The Last Chairlift

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Tom Best

Kristin Cochrane

Dean Cooke

Emily Copeland

Giustino De Blasio

Amy Edelman

Kay Eldredge

Gail Godwin

Ron Hansen

Khalida Hassan

Brendan Irving

Colin Irving

Eva Everett Irving

Janet Irving

Jonathan Karp

Bayard Kennett

Gen. Charles Krulak

Jon O’Brien

Anne Tate Pearce

Dick Peller

Anna von Planta

Theo Salter

Dr. Martin Schwartz

Anna Scott, Aspen Historical Society

William Scoular

Jackie Seow

Nick Spengler

Cleve Thurber

Grant Turner

Martha Turner

Dr. Abraham Verghese

Kate Wells

Edmund White

Kip Williams

Bill Wolvin

And all the good times at the Hotel Jerome.

And special thanks to Geri Lipschultz—my student in the fiction workshop at Iowa in 1974, and my longtime friend. In 1982, I read Geri’s first novel in manuscript. I wrote her about it; I recommended some agents. There was a character named Em, a mime in a New York club. Geri’s mime named Em must have gotten into my head, because—forty years later—I created a very different character, but my nonspeaking pantomimist Em owes a debt to Geri Lipschultz, whose mime named Em came first and never went away. Thank you, Geri.