I received a few criticisms about family relations revolved around the fact that Mom & Dad would never have allowed Carl to move out and would probably have punished him severely for his behavior as well as taken away his money, or they would have kicked him out completely. Personally, I think that would have been a little harsh, even for the more rigid family dynamics of the idealized nuclear family of the period. (One absolutely fascinating email claimed that Carl’s treatment of others is psychopathic, going back to his fight on the bus and his lawsuit - the miscreants should have been sentenced to tithing - and, oh, by the way, I’m probably a psychopath, too! Tithing? On my most creative day I couldn’t have dreamed up tithing!)
All dollars are given for the time they are written in, so in Chapter 17, we are using 1971 dollars. Is $6-7k per year a realistic figure for an apartment & living expenses at that time? I think so. In 1977 I graduated from college as the highest paid non-engineer in my frat house, at $14k per year. This was after the inflation of 1973 onward due to the quadrupling of energy costs. So $6-7k per annum apartment rent & expenses should be realistic.
Not a whole lot to blog about with Chapter 19. Hamilton makes a triumphal return, in all his amazingness. We’ve got some good times and some bad times. To those who commented about the danger of messing around with a girl with Italian ancestry, well, no guts, no glory! You might get killed, but what a way to go!