SAT scores from disadvantaged neighborhoods also disguises a bushel of discriminatory policies that aim to cap the number of Jews and Asians and other minority groups who take education too seriously, in favor of the kinds of students that the admissions department and college alumni like better—namely, their own children.
Hogue gave the Princeton
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