Sent by a reader (and long-time supporter) in Virginia:

My pitch at Amazon, "Chatty enough, I've talked to a lot of people. Curious about what each must go through, I ask basic questions, then listen. No one is uninteresting. Their speech is also fascinating and charming. Needing to please, amuse or impress, folks are often playful or creative with language. What we have, then, is a complex portrait of a society, as painted by those routinely obscured. Besides its dark or even horrific aspects, there's also sweetness, toughness, humor and a bitter pride derived from having survived, if only for another moment. In 2018, I left the US for good. In 2024, I compile this book from a tropical, seaside city on the other side of the earth. Had I stayed in the US, these accounts would still seem alien, for everything has changed, seemingly overnight, for the worse."