I had to pay a fine for keeping A Prayer for Owen Meany two weeks past its due date. This was in the last days of 1990. I was eighteen and had yet to grow into the book quitter that I am today.

Back in 1990 I did not care so much for the first hundred-ish pages of OWEN MEANY. It was a strange time in my reading life. I was adrift. Out of high school but not yet enrolled in college due to an oversight by my poverty-stricken parents, I was a self-guided reader and wandered around the Chippewa Falls Library checking out anything that looked remotely interesting.

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