Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks to Karl Whittington for suggesting the narrator’s research topic and generously providing me with readings. Any mistakes regarding the Gothic field are my own.

Thank you Fuat Savaş, Vera Schoeller, Zsófia Young, Kavita Bedford, Zachary Fox for your readings and insights. Thank you also, Zach, for the photograph, and the continued conversations. Thank you to the Voltaire group for your feedback on the au pair chapter.

Thank you Cressida Leyshon and The New Yorker magazine for publishing an early chapter and for your acute sensitivity to the text.

To my agent, Sarah Bowlin, for her heart, presence, and care.

Laura Perciasepe, Ellie Steel, Cal Morgan, Claire McGinnis, Aidan O’Neill, Liana Cohen, Dredheza Maloku, and the teams at Riverhead and Harvill Secker: thank you for your support of the book and for bringing it to life.

Deep gratitude to my husband and first reader, Maks Ovsjanikov, for sharing in every challenge and every joy.