My editor Sarah Bowlin’s brilliance and dedication changed this book and this writer. Thank you, Sarah, for helping me find my way. I still believe we might get to do another one. I hope I am so lucky.
Thank you to everyone at WME, especially Laura Bonner, Caitlin Landuyt, Cathryn Summerhayes, and Matilda Forbes Watson for representing Marlena so well around the world.
A joyful thanks to the smart and stylish women of Henry Holt, for making my publishing experience so exhilarating and painless: Leslie Brandon, Gillian Blake, Maggie Richards, Barbara Jones, Molly Bloom, and the rest of the team. Extra special super big thanks to Caroline Zancan, for adopting me, and Kerry Cullen, for picking up the pieces.
Thank you to the Moyer family, especially Marcy and Dan. Your support empowered me to pursue writing at a time when my life could have easily changed direction. I will never forget it.
A profound thank-you to my teachers along the way, for their guidance and wisdom, and for their books: Michael Delp, Jerry Williams, Irini Spanidou, Jonathan Safran Foer, Lorrie Moore, and David Lipsky. Thanks also to the immensely kind and encouraging Anton DiSclafani and Edan Lepucki.
Further thanks to the New York University MFA program, from Deborah Landau and the administrators to the world-changing faculty to my workshop cohort.
A big bear hug for my colleagues at Catapult. Special thanks to Jenn Kovitz and Leigh Newman, and to Andy Hunter, for creating a workspace that values writers. Amy Kurzweil, Max Winter, and Jess Arndt: this novel is better for its deep acquaintance with your imaginations.
For everything from sharp reads and writerly commiseration to happy hour, endless thanks to my brilliant friends and tireless champions Anna Breslaw, Becky Dinerstein, Rachel Fershleiser, Rebecca Kauffman, Halimah Marcus, Whitney Mulhauser, Julia Pierpont, Zoe Triska, and Margaux Weisman.
This book owes a special debt to my friend Lea, whose spirit and memory will always be with me, and to my sister, Kelsey. And to the rest of my Michigan girls—you know who you are—thank you for those Petoskey summers. They give me something to try and write my way back to.
Finally, I’d like to thank Gabe Habash, a reader so smart I had to marry him. The next one’s for you.
About the Author
JULIE BUNTIN is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Electric Literature, and One Teen Story, among other publications. She teaches fiction writing at Marymount Manhattan College and is the director of writing programs at Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can sign up for email updates here.