I would also like to thank other friends and colleagues who took the time to read this book and make it better: Jared Hohlt, for being my editor even when he is no longer my editor; Tad Friend, for an unexpected and extremely fun manuscript swap and the resulting clear-eyed read; Jia Tolentino, for her unstinting enthusiasm and incisiveness; Leslie Jamison, for one of the most wonderful editorial notes ever written, and for holding up the highway sign that said NARRATIVE; Helen Macdonald, for understanding as well as anyone the challenges of writing about grief and for knowing where to begin, plus everything else; and Michael Kavanagh, for the immensely patient and helpful readings and rereadings of this and all things, and for the companionship in laughter and grief. Many thanks also to Becca Laurie, for being the best P.I. and the best design eye in the business, and to Ben Phelan for the thoroughgoing fact-checking. All remaining errors are strictly my own, especially any pertaining to Ogden Nash.
This book is largely about family, and I could not have written it if my own, both given and chosen, were not so unfailingly loving and supportive. I can never sufficiently thank Bill and Sandy Cep, who trusted me first with their daughter and then with their story. Anyone who knows them also knows what an honor it is to be treated like one of their own. Similarly, Katelin Cep and Melinda Cep welcomed me into their lives from the beginning with open arms, not to mention matching pajamas, road trips, and the ultimate sacrifice of half-chocolate birthday cake.
I do not doubt that it is a mixed blessing to have a writer in the family, and perhaps especially so during times of grief, yet my mother, Margot Schulz, and my sister, Laura Schulz, never for a moment wavered in their support of me and of this book. Because the story I tell in its opening section is, for obvious reasons, chiefly about my father, my mother gets credit there only for teaching me good grammar and good manners. In reality, she also taught me patience, attentiveness, generosity, forbearance, and kindness, all through unflagging example. My sister, that scatterbrain, in fact has one of the finest minds as well as one of the finest hearts I’ve ever known; I see in her not only the best of my father but also the best of this world. She keeps me honest and makes me laugh, and has brought me, along with countless other joys, the joy of growing close to her own family: Sue Kaufman, Rachel Novick, MJ Kaufman, Henry Philofsky, and Adele Kaufman-Schulz—and, through them, to Steve Novick, Aviva Stahl, and Sabrina Bremer. All of them are very dear to me, and central to my life in ways not always visible in these pages.
Not all of this book was easy to write, but one large swath of it was: the love story that forms the heart of “Found” and continues through “And.” When I was working on those sections, I wrote each day, then brought the draft pages up to bed each night to read them aloud to Casey Cep, who inspired them. It brought me great comfort and great happiness to share them with her, as it brings me great comfort and great happiness to share everything with her, and she has made them, together with the rest of the manuscript and the rest of my life, immeasurably better. This book is for her, in the profound hope that it is only the beginning of the story. And it is also for my father—in the words once more of Robert Frost, the tribute of the current to the source.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Being Wrong. She won a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for “The Really Big One,” an article about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Lost & Found grew out of “Losing Streak,” which was originally published in The New Yorker and later anthologized in The Best American Essays. Her other essays and reporting have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Food Writing. A native of Ohio, she lives with her family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
kathrynschulz.com