But it's also a narrative to get lost in, a Bildungsroman that is, by chance, a poignant elegy to the America that is being trashed by Trump and his vandals.
"I saw the Manson case as a fight for the life of the counterculture itself – one of our own was being martyred, our most cherished beliefs were being trashed by the cynical establishment and their lackies, the LAPD," journalist David Dalton later wrote.
He certainly is being trashed by many members of his own party who he will need to win over in a general election.
Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) raised another point: "If you are so proud of this right-to-work idea, why didn't you campaign on it?" Lassa noted that what the governor had described as a "distraction" during his reelection a few months previously quickly became priority when Walker's terrible budget bill was being trashed by state newspapers.
It was probably the first time in eastern Europe, since Soviet days, that a western embassy had so honoured a person whose good name was, at the same time, being trashed by the state, national media and prosecutors.
Activists at the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow were told of "huge levels of debt", fans being "priced out", and clubs being "trashed" by their owners.
Firms that have poor hiring practices are sure to be trashed by applicants, which will undoubtedly affect the reputation of the firm.
His house was bombed, his followers were killed, his name was trashed by newspaper editorials and his phones were tapped by J Edgar Hoover's FBI.
"They started from nothing, were deeply misunderstood and were trashed by people threatened by new business models," he said in his offices here.
The fact that the company ignored you after your suitcase had been trashed by its courier, was also distinctly unhelpful.
