Acknowledgments

It would not have been possible without the help of my friends:

John Ciardi, who praised and scolded me through the last two years of writing;

The late John Cheever, who urged me to begin and encouraged me through the first draft when I was his student at the Iowa Writers Workshop;

Eleanora Walker Tevis and her late husband, Walter Tevis, who directed me to an outstanding agent;

Molly Friedrich, my marvelous agent, who sent Berlin Wild to a dynamic editor;

Nan Graham, my wonderful editor; and all the other superlative Vikings;

and at Northern Kentucky University, Professors Doris Brett and Margery Rouse; President Leon E. Boothe; Provost Lyle Gray; my assistant Becky Williams;

and the National Endowment for the Arts

E.W.