John and Mayumi in Long Island

John Nathan describes an epiphany experienced while chainsawing young trees in Hamptons son at publisher Barney Rosset's new property. I'm sure I've experienced something like this before, as one of the items "in orbit" around someone more powerful in some way. It can be thrilling to feel accepted into their crowd, but unnerving. There is a sense of inferiority--or that you are a plaything or novelty for them . . .

. . . I felt ashamed: Why was I pretending to enjoy his obsessive craziness? The thought led me to a shadowy place. There was a large cast of characters in orbit around Rosset who struck me as ordinary except for some eccentricity that qualified them as offbeat. What if I were the same genus, ingratiating and mediocre? I had experienced the same disquiet with Mishima, though Barney and I were surely closer than Mishima and I had ever been, and it would trouble me again.

(p 111)