The shadow of Christopher Nellerd was beloved in the town of Berks Falls, Minnesota as a civic leader, renaissance man, and all-around bon vivant. Nearly everyone in town attended his funeral: the mayor, whom he had saved from an orphanage fire as a child; four graduating classes of the school of international diplomacy he had founded; a half dozen of his successful heart transplant patients; and so many others. When the real Christopher Nellerd, car wash manager and divorcee living in West Plunkett 22 miles away, read the glowing eulogy of the shadow that had escaped him when he was 17 in exchange for the promise of a life free from the pressures of the spotlight, he spent a long, sad moment wondering how one could end up living in the shadow of a shadow.
