She has put on weight and become slovenly, mortifying Benny with her stretch pants, dirty sneakers and stained shirts. “It’s not him that’s crazy,” she tells him. It’s capitalism that’s crazy. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not!” If the voices are real, he thinks, that means he’s “not crazy.” Exactly, the Bottleman says. “The dark side has its allures, Benny, but most people don’t want to go there,” the Book pontificates, not without condescension.

Source: New York Times September 19, 2021 09:00 UTC