I owe a debt of gratitude to many people for this novel. I’m particularly grateful to Paula Milne and Mónica Parle for their encouragement. My deepest thanks to my brilliant agent, Nelle Andrew, and to Laura Brown and Mary-Anne Harrington for having a vision for this book beyond anything I could have hoped for. My gratitude to the team at Park Row Books, and at Tinder Press in the UK, for their skill and dedication.
I would like to thank Deepa Shastri for invaluable guidance and insight as a British Sign Language consultant during the book’s production stages, and Jenna Beacom for her detailed sensitivity read. My thanks also to Park Row Books’ design team for working with Jenna to bring American Sign Language to the page in the beautifully illustrated chapter headings.
The London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme provided me with space, a peer network, and resources which informed the sections on 19th century printing, amongst others. I’m grateful to the Lucy Cavendish Prize for shortlisting me in 2019 and for all their support for new writers.
Many readers helped me on the long journey of writing a novel. Special thanks to Mark Cockshutt, Jay Bhadricha, Chez Cotton, Claire Griffiths, Stephen Hepplestone, Sophia Morris-Jones, Yosola Olorunshola, Sarah Pickthall, Lisa Smith and Katie Waldegrave.
For support and advice while I was writing, my gratitude to David Cross, Kim Helman, Sylvia Puchalska, Faye Stewart and Rosie Thomasson. I would like to thank all my teachers of British Sign Language (at City Lit, Proud Hands BSL and Remark!) for their dedication and expertise, in particular Sue Birkin and Alison Wherry-Alimo.
To my family, Henry Marsh and Kate Fox, Katharine Stockland and William Marsh, Amadis Cammell, Sue and Andy Walker: thank you for your love and support. To Tom, who with my two daughters created many joyful distractions from writing, thank you for your patience and advice, and for holding everything together so I could write this book.
Lastly, to my mother, Hilary Marsh, and aunts, Vivienne Pozo and Josephine Leppard, thank you for your wisdom, and the gifts and lessons of deafness. I’m grateful for this inheritance.