(2006) The Zero

by Jess Walter

  “Okay,” she asked quietly, “Do you want to try to open your eyes now?”

  But he squeezed them as tight as he could, waiting for her to come.

  Acknowledgments

  I AM DEEPLY INDEBTED to a number of friends, editors, agents and writers who believed in this novel from its first pages and gave it valuable reads: Cal Morgan, Judith Regan, Warren Frazier, Bill Reiss, Dan Butterworth, Jim Lynch, Danny Westneat, Sam Ligon and my lovely wife, Anne Walter.

  This book is fiction. To those people whose real pain I witnessed five years ago, I hope there is real peace.

  About the Author

  JESS WALTER is the author of Citizen Vince, a novel named as one of the year’s best by the Washington Post, NPR’s Fresh Air, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and others. His novels include Land of the Blind and Over Tumbled Graves, a New York Times Notable Book. Walter lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family.

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  ALSO BY JESS WALTER

  FICTION

  Citizen Vince

  Land of the Blind

  Over Tumbled Graves

  NONFICTION

  Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy

  of the Randy Weaver Family

  (originally released as Every Knee Shall Bow)

  Credits

  Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund

  Author photograph by Dan Pelle

  Copyright

  THE ZERO. Copyright © 2006 by Jess Walter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition August 2006 ISBN 9780061758041

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Walter, Jess, 1965–

  The Zero: a novel / Jess Walter.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-06-089865-6 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 0-06-089865-8 (alk. paper)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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