Acknowledgments

I’m very glad to have this chance once again to say thank you to the people who helped make it possible for me to write this book.

For years of friendship and insight—on writing as well as life—thank you: Alena Graedon, Nellie Hermann, Nathan Ihara, Tania James, Susannah Kohn, Dina Nayeri, and Maggie Pouncey. For particularly generous support of this book, I especially want to thank Karen Russell.

For various kinds of support and good times, thank you to Sara Irwin, Heather Sauceda Hannon, Shiloh Beckerly, Kelly Haas, Liz Guando and Dan Guando, Rachel Burgess, and Jack Hostetter and Carrie Loewenthal Massey.

For an endearingly weird non-book-club book club, thank you, Brittany Banta, Jenny Blackman, Hannah Davey, Meena Hart Duerson, Paul Lucas, Devin McKnight, Finn Smith, Pitchaya Sudbanthad (and Nathan Ihara and Casey Walker).

For their wisdom and generosity, thank you, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Dani Shapiro, and Michael Maren.

Thank you again to my teachers, whose insights continue to guide my work as a writer and as a teacher: Aimee Bender, Nathan Englander, Mary Gordon, Sam Lipsyte, Mona Simpson, and Mark Slouka.

Thank you to my wonderful and talented colleagues at the University of Oregon: Daniel Anderson, Lowell Bowditch, Jason Brooks Brown, Marjorie Celona, Geri Doran, Garrett Hongo, and Brian Trapp. Thank you also to all of my students, whose work continually challenges and inspires me. Thank you to Julia Schewanick for smoothing the way.

Thank you to Amelia Duke, who made it possible to leave the side of a newborn baby for a few hours at a time to finish revising this book—and to do so without the slightest bit of worry.

I feel extremely fortunate to have such a kind and brilliant editor, Kate Medina. Thank you, Kate, for putting so much thought and so much care into these pages.

Thank you to the rest of the Random House team, especially Anna Pitoniak, Erica Gonzalez, London King, Gina Centrello, Susan Kamil, and Evan Camfield. Thank you also to copyeditor Deb Dwyer for a particularly thorough and thoughtful read.

Thank you to Suzanne Baboneau at Simon & Schuster UK for your continued enthusiasm.

Thank you to Eric Simonoff at WME for your encouragement, savvy, and freindship. Thank you also to the rest of the amazing WME team, especially Laura Bonner, Tracy Fischer, Jazmine Goguen, Alicia Gordon, and Lauren Szurgot.

I am also grateful to have come across the following books in my research, all of which were crucial: Awakenings by Oliver Sacks, Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar, Spillover by David Quammen, A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Dreamland by David K. Randall, and, from the Oxford Very Short Introduction series: Sleep by Steven W. Lockley and Russell G. Foster, Dreaming by J. Allan Hobson, Freud by Anthony Storr, Jung by Anthony Stevens, and Consciousness by Susan Blackmore.

And now to my family:

For treating me like a sister, thank you, Liz Chu and Kiel Walker. For love and enthusiasm—and many hours of crucial babysitting—thank you, Cheryl Walker and Steve Walker.

Thank you to my parents, Jim Thompson and Martha Thompson, for all your love, help, interest (and babysitting!)—and for being my biggest fans.

Thank you, sweet Hazel, for your amazing brain, your enormous personality, and for generally enlarging my life—as well as this book. (I added a newborn to this story when you were eleven days old.) Thank you also to tiny, mysterious Penny for big smiles and inspiration and for sleeping so soundly on my chest while I finished this book.

Lastly, thank you, Casey, to whom I owe so much it’s hard to settle on the right words, so I’ll just say this: for everything.

Загрузка...