The Follower
by Damon Galgut
notes by Ben Oswest
In May 2002, while housesitting for friends, I came across an unpublished manuscript by Damon Galgut called “Free Fall or Flight”, which I duly read, with no small sense - quite thrilling! - of doing something illicit. The piece has since appeared, in shortened form, in The Paris Review (issue 174, summer 2005), under the title “The Follower”. In it, a character called “Damon”, who is both narrator and object of narration, embarks on two long walks with a German man he hardly knows, with consequences that shake each to their foundations. The story’s final form isn’t so different from the draft as to obviate my original impressions - it is an innovative and highly accomplished work - a few of which I reproduce here:
