" But inside the self performing as someone who was fine was the self who was not, and the vision I'd had of my life, the one that had me wanting to scream, was a vision of how living this way, inside of this performance, had blighted my life. I felt like a tree struck by lightning a long time ago, burning secretly from the inside out, the bark still smooth to the end -- the word FINE painted on it. "

― Alexander Chee , How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays