My thanks to my father for financial support I received from him during this project.
To Jordan Pavlin, my editor, for her masterful guidance. She had the ability to compress instructions into a few clear and simple bullet points, which, like the best athletic coaching, could be followed in the heat of the game. She was right about what this story should (and shouldn’t) be.
To Amanda Urban, my agent—steady and shrewd, loyal and patient—and a captain in her industry. On the hardest days of this process, she not only picked up the phone but bought me a beer. I won’t forget.
To Ellen Feldman, my production editor—a prodigious, industrious technician whose clarity and attention to detail have made a vital difference to our final product. It has been a rare privilege—and relief to the author who sees nothing but his own errors—to work with her.
To Paul Webster and Taran O’Leary of Viking Moving Services in Concord, Massachusetts, for your tremendous act of friendship when this book was on the ropes. You are not just experienced movers since 9 A.D., you are patrons of the arts, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And one more time to she who was there when it all started and walked every mile of this journey on her own bleeding feet—let’s bandage those wounds—to my true friend—my wife. Beth, there’d be no song to sing without you.
Long life to our Kentucky sprites, Pinky, Tux and Nell!