The Smith family, his archive, and the people who populate this book and my two decades of research have my foremost gratitude and respect. I couldn’t have done anything without them. This line of work has been a privilege, an education, and a reward for its own sake.
Two editors made formative impacts on the manuscript while it was in progress—Nicole Rudick, over the six years of working with her at The Paris Review, and Scott Schomburg of Rock Fish Stew, over an intense twenty-one days in 2016 when I was traveling in Missouri, Minnesota, and San Francisco and working with him long-distance to reduce the text to essentials. Warm thanks to Paul Elie for seeing possibilities in my original proposal years ago and to Ileene Smith for shepherding a much different result, and to Stephen Weil, Jackson Howard, Maya Binyam, and everyone else at FSG.
Integral to this work over the years were Laurie Cochenour and her family, the Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the Logan family. Also, Sara Fishko and Bob Gill, Kate Joyce, Ben Ratliff, and Hank Stephenson; Dan Partridge, Lauren Hart, Courtney Reid-Eaton, Tom Rankin, and Alex Harris; Chris McElroen, Brigid Hughes, Roland Kelts, Michelle Wildgen, Farnum Brown, Joe Henry and Melanie Ciccone, Ivan Weiss, Natalie Smith, Land Arnold, Jem Cohen, Anna Mazhirov, Paul Weinstein, Naomi Schegloff, Dale Strattman, David Simonton, Ken Jacob, Michael Rosenberg, and Betty Adcock and her late husband, Don.
Gratitude to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona for making available Smith’s things (nods to Denise Gose, Leslie Squyres, Dianne Nilsen, and Carol Elliott) and to the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for giving me a base for fifteen years. Thanks to Steve Balcom and Lane Wurster of the Splinter Group. And ongoing gratitude to Jeff Posternak, Sarah Chalfant, and Andrew Wylie for bringing me in and standing by me patiently. Special thanks to Momoko Gill for her indelible impact. And thanks to Ann and Lex Alexander, who introduced me to the metal artist Leo Gaev, who turned the sink into a desk. This book is dedicated to Allan Gurganus, who, among many other manners of friendship and inspiration, handed me a worn copy of The Quest for Corvo in 2009.
Finally, all my love to Courtney Fitzpatrick and Parker Fitzpatrick Stephenson—here’s to the next two decades.