“There are times when you begin to identify with King being thrust into a role that he never asked for,” he says quietly. “In the same kind of way, I never applied for this position ­ it was something that kind of dropped out of the sky. I feel like my life has been to a large extent taken over by forces beyond my control, and all I can hope to do is my best.”

Carson has matured in the decade since Mrs. King turned to him as an up-and-coming young academic, and his hair and neatly trimmed beard now are the color of finely buffed pewter. He often wears an expression that is part squint, part question mark, and his dark eyebrows tend to furrow when he digs for answers.

Clayborne Carson (Plain text) Clayborne Carson (Adobe Acrobat format - 115k)

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