“Claire, don’t you want to remember?”
I nod my head, because I do. I do want to remember. But I’m in that space between sleeping and waking where images of a dream collide with the coming demands of the day, and I want to go on dreaming.
So instead, I say to him, “Tell me a story.”
Acknowledgments
For their unflinching support and friendship, thanks to Claude Hurlbert, A. D. Feys, Tim Johnson, Dave Martin, Mark L. Shelton, Tom Sweterlitsch, and Jay Letto. With admiration, thank you to Stewart O’Nan, Laila Lalami, and Christopher Scotton. For their dedication to good books, thank you to my astute and extraordinary editors, Amy Einhorn and Caroline Bleeke, and to all the fine people at Flatiron. At the Gernert Company, thank you to Flora Hackett, Anna Worrall, and especially my agent, Andy Kifer, whose brilliance lit the lantern for my manuscript and guided it down every right path. And to depths I can’t express, thank you to Erin Cawley, who through draft after draft of this book turned over each word with intelligence, acuity, and devotion.