A Simulation of Worship

I WAS FRESHLY out of undergrad and looking for a charismatic figure to replace my professors. I tried reading Tony Robbins, and when that didn’t work out, I considered courting a 40-year-old man. My desire for tutelage was bordering on the messianic: a search for an academic to whom I could surrender myself, in whom I might find literary salvation—or, better yet, love and attention.