For years, John Green has kept a note in his wallet that reads: “In 1990, 12 million children died under the age of five. Last year, fewer than five million did.” It’s a pocket-sized symbol of hard-boiled optimism. A reminder, he tells me, jetlagged and nursing a beer in a hotel lobby, “that hope is the correct response to this mess, as opposed to despair”.
Granted, carrying around a note like this is exactly the sort of thing a character in a John Green novel would do. The bestselling author fills his books with such irresistible quirks: the boy with cancer who smokes unlit cigarettes; the boy who collects the last words of famous people; the boy obsessed with anagrams. That Green, 49 years old and born and bred in Indiana, should support, of all the football teams in the world, AFC Wimbledon is another eccentricity worthy of his novels. He’s here in London for a match.
