Thank you to Iain Ellis (who is not in any way Uncle X), Mark Scoggins (who is not in any way Jimmyhead), Richard Noggle (who was Noggin but got cut out of the book), Kirby Fields, Emily Stamey, Shawn Thomson, Mike Stigman, Kate Lorenz, Mary Wharff, Katie Conrad, Cliff Phillips, Adam Powell, Emily Wicktor, Greg Brister, Andrea Weis, the Replay Lounge, Carolyn Jewers, Megan Kaminski, Justin Runge, Harbour Lights, the Taproom, the Dusty, the Pig, the Raven, La Prima Tazza, the Paradise Diner (RIP), La Guerre, the Self Graduate Fellowship, all the Hansons and Ballards and Hanson-Ballards, including Bear and Kingsley, and all the other people and entities that make me miss and love Lawrence, Kansas, every day, sometimes twice a day. (Please note: these parentheticals are legally binding!) Carolyn Doty was a pint-sized force of fiction. Tom Lorenz is a true friend and mentor.
Thank you to everyone at Dzanc Books: Michelle Dotter, Guy Intoci, Michael J. Seidlinger. Dan Wickett, and Steven Gillis. Steven Seighman, this cover is so fucking great. Thank you, Kim Church, Carmiel Banasky, and Andrew F. Sullivan. To all of the anonymous copy editors out there, I will learn your names, sing them too.
At Kansas State University, thank you, Elizabeth Dodd, Karin Westman, Phil Nel, Anne Phillips, Traci Brimhall, Cameron Leader-Picone, Chris Nelson, and Jerry Dees. At Baldwin-Wallace University, thank you, Ted Harakas, Margaret Stiner (you too, Mike Riley), Sharon Kubasak, and Frank Paino. Most of all, thank you to my students, who challenge me and make me laugh and allow me to think about cool shit and once in a while infuriate me but almost never bore me.
In Manhattan, Kansas, thank you, Arrow Coffee and Blue-stem and, fuck, fine, Radina’s too, and thanks to Headlight Rivals, the Church of Swole, Field Day Jitters (RIP), Auntie Mae’s, and this town’s branch of the Dusty Bookshelf (may you rise again).
Christopher Rhodes, thanks for believing. Thanks to all the people who have ever pulled me out of the slush pile: I was drowning in there. Thank you, Trudy Lewis and Jack Vernon. Thank you, Rick Harsch. Thank you, John Wei. Thank you, Philip Rogers. Thank you, Noy Holland. Thank you, Craig Finn and the Hold Steady. Thank you, Paul D. and Frances Gumm. Thank you to all of my students back in the day at the Douglas County Jail.
Thank you, Shirley Kinnie Hoyt, and Karen and Rob Frankel, and Ross and Aaron Frankel and the McGreers and the Shewmakers and the Petersons.
Thanks again, coffee, and thank you, club soda, and you too, generic Paxil. Thank you to Frightened Rabbit, DTCV, the serendipitous Neptune sign along the bike path in the Cleveland Metroparks, every band I’ve ever seen that didn’t suck, Steve Earle, Mates of State and Denis Johnson, Sleater-Kinney and gluten-free cupcakes, the Rural Alberta Advantage and Rainer Maria (not the poet). Thanks to literary magazines and the people who make them.
Thanks, Sarah and Seyvion and Sareya and Su’von—for being everything.
This book lived for way more than a decade and in four different houses before it came into your hands. On July 4, 2014, Sarah McGreer Hoyt started reading the first complete draft, came out to the porch at 1819 Poyntz Avenue in Manhattan, Kansas, where I was mowing the front lawn, and yelled, “Jesus Christ, kill your fucking darlings!”
Sorry, love. It’s all darlings.
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