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236 pages, Hardcover
First published May 16, 2023
I don’t hate Titans, cops or journalists. I also don’t love Titans, cops or journalists.
I do what I do and I try to do it right.
Cop life is complicated. Three-quarters of the problems they get asked to solve they can’t, and shouldn’t have to, and don’t know how. The rest are just fucking terrifying. That makes them hang together, and that causes trouble because they can’t belong to one another more than they belong to other people – but they inevitably do. Add in all the ordinary human vices and cops can be a mile away and to the side of the population they’re supposed to protect.
Right now the moon is rising behind the ridgeline and the campus streetlights are lit, each casting an X of shadows over the central path. I walk through the gates and find a guy standing by himself in the middle of the court. He’s short, a little plump, and he wears waistcoats and corduroy so hard you have to think he’s making a statement. Oddly flat lenses in round spectacles, so that they catch the light and flicker when he turns his head. I guess he has a certain image to maintain. After all, he’s the Dean.
"A nobody, and yet somehow also a pin around which the city turns. Of course you're only a small businessman, but you are, undeniably, something of a figure in all of this, and I cannot for the life of me see how it comes to be so. You walk with giants. Are you on a mission?{...}"
—p.118
Cop life is complicated. Three quarters of the problems they get asked to solve they can't, and shouldn't have to, and don't know how. The rest are just fucking terrifying. That makes them hang together, and that causes trouble because they can't belong to one another more than they belong to ordinary people—but they inevitably do. Add in all the ordinary human vices and cops can be a mile away and to the side of the population they're supposed to protect. Bad things will happen. I work near cops, around cops, between cops, but I'm not one of them and that makes a difference.
—p.87
She hates old movies and TV shows. A lot of people do, without knowing why. It doesn't occur to them to notice that we're locked to the patterns of life in the moment T7 was developed, as if there can't be new new things because the old ones aren't going away.
—pp.93-94
It's worth remembering that angry and ridiculous people can do bad and effective things just like anyone else.
—p.139