I want to thank Jaynie Royal, Pam Van Dyk, and all the other rockstars at Regal House Publishing for believing in this strange mutant of a novel. I am so grateful for your faith, guidance, and patience along the way.
I would also like to thank my agent, Jim McCarthy. Your help fleshing out the characters and shaping this novel were everything.
I can’t forget to thank Rob Lane, the first reader for everything I write. While it’s embarrassing sending my unedited work to you, your help trimming my typos and malaprops down to one-per-page is invaluable.
I would also like to thank everyone I’ve worked with at various retail jobs over the past twenty years. This novel was born from those experiences. Sure, the pay is shit and the customers are horrible, but the comradery of working any service industry job is to die for. Jokes, bullshitting, commiserating, feeling a misguided sense of pride when sales are good even though it makes no difference to your paycheck, all of it made those years not only bareable, but fun. Thank you.
Lastly, I’d like to thank my family. My parents have always encouraged me, even when I was writing angsty, emo poems in elementrary school. My brother told me my first stab at a novel when I was eighteen (an artful epic about the son of a donkey show performer) wasn’t half bad. My three children are the joy of my silly little life. Plus, they know Daddy is a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around if they allow him to write in the morning, and thusly afford me that time. And my wife, whom this novel is dedicated to. You’ve been my ride-or-die since I was nineteen. You are a beautiful person, inside and out. You have supported my passions and writing every step of the way, somehow knowing when I need to be told to quit feeling sorry for myself and when I need a gentle smile-frown of empathy. You are my best friend. I love you.
Oh, and I need to thank The Velvet Underground, because according to Spotify, I listened to “Oh! Sweet Nothin’” 1,332 times over the eighteen months it took to write this novel.