Thanks to my editor Haaris Naqvi at Bloomsbury for ongoing support and friendship. Thank you to Emily Jane Cohen for incisive feedback on an early draft of this book. I’m grateful to have had a wonderful student assistant, Leah Shain, who helped me hone the book and rearrange chapters. My colleagues at Loyola University New Orleans keep me upbeat and appreciating the work of literature each day on our campus, even when things look bleak. Thanks especially to Hillary Eklund and Mark Yakich for inspiring significant parts of this book. Ed Winstead, Sarah Bray, David Winters, Eileen Joy, Michael Marder, Linda Levitt, Rob Horning, and Jonathan Hahn gave superb editorial advice and suggestions on pieces from the book that were published in earlier forms in Guernica, Public Books, Inside Higher Ed, 3:AM Magazine, O-Zone, The Philosophical Salon, The New Everyday, Real Life, and Sierra. Thank you Susan Clements for indexing. Thanks, finally, to my family, Lara, Julien, and Camille for boundless love and generosity as we’ve attempted to make a life around the strange work of literature—at times amorphous and consuming, but I hope enriching and stimulating, too.