With age, Canaris' walks had gotten shorter, just two or three miles, near the end.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

Canaris was hurled off the road, into a gravel parking lot near the river.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

One by one, at the front of the chapel, people talked about Canaris, his charm, his modesty, his insight and erudition.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

In Canaris' case, there were specific grounds for hope, his references to a novel underway, something major, years in the writing.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

George Canaris is the first faculty member of this college in half a century whose death merited an obituary in the New York Times.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

It's hard not to picture Canaris in a good mood, walking into an early fog that the sun would chase away by breakfast time.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

To some of us on campus, that last remark seemed harsh and condescending: the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately school of criticism, unfair to George Canaris and to Harper Lee.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

Canaris' father was a camera man, mine a screen writer.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

And, in Canaris' case, all this conjecture reflected what people felt about Canaris' brilliant truncated career: they had to have more than they had, to know more than they knew.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

It occurred to me, just then, that Canaris may have made room for me, that movement at one end of the tenure-track line would create an opening at the other end.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'

Canaris had walked out onto the road that ran by his house, turned onto the highway that leads to the bottom of the college hill, then turned right, on to a road that crosses the river and leads to a walking trail running from Mount Vernon to Danville.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gone Tomorrow'