IN WRITING THIS BOOK and indeed for years before, I have had the privilege of being surrounded by great people and have shown my gratitude by exploiting them shamelessly. I am deeply indebted to colleagues at the University of Michigan–Flint and Michigan State University for many conversations, much advice, and editorial assistance. Professors Fred Svoboda, Alicia Kent, Steve Bernstein, Anjili Babbar, Jan Bernsten, and Leonora Smith have been unstinting in their contributions and their patience, which I have tried on many occasions. Their responses and suggestions inform this book in too many places to count. My profound thanks to Professor Jan Furman for her critical acumen, her generous support, and her willingness to express doubt regarding my flakier efforts. She is the best—and toughest—editor I could ever hope for. My thanks, too, to Diane Saylor and Nicole Bryant for observations, questions, and coffee.
It is no exaggeration to say that this book would not exist without my students. They never fail to teach me, and I am as obliged to them for their doubts as for their belief. They would probably be justified in charging me tuition. The same is true of readers of this book’s predecessor, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, especially those many who have taken the time to correspond. Their many comments, questions, and ideas have shaped the present text. More than one, in fact, requested early on that I write this very book; I should have heeded them sooner.
My thanks also to my editor, Rakesh Satyal, and the staff at HarperCollins, as well as to my agent, Faith Hamlin, and her assistant, Courtney Miller-Callihan. The process by which an idea becomes a manuscript and eventually a book is the furthest thing from mechanical, and at every stage, this one has fallen into the best of hands.
And finally, to my family I offer my most profound gratitude and love. My sons, Rob and Nate, have listened patiently and offered ideas and support when we were supposed to be fishing or hunting or building something, and I appreciate their efforts, and them, mightily. I have no idea how I could possibly have done any of this work over all these years without my wife, Brenda, offering her love and support. Her acceptance of my manifold shortcomings and idiosyncrasies is heroic, her tolerance for the slide-zone that is my workspace nothing short of saintly.
It remains only to be said that none of these excellent persons is in any way accountable for the shortcomings in these pages. The errors, as always, are purely mine.