Mercury
Page 26
And there were my lovely human guides. Many years ago in Scotland Chrissie Bulman taught me to ride on a gelding named Ginger. I never thanked them; I do now. My friend Gail Boyajian allowed me to accompany her to the stables and answered many, many questions. I am grateful for her enthusiasm and her friendship. Abby Travis, a stellar rider and a terrific writer, shared with me her encyclopedic knowledge of horses and her many insights into the world of riding. She generously commented on the manuscript. Christina Maranci took me to Bobbie’s Ranch.
John McDonough kindly met with me on several occasions and answered innumerable questions about police procedures. He also asked his own extremely helpful questions which encouraged me to think about my characters in new ways.
Needless to say I am to blame for any remaining errors in the book.
I am grateful to my colleagues and students at Emerson College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and to the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University where portions of this book were written.
I am delighted to offer my heartfelt thanks yet again to my amazing agent, Amanda Urban, and my brilliant editor, Jennifer Barth. Together they helped me to write the story I wanted to tell. I count myself hugely fortunate to have Jane Beirn as an ally. And my deep gratitude to the many other talented people at HarperCollins who helped to bring this book into the world: Amy Baker, Robin Bilardello, Jonathan Burnham, Stephanie Cooper, Lydia Weaver, Erin Wicks.
My friends and family are instrumental in my writing; they give me a home in the world. I thank Kathleen Hill for the continuous gift of her friendship. Susan Brison kept me company on good days and bad ones. Her comments on the novel were inspiring and invaluable. My gratitude to Eric Garnick for his reading of the manuscript and for his gorgeous novelistic paintings; he brings beauty into my life every day. The incident on page 251 is based on a story he told me about his friend Rick Schettler. I am running out of ways to thank Andrea Barrett. Her fierce advice, her keen insight, and her rigorous empathy helped to make this first a book, then a better book.
None of this would have been possible without Merril Sylvester.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARGOT LIVESEY IS THE New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Flight of Gemma Hardy, The House on Fortune Street, Banishing Verona, Eva Moves the Furniture, The Missing World, Criminals, and Homework. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Vogue, and the Atlantic, and she is the recipient of grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. The House on Fortune Street won the 2009 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Livesey was born in Scotland and grew up on the edge of the Highlands. She lives in the Boston area and is a professor of fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
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CREDITS
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Cover Photograph © CSA Images /Printstock Collection / Getty Images
ALSO BY MARGOT LIVESEY
Learning by Heart
Homework
Criminals
The Missing World
Eva Moves the Furniture
Banishing Verona
The House on Fortune Street
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MERCURY. Copyright © 2016 by Margot Livesey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN 9780062437532
ISBN: 978-0-06-243750-1
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