The Great Glass Sea
Page 51
Acknowledgments
When I was a teenager I lived for a while as an exchange student in the Soviet Union. My experiences there set me on the path towards the writing of this book. So I owe thanks, first, to the Tarasov family, who took me into their home back then. And second, to Raisa and Oleg Kuznetsov, who did the same, two decades later, when I returned. While in Russia, Ludmila Chernova, Jesse Loeb, Julia Ioffe, and many others helped me understand the ways in which the country had changed. None of which I would have come to know if not for the ways my high school Russian teacher, Jude Wobst, helped change me long ago.
This novel, too, changed greatly over the course of its life. It found its shape due in large part to hard work and huge help from my agent, PJ Mark, who sustains me with his good judgment and generous friendship, and my dear and dedicated editor, Elisabeth Schmitz, who, along with Katie Raissian and Shelly Perron, gave this book the kind of attention most writers can only dream of. I am so lucky to work with such a team.
Josh McCall gave me extensive and thoughtful notes that improved the earlier manuscript immeasurably. As did my friends and first readers Mike Harvkey, Elliott Holt, Robin Kirman, Irina Reyn, Suzanne Rivecca, Jen Sheffield, and Laura van den Berg.
Their support is evidence of one of the great joys of writing a book like this: discovering, over and over, how giving of their time good people can be. This novel, in particular, required that I ask much of many. Dr. Helen Michaels, Dr. Michael Geusz, Dr. George W. Keitt Jr., and Florian Sicks helped me understand the details of photoperiodism in plants and animals. Dr. Ann Martin, Sarah Scoles, and Chelsea Cook did the same for the physics surrounding the space mirrors. I had help in translating the Russian from Peter Blackstock, Dr. Natasha Simes, Nikita Nelin, and Jude Wobst (no doubt dismayed at how much her former student has forgotten).
I got a lot out of a great many books, too, chief among them At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, by A. Roger Ekirch; Why Work? Arguments for a Leisure Society, edited by Vernon Richards; Sale of the Century, by Chrystia Freeland; Labour and Leisure in the Soviet Union, by William Moskoff; The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, by Juliet B. Schor; and Russian Fairy Tales, compiled by Aleksandr Afanasev. Although the snippets of Pushkin’s Ruslan and Lyudmila are my own interpretations, they were cobbled together from various translations, most notably Roger Clarke’s. This book benefited from the generosity of institutions, too: the MacDowell Colony, the James Merrill House, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts all gave me the gift of time and space. As did my ever-supportive friends Ken Banta and Tony Powe.
But no one has given me more than my family: my parents, who believe in me no matter what; my grandmother, who gives me strength; my brother, who has been my rock since the beginning; my sister-in-law, whose brilliance never ceases to expand my mind. I am, always and forever, most grateful to them. And to Jen, whose fierce heart braced me through the writing of this book, and whose wisdom helped make it better, and who I love.
Table of Contents
Cover
Art endpaper from printed book
The Great Glass Sea
Also by Josh Weil
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
NßNI
The Lit Side of the Earth
The Golden Phoenix
All the Strength and Future
What Else Is There for the Devil to Eat?
Once Upon a Time
Where We All Sleep
A Flame in the Blood
Don't Be Seen
Farmer! Poet! Leader!
A Time Before the End of Time
A Deeper Breath
Slava
The Coruscating Verge
The Way the World Works
Towards Winter
What Hurts
Heaven's Beast
Good People
Propaganda of the Deed
Revisitation
Tempering
It Will Infect You, Too
Shot Number Seven
The Clattering of Stones
So It Was, So It Is
Night Known
At Shore's Edge
The Sound of the Clouds
Acknowledgments
Back Cover