ALSO BY HANK GREEN
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
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Copyright © 2020 by Hank Green
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Green, Hank, author.
Title: A beautifully foolish endeavor: a novel / Hank Green.
Description: First edition. | New York: Dutton, [2020] |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020006678 | ISBN 9781524743475 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781524743482 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3607.R43285 B43 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006678
ISBN: 9780593182505 (international edition)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, monkeys, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For my patient and loving wife, Katherine
CONTENTS
Cover
Also by Hank Green
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
April
Maya
Andy
Miranda
Andy
Maya
Miranda
Andy
Maya
Andy
Miranda
Maya
Andy
Miranda
Maya
Andy
Miranda
Maya
April
April
Carl
April
Miranda
Maya
Carl
Andy
April
Maya
Carl
April
Miranda
Maya
Miranda
April
Andy
April
Andy
Andy
Miranda
Maya
Carl
April
Miranda
Maya
Maya
Andy
Maya
April
Andy
April
Andy
Maya
Carl
April
Miranda
Maya
April
Andy
Miranda
Andy
Maya
April
Andy
Miranda
Maya
April
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Permissions
APRIL
I’ve decided to stop lying to you.
As far as I can tell there are only three kinds of lies: the kind you don’t want to get caught telling, the kind you don’t care if you get caught telling, and the kind you can’t get caught telling. Let’s go through them one by one.
1. The kind you don’t want to get caught telling. This is just your average, everyday lie, whether you’re late for work or did a real bad murder. Getting caught in the lie, thus, is a problem.
2. The kind you don’t care if you get caught telling. This kind of lie is about the lying, not about the outcome. You repeat the lie, stick to the lie, change the lie, re-form the lie, abandon the lie, come back to the lie. The lying might help avoid some negative outcome, but really it’s a tool for weakening reality, and thus strengthening yourself.
3. The kind you can’t get caught telling. This happens when only you know the truth. This is the kind of lie I’ve been telling.
For years now, that last kind of lie has felt, to me, like a kindness. I mean, it’s not a surprise that the story of your reality is incomplete. We all know that. Scientists don’t know where most of the matter is. I don’t know what it’s like to live in Yemen. Our imagining of the world isn’t fully accurate. But if you know something no one else knows, something that would change everyone’s story overnight, something that would make everyone else’s life worse, telling the truth might seem like the wrong thing to do, like exercising too much power.
As I have discovered, there’s nothing special about me, nothing that makes me particularly suited to making that kind of decision for an entire planet of people. The only reason I get to make it, it turns out, is ugly, vulgar luck.
A lot of people have said that I have a habit of exercising too much power, and one of those people is me, which is why I am about to do something I’m extremely uncomfortable with: let other people tell the story. Oh, to be clear, I don’t have any choice. I wasn’t there for a lot of this, so it isn’t my story to tell. Instead, my friends are going to tell it with me. Maybe that way we can share some of the responsibility of the power of this truth. It won’t be all on me: each of us have to agree that the words in this book are worth putting in here. Trust me, it wasn’t easy, these people can be fucking stubborn.
All of this is to say, I’ve decided to stop lying to you. We have decided to stop lying to you. Even though the lie is easy to tell, even though I never really said it out loud, even though the lie, most days, feels like nothing more than self-preservation, it’s time to tell you about the lie.
Here it is, in its most basic form: I have been doing everything I can to convince you that we are safe.
We’re not.
MAYA
I am only doing this because I have to. Most famous people ask for fame, and then when they get famous and complain about all the bad parts, we are correct in calling them out on it. But I have always felt like millions of people knowing my name would be nothing but awful.
It’s why I didn’t let April put my last name in her book. It is also not in this book. Of course, you can look it up on the internet, but neither I nor anyone who knows me has ever shared my last name. You can only find out what my name is due to the general erosion of privacy and the actions of people who have not respected my clearly-stated preferences.
That’s how I want to start this out. I stayed out of April’s content on purpose. I wanted to be a private person, and now I’m not, but I’m accepting this because it’s the best way to tell this story. And while I’m not going to tell you my last name (it’s the principle of the thing), I am going to be far more open than I want to be.
For example.
My parents are pretty rich. I grew up on the Upper East Side in a town house they’ve owned for thirty years. It was worth a lot when they bought
