ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of the quotes in this book are cited by Abby herself, but four appear unattributed. “They are all gone into the world of light! / And I alone sit ling’ring here” is by the seventeenth-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughn. “History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake” is James Joyce. “The barrier between oneself and one’s knowledge of oneself is high indeed” belongs to James Baldwin. And “It is ideas which make people brave” is from Scottish novelist Alasdair Gray. Gray’s full quote is “It is ideas which make people brave, ideas and love of course.”

The French composer Abby prefers to Pauline Oliveros is Éliane Radigue.

This work owes a very large debt to Christian Anderson, a terrific person and enthusiastic economics professor who handed me, when we first met, for reasons I still can’t imagine, a collection of essays on John Maynard Keynes by contemporary economists. That got this endeavor off the ground.

Abby’s various intellectual adventures probably don’t require a complete bibliography of sources, but for readers interested in Keynes’s life, I recommend two excellent histories. Robert Skidelsky’s John Maynard Keynes, 1883–1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman is the authoritative text, and was for me an invaluable resource. Zachary D. Carter’s The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes was, unfortunately for me, not published until I was well into this project, but it was still an important source for me, and a great pleasure to read.

One of the oddities of researching a fictional thesis I thought I’d made up was that I discovered along the way—as Abby discovers—that I was far from being the first person to think about economics in terms of rhetoric, utopia, and so on. Professor Dierdre McCloskey is the source that features most prominently in this novel, but there are many thinkers pushing our understanding of economics in new directions. Professor Irene van Staveren’s Alternative Ideas from 10 (Almost) Forgotten Economists could not appear by title here, because it was published several years after this novel takes place, but I recommend it as a fun and engaging nonspecialist introduction to economic pluralism.

For allowing me to sponge off their various expertise, thank you to Ben Donnelly, Peter Schmelz, Joshua Cohen, Devin Johnston, Jessica Baran, and my brother, David.

Thanks to Kate Johnson, my agent, and Emily Burns, my editor—­I’m so thankful for both of you! And all the good people at Grove.

I think of writing as a solitary activity, which is ridiculous, since there is always one other person here with me, reading, thinking, talking. Biggest thanks and love to Danielle Dutton.