ALL MY THANKS TO Claudia Ballard, Barry Harbaugh, and Cal Morgan for their insight and faith, and to everyone at William Morris and HarperCollins who helped to make this book a reality. I am grateful to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Santa Fe Art Institute, ArtFarm Nebraska, and the hardworking staff of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference for giving me community, support, and the gift of time.
Thanks also to Heidi Julavits, Ben Marcus, and Sam Lipsyte at Columbia for encouraging me to write what I could not yet write, and to early readers JW McCormack, Shayne Barr, Kimberly Wang, and Kathleen Alcott, who each embody a way of seeing that I wish I could make my own. To my parents for loving me and teaching me. And to Alex Gilvarry, a fantastic person to love.