I want to thank my editor, Ileene Smith, and my agent, Chris Calhoun, for their steadfast support and wise, good-humored counsel. Mike Levine improved the manuscript substantially with his careful reading, as did the wonderful Dan Heaton and Susan Laity, the copyeditors of my dreams. The staff at the Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London, was extraordinarily helpful. Richard Daniels and Georgina Orgill, especially, gave me essential aid. Late in the day Steven Moore generously came to the rescue with his indexing expertise and keen eye for mistakes. Heather Gold of Yale University Press was more instantly helpful than any author ever deserved.
Members of the Kubrick family, Christiane Kubrick, Jan Harlan, and Katharina Kubrick, shared their memories of Stanley Kubrick and graciously trusted me to proceed with this project. I am honored to have met and interviewed them. Julian Senior and Vincent D’Onofrio generously talked to me about their relationships with Kubrick. I am grateful for their warmth and good humor, as well as the brilliant insight into Kubrick they gave me. For various forms of Kubrickian lore and advice, I also thank Robert Kolker, Nathan Abrams, Katie McQuerrey, Noah Isenberg, Michael Benson, Rodney Hill, Sandy Lieberson, Robert Pippin, Dana Polan, Lawrence Ratna, and Phil Blumberg, as well as Mark Lentz and the other members of New York’s Stanley Kubrick meet-up. The Garcia Malkins of Mexico City and the Malkins of New York supported me in my Kubrick research, and in other ways too. Yigal and Esme Chazan and Paulette Farsides provided me a home away from home in London, site of the Kubrick Archive, and Jenn Lewin did the same in Haifa. Eric Banks, director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, and the institute’s fellows were extraordinarily helpful when I presented my work. Among my students, Quentin Key-Tello, Nicholas Day, and Mandana Naviafar of the University of Houston Honors College were particularly insightful about Kubrick’s films.
My editors at Tablet magazine, David Samuels and Matthew Fishbane, have made that publication a much-needed intellectual home for me. Tablet has kindly given permission for several passages from my essays on Kubrick to appear here in revised form.
I am grateful for a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which enabled me to write this book. I am grateful too for the help given me by J. Kastely, who brought honesty and generosity to the University of Houston English Department chair’s office, and to Bill Monroe, Dean of the Honors College at UH, whose friendship and good humor never wavered. The John and Rebecca Moores Professorship and the Houstoun grant program at UH provided needed funds for the project.
I owe most of all to my wife, Victoria, and my son Ariel, a challenging interpreter of 2001. Their love kept me going, and enjoying life with them made writing this book possible.