ACKNOWLEDGMENTSACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A FEW KEY PEOPLE EARLY ON SAW THE VALUE OF A NOVEL ABOUT a nineteenth-century invalid who spends a very long time in bed thinking. My wonderful agent, Michael Carlisle, believed in Alice and showed me what to throw away and where to start (my original chapter 20). Masie Cochrane, a wizard at structure and pacing, provided valuable advice and helped lead me out of confusion.

Pat Strachan was the first person to read the fictional Alice and utter encouraging words, which meant a great deal.

Thanks to Jack Shoemaker, Counterpoint’s editorial director, for his perspicacity, wisdom, and humor, and to Jane Vandenburgh, whose gifted editing touches helped make Alice a better read.

I am indebted to Mary Bisbee-Beek for being exactly on the right wave-length with this book; to Matthew Hoover, whose organized thoughtfulness made the succession of galleys practically painless; and to Irene Barnard, who saved me from my worst mistakes (and in French, too!); and to Sharon Wu and Claire Shalinsky for their excellent work, and everyone at Counterpoint who worked on this book.

Pam Petro, Praseela Feltenstein, and my son, Jake Teresi, were brave enough to read and appraise the manuscript in a larval stage. I am also grateful to a number of special people whose insightful readings of intermediate drafts kept me going: Bayard Cobb, Rachel Hooper, Thad Carhart, Marion Abbott, Gomila Garber, Cam Mann, David Gillham. Much of Alice first surfaced in writing groups led by the multi-talented Nerissa Nields; thanks also to my fellow groupies, too numerous to list here. Dorothy Firman, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Gail Kenny, Christina Platt, and Ellen Story helped by reading Alice carefully (in our book group), and hatching diabolical schemes to make it a bestseller.

And, finally, special thanks are owed to my nonfictional husband, Dick Teresi, for living with Alice these long years without complaint—or almost without complaint.