Three Kinds of Deception

Host Ira Glass reads an excerpt from Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy. The narrator, Will, recalls a time when he was a child that he convinced a friend that a portal to another world existed at the back of his closet. Will knew that the portal didn't exist, but continued the lie for some reason, even as he and his friend crawled through the winter coats by the closet baseboards looking for a hidden gateway. He just kept hoping that maybe they'd find something. (4 minutes)

Lawrence Otis Graham reads from an account of how he left his job as a $105,000-a-year Manhattan attorney to enter the exclusive Greenwich Country Club the only way they'd allow a black man like him: as a busboy. He discovers just how invisible he can become once he gives up his seat at the table and starts clearing the dishes instead—so invisible that people make racist remarks right in front of him. The passage is from his book A Member of the Club: Reflections on Life in a Racially Polarized World. (16 minutes)