To Pamela Dorman, editor extraordinaire, and Jeramie Orton for asking all the right questions and for their patience while I tried to find the answers. And to Brian Tart, Andrea Schulz, Kate Stark, Lindsay Prevette, Roseanne Serra, Alison Klooster, Mary Stone, Allison Carney and the rest of the Viking/Penguin team for all of their hard work on behalf of this book.
To Douglas Stewart for his many years of guidance and friendship and for always being the very best person with whom to discuss ideas even when they are in their most inchoate form. And to Szilvia Molnar and Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic and Jason Richman at UTA for their support and encouragement.
To Lara Bazelon, Deborah Bishop, Deborah Goodman, Chelsea Hadley, Daniel Handler, Juliette Kayyem, Rima Lyn, Laura McNeal, Tom McNeal, Diane Merkadeau, Carmen Naranjo, Christopher Noxon, Justin Reinhardt, Janice Ricciardi, Stephanie Rubin, Ann Sokatch and Daniel Sokatch for reading early drafts of this book and offering invaluable feedback and insight.