The Fragile World Readers Guide
A Conversation with Paula Treick DeBoard
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Also, blenders.
—Olivia Kaufman
Olivia
In the beginning there was Daniel. He was the only child my parents ever needed, because he was perfect. His first word was magnet and, the story goes, he said it while looking at the refrigerator, where my mother had spelled out D-A-N-I-E-L in brightly colored letters. Other kids might have memorized the stories their parents read to them from the Little Golden Books, but my mother always swore that Daniel was actually reading, even though he wasn’t three years old yet. By the time he was five and still belted into a child seat in the back of Mom’s car, he was already reading every sign on the road: City Limit and Closing Sale and Fresh Donuts. His early teachers strongly suggested that he skip grades, and if my parents hadn’t worried about his size—smallish—and his sociability—shyish—he would probably have been one of those kids who make the news when they graduate from university at age twelve.
When he was six years old, Mom enrolled Daniel in piano lessons, since he had taken to singing road signs as they drove and later banging out the tunes on the kitchen table with his fork and spoon. Prompted by the sight of the golden arches, he would launch into “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese...” and he could produce, on demand, the exact jingle that matched every car dealership in the greater Sacramento area. When I was born—and just for a moment, let’s pause to consider why, exactly, my parents would want another child when surely they had everything a parent could want in Daniel—he was already on his way to becoming a musical prodigy.
Physically, our lives revolved around Daniel and his music. Our funky, turn-of-the-last-century house near downtown Sacramento was crammed full with musical instruments—the upright piano in the living room, the drum set at the top of the stairs, his guitar propped against one wall or another. I was convinced that he was the only person on earth who could make a recorder look cool.
When Daniel was in the seventh grade, Mom picked me up from kindergarten one afternoon and drove me across town to his middle school auditorium