Within the pages of a book I recently read, being used in complete sentences, I was excited to find a term that I imagined I had coined: ingoing. Damn. I knew I should have registered a trademark for the word. I could at least be receiving royalties for its usage.
Regardless, I'm glad to see the term taking root.
The passage, without further ado:
"I have nothing at all against George."
"But?"
"But?"
"But there's a 'but' coming here, isn't there? It feels like there's a 'but' coming," mumbles Elsa.
Dad sighs.
"...But I suppose George and I are quite different in terms of our... personalities, perhaps. He's very..."
"Fun?"
Dad looks stressed again.
"I was going to say he seems very outgoing."
"And you're very... in-going?"
Dad fingers the steering wheel nervously.
"Why can't it be your mother's fault? Perhaps we don't visit you at Christmas because Mum doesn't like Lisette."
"Is that it?"
Dad looks uncomfortable. He's a rubbish liar. "No. Everyone likes Lisette, I'm well aware of it." He says it as people do when considering an extremely irritating character trait in the person they live with.
Elsa looks at him for a long time before she asks:
"Is that why Lisette loves you? Because you are very in-going?"
Dad smiles.
"I don't know why she loves me, if I'm to be quite honest."
"Do you love her?"
"Incredibly," he says, without any hesitation.
But then he immediately looks quite hesitant again.
"Are you going to ask why Mom and I stopped loving each other?"
"I was going to ask why you started."
"Was our marriage so terrible, in your view?"
Elsa shrugs, "I mean, you're very different, that's all. She doesn't like Apple, that sort of thing. And you kind of don't like Star Wars."
Excerpt from My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman
