by Mary McCoy
OBJECTS OF DESTRUCTION, EPISODE #3, EPILOGUE
LEE SWAN: (studio)
When Lee Miller and Man Ray were old, they met at an art museum. There was a tube installation in the gallery, and she crawled in one end, and he crawled in the other, and they met in the middle, laughing.
There’s no such thing as perfect love. You can’t say that love failed when love ends, because everything ends.
But when you’ve loved someone, some version of it lasts. It keeps being important. It lives somewhere within you, and in that way, you carry the people you’ve loved along with you, not just in your memories, but in the person you are.
It’s worth the weirdness. It’s always there. It cannot be destroyed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote this book with a heart full of love and gratitude for so many people, and now I’m going to do my best to thank some of them properly.
Patricia Nelson, thank you for helping me find a story only I could tell, and for being this book’s champion, even before I was.
Kendra Levin, you edit with the wisest brain, the biggest heart, and the deepest care and understanding for others. Thank you for seeing what this book could be, and for editorial letters that employ the dreaded sandwich structure, but with very thick bread.
Thank you to the editors and designers who brought everything together and made it beautiful. I’m so grateful to Amanda Ramirez, Jen Strada, Beatriz Ramo, and Krista Vossen for their work and art.
Many thanks to Shenwei Chang, Eileen King, Jessie Maimone, Alexandra McCarty, and Iva-Marie Palmer, whose artful insights gave clarity, language, and empathy.
Richard Lemarchand, I couldn’t have written this book without you. Thank you for celebrating my wins, talking me through the tough spots, and asking after Lee, Vincent, Max, and Risa like they were old friends.
To Rebecca Anderson, John Argroves, Melody and Stephen Deusner, Barrett Hathcock, Jason Knobloch, Beth Land, Henry Murphy, Brady Potts, Matthew Shipe, James Spears, Karen Wilmoth, Amanda Winters: thank you, friends, for exploring Memphis with me and teaching me how to live the life I sing about.
Memphis music was playing in my head while I wrote this book. Thank you to Julien Baker, Shelby Bryant, Greg Cartwright, and Dave Shouse for writing it. And while they are not from Memphis, I’m quite grateful to the Montreal band Jo Passed, whose THERE IS NO MUSIC UNDER LATE CAPITALISM t-shirt both Lee and myself have been known to wear.
Thank you to my parents, John and Karla McCoy, who raised me with love, humor, encouragement, and the ability to make ordinary days feel like they were full of magic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary McCoy is the author of Dead to Me, Camp So-and-So, and the Printz Honor Book I, Claudia. She studied at Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin and is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library.
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ALSO BY MARY McCOY
Dead to Me
Camp So-and-So
I, Claudia
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text © 2021 by Mary McCoy
Jacket illustration © 2021 by Beatriz Ramo
Jacket design by Krista Vossen © 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Interior design by Hilary Zarycky
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McCoy, Mary, 1976- author.
Title: Indestructible object / Mary McCoy.
Description: New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021. | Audience: Ages 12 up. | Summary: In the city of Memphis, eighteen-year-old Lee and her boyfriend Vincent make a popular podcast on artists in love, but Lee learns that stories of happily-ever-after love do not always mirror real life.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020030125 | ISBN 9781534485051 (hardcover) ISBN 9781534485075 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Love—Ficton. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Bisexuality—Fiction. | Podcasts—Fiction. | Memphis (Tenn.)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M43 In 2021 | DDC [Fic]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030125
