My title, in part a tribute to Henry James’s novel The American (1877).
Stephen Wiltshire, British architectural artist diagnosed with autism, who has drawn from memory enormous panoramas of entire cities, accurate to the last detail, after a single brief helicopter ride over them, notably Rome in 2005, and many cities since.
Simon Baron-Cohen’s inspiring work on autism at Cambridge. Jalaja Narayanan, for being among the first to start the dialogue on this subject in India. Rekha Supriya, for amplifying it in many compassionate and practical ways.
Sunil Desai, for the big tip-off on famous ‘desi’ cases of the US West Coast.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli, for the compelling cover design.
Rajinder ‘Whizkid’ Ganju, for such an efficient and elegant typesetting job.
The lines that appear on pages 54 and 255 are from Robert Frost’s 1923 poem ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’.
The line quoted on page 24 is from the poem ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol (Lewis Allan), published in 1937 in the New York Teacher as ‘Bitter Fruit’. It was written in response to Lawrence Beitler’s 1930 photograph of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, being lynched in Marion, Indiana. Set to music later as ‘Strange Fruit’, it was made famous by Billie Holiday.
The lines quoted from the songs ‘Mahi ve’ from the film Kal Ho Na Ho (p. 162), ‘Janam, dekh lo, mit gayi dooriyaan’ from Veer Zara (p. 165), and ‘Tumhein jo maine dekha’ from Main Hoon Na (p. 173) are all by Javed Akhtar.
I would like to thank:
Vijay Raghavan, Susan Raghavan, Revathi Aditham, Shiva Aditham, Neehar Giri, Radica Giri, Chitra Chadhokar, Sunil Desai, for affection and hospitality in the US on so many occasions.
Kimberly Hébert, Sharon Guzik, Steve DePalma, Kathy King, Jack Beusmans, for being my American family.
Liz Ammons, for warmth, wisdom, and for opening up amazing new worlds.
Vijendran Sathyaraj, doctor mirabilis, for being an early champion, for continuing to be that, and for telling me about Powell’s ‘City of Books’ in Portland, Oregon.
K. Srilata, Devapriya Roy, Rahul Pandita, Tulsi Badrinath, for ratifying writerly angst in its various forms in various ways.
Karthika V.K., for being so prompt in accepting my book, for fine editorial instincts and invaluable feedback on the story arc; for always being close to laughter.
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, buddy and fellow sojourner on several editorial journeys, for unimpeachable logic and incredible meticulousness and commitment.
Girija Viraraghavan, M.S.Viraraghavan, D.S. Sastri, the late Lakshmi Sastri, pioneers all.
Tejaswi, for changing irrevocably how I view the world – our beautiful, sad, funny, slippery, slipping-away world – and for showing me how many ways there are to view it.
This book is for Krishna. i am through you so i.