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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

My thanks to three readers: Matt Bell, Mike Heppner, and Robert Walsh.

“to meet the water,” an excerpt from Cannonball in slightly different form, appeared in J&L Illustrated #3, ed. Paul Maliszewski, J&L Books, 2012, pp. 245-55.

Brief quotations from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ed. Thomas H. Johnson, Boston: Little Brown, 1960) appear in the body of the narrative—specifically from #488, 712, 754, 986, 1129, 1398, 1428, 1553, 1556, and 1642.

This project is supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Copyright © 2013 by Joseph McElroy

Cover design by Steven Seighman
Cover art by G. Davis Cathcart

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This 2013 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
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