For book club discussion questions on

Hannah Lillith Assadi’s Sonora, please visit

bit.ly/SonoraBookClub

Acknowledgments

My deepest gratitude is owed to PJ Mark for his enduring faith, Marya Spence for her invaluable assistance, to Mark Doten for his brilliant vision, and to Meredith Barnes, Rachel Kowal, and everyone at Soho Press—all who tirelessly made this dream real.

To Joe and Anya Stiglitz for their support throughout, for bringing me along on the tour, and to everyone in suite 212 who lent an ear to the struggle.

To early readers: Laina Macrae, Predrag Milovanovic, Andrew Spano, Binnie Kirshenbaum and Robert Lopez for their profound guidance.

To Donald Antrim, Rivka Galchen, Ben Marcus, and long before them Susan Mashburn for their teaching, and to fellow writers for their wisdom in all the workshops over the years.

To Kellam Clark for his dark, magical home on Dean Street.

To Jonathan Thomas for the desert walks in the early stages of this book and to Ben Sandler for all the Starbucks cigs and for Paris.

To Jesse Glendon Tillers for her songs and for all the gorgeous, howling nights.

To Sabra Embury, Maria King, and Ashley Villarreal for their incomparable strength, sisterhood, and inspiration.

To Elena Megalos for living inside this book with me over the years, for her steadfast devotion and loving friendship, without which I would have been lost.

To all those who passed away too soon at Desert Mountain High School, this book is also dedicated to you.

To Gandalf Gavan for so much, but mostly for impressing upon me that I had no choice but to write, and whose life endures on every page of this book.

To my mother, Susan, for living bold and true, for your unconditional love, for being my best friend and advocate, and for believing in an improbable dream.

To my father, Sami, for teaching me how to fight then fight harder and what it means most profoundly to find home. For your heart, your compassion, and your courage. You are the strongest lion I know.

And finally to Jake Gwyn, for leading me out, you are my Orpheus, and for letting me look back from time to time for the sake of this book.