I don’t interview the acquisitions managers.”

For two years, Rowan had come home and entertained me with stories about his chairman — an old dinosaur, he called him, a relic who wouldn’t know real talent if it shook his hand across a table.

He had said it to me, specifically, more than once, at our own dinner table.

My father set the tablet down.

“I don’t know about talent,” he said mildly.

“But I’ve always been able to recognize fraud.”