Smoke

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Like most texts purporting to be about the past, this is a book about the present. The past is to it both canvas and foil: a shadow thing that makes thinking about ourselves more interesting, less fettered to good sense. The novel may be political but it has no thesis: novel writing is interesting to me in so far as it is an open-ended process — a search, a jazz solo — rather than the skilful realisation of a pre-existing blueprint or the rehearsal of a subtly constructed argument. The best relationship of an author to his or her novel, I believe, is that of a reader; for to the reader belongs that greatest act of creation where stories are concerned, the transformation of words and sentences into tentative meaning, forever on the move.

This particular novel found me more than I searched for it. It grew out of a chance encounter with the Dickens quote that opens the book and reconnected me to a childhood feeling of being ambushed by narrative, a feeling both luxurious and urgent. For this I am deeply grateful; and grateful too to those people who encouraged me to surrender to this feeling wholesale (for it takes courage, sometimes, to indulge oneself). These are Simon Lipskar, my agent, who threatened me with violence and perdition were I not to pursue this project; my editors, Bill Thomas, Kirsty Dunseath, and Jennifer Lambert, whose insight and kindness enabled me to give the book its final shape; and James Boyd White and Andrew Herbert Merrills, who read early drafts and offered sage advice. My greatest thanks goes to my wife, Chantal, who read each chapter with me hovering in the background pacing to and fro asking, Are you finished yet? For your patience as much as your encouragement, my love, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.