ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THANK YOU to Reeves Hamilton and Nick Mullendore at Vertical Ink Agency, who found the right home for this novel. Thanks especially to Reeves, for his faith, intelligence, and weird taste.

Thank you to my editor, Christine Neulieb, for her deeply keen reading and editing of the book, and for publishing it, too. And thanks to the rest of the Lanternfish Press team: Feliza Casano, Amanda Thomas, and Aubry Norman.

Thank you to Julia Bosson and Spencer Everett, brilliant and stunning artists and thinkers, who improved my novel beyond measure. And thank you, again, for being my dear friends.

Thank you to those who read the novel in earlier drafts and offered invaluable thoughts: Mandy Berman, Heidi Diehl, Mindy Hersh, Hannah Solomon, and Jacob Solomon. Thank you to Soon Wiley for his cheerleading and guidance. Thank you to Jason Schneider for the horror.

Thank you to the underwater photographer Alex Mustard, who blessed me with permission to use his haunting photograph of a basking shark.

The germ of this novel sprang from reading “Utopia, Abandoned,” a gripping essay by Nikil Saval about the history of Ivrea, Italy, originally published in the New York Times in August 2019. I wrote most of the novel at the warm and welcoming Bexley Public Library and some of it at the vast and terrifying Ohio History Center, both equally suited to the task and both in Columbus, Ohio. If the novel had music, it would have to be scored by Hiroshi Yoshimura and Inoyama Land.

Thank you to Mindy Hersh and Jacob Solomon for their unyielding support and love. Thank you to Hannah Solomon for her crackling brain and massive heart. Thank you to Judah Solomon and Taryn Brean for their vicarious joy. And thank you to Stellie Solomon, who wasn’t present for any of this, but who deserves thanks nevertheless.

And thank you most of all to Mandy Berman, my partner in everything, who inspires and delights me daily, and who teaches me, through her art and her actions, about real, genuine courage and perseverance. Thank you for a life of love and ever-deepening roots.