ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to Sean McDonald and PJ Mark, without whom this tale might not have come to the telling; Frederic Bonn and Zoe Deleu, who opened the door; Marilyn and Michael Knowles, who opened their home; and the MacDowell Colony, for its generosity.

The author also wishes to thank Emily Bell and everybody else at FSG, everybody at Janklow & Nesbit, Jennifer Murphy, Asha Thomas, Geoff Kloske, Megan Lynch, Kate Lee, Frédéric Guelaff, Mathieu Baillot, Leslie Baldwin, Andrew and Melissa Cotton Womack, Jonathan S. Paul, LCD Soundsystem, Katherine Ortega and the Mafiosos, and Jim Coudal.

Above all, Rachel Knowles, my love.

To everyone the author encountered in Paris, especially his colleagues who didn’t imagine winding up in a book, a mountain of gratitude.