During last night’s book tour event, Van recounted the story of his year-long struggle with severe depression, when he felt like an Easter egg that was beautiful on the outside and empty on the inside. But eventually after much inner work he concluded “I’m a good guy” and moved on.

Later, he said, “I want us to start healing each other.”

During the Q&A, when the usher gave me the mic, I commented, “I love the book. It definitely points us in the right direction. My main problem is with your echoing your father’s affirmation of upward mobility as an antipoverty program. It seems to me that no child should have to grow up poor because their parents can’t find a living-wage job. A plurality of Americans support a federal jobs guarantee.”

I then asked, “What do you think about guaranteeing living-wage job opportunities with federal revenue sharing to local governments, partly as a way to weaken the power of the drive for upward mobility which has such a corrosive effect on our society?”

He replied, “I’m for it.”