Glenn Lowry is among other things a public intellectual and an academic economist.

He's just published a memoir that is unlike anything I've ever read and I'm guessing unlike

anything you've ever read either.

It's called Late Admissions, Confessions of a Black Conservative.

Here is the first line of Lowry's book.

We are playing a game, you and I, reader and author.

And what are the rules of Lowry's game?

Here's how I describe it.

The writer will tell the reader things about himself

that most people would never admit publicly.

And the reader will try to determine

if these admissions are what Lowry calls

a cover story meant to obscure something even worse,

or if the writer is being honest why to what end the

book is to some degree an exercise in game theory which is appropriate given that one of Lowry's mentors was the

pioneer in game theorist Thomas Schelling, who helped create US nuclear

deterrence policy during the Cold War, the deeds and misdeeds that Lowry confesses to in the book. You may be inclined to not believe

them. Having read the book, and now having spoken with Lowry, I am inclined to believe them, which doesn't necessarily

make things any more comfortable.

One thing that strikes me during all the troubles you've had and all the double lives you've led,

it seemed as though you were shockingly bad at self-reflection. There are all these moments reading about

your life where the reader just wants to say no no don't do that again it's like

...