And to my husband, Alvin Peng. Who is my favorite everything.
And finally: I am not a psychoanalyst and therefore you mustn’t take the words of Doktor Messerli as anything other than what they are intended to be: fiction. If you ever feel as terrible as Anna, please—I beg of you—seek help.
about the author
JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM is the author of several collections of poetry, including Harlot, Necropolis, and The Devastation. Her work has twice appeared in The Best American Poetry, as well as its sister anthology, The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. A winner of the Bakeless Poetry Prize and recipient of two NEA literature fellowships, Essbaum is a member of the core faculty of the Low Residency MFA at the University of California, Riverside, where she teaches poetry. She lives and writes in Austin, Texas. This is her first novel.