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A Life in Footnotes
The indexer Gerald Soames has spent forty years at the back of other people's books. He has thoughts about endings.
Listen · 10 min
An index is a map of a book drawn by someone who has read it more closely than its author. Gerald Soames has made eight hundred of them. ‘A good index,’ he tells me, ‘is invisible and indispensable, which is also a fair description of a good marriage.’
The story turned out to be quieter than expected, and better for it. The loud version would have been easier to tell and worth considerably less.
It continues, at length and without hurry, below.
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