The author would like to express gratitude to the Lannan Foundation for an award that bought time to write, and to the Rockefeller Foundation for a residency at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, where some of this work was written. Thanks also to Paul D’Amato for the generous use of his photo Isela, Girl in Spray (from open pump) on the cover, and to Perry Higman, whose translation of “El Conde Arnaldos” is quoted on the epigraph page.

A special thanks to Tracy Kidder.