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Copyright © 2020 by Jordan Kisner
All rights reserved
First edition, 2020
Some of these essays previously appeared, in different form, in the following publications: The American Scholar (“A Theory of Immortality,” under the title “No Wonder It Quakes”); The Believer (“Habitus”); The Best American Essays 2016 (“Thin Places”); n+1 (“Thin Places” and “Jesus Raves”); and The New York Times Magazine (“The Other City”).
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following material:
Lines from “For What Binds Us,” from Of Gravity & Angels, by Jane Hirshfield. Copyright © 1988 by Jane Hirshfield. Published by Wesleyan University Press and reprinted with permission.
Lines from “In Memory of Joseph Brodsky,” from Blizzard of One: Poems, by Mark Strand. Copyright © 1998 by Mark Strand. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Lines from “What the Living Do,” from What the Living Do, by Marie Howe. Copyright © 1997 by Marie Howe. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Lines from “The Best of It,” from The Best of It, by Kay Ryan. Copyright © 2010 by Kay Ryan. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.
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Although this is a work of nonfiction, the names of certain people have been changed. Their last names have been omitted or identifying characteristics have been changed to protect their privacy.