"And in the midst of all that, I had this manuscript. I had figured that it was just going to be a matter of a couple of months of temping before I was raised aloft! [Laughs.] You know, published with great honors! Of course, it was nothing like that. I sent it to agents and it would immediately come back to me— it was like a boomerang. And then I would send it to friends, and they really did not know what to say to me." -- Jennifer Egan at The Days Of Yore on life before the Pulitzer Prize