2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

Acknowledgments

I ask the forgiveness of the following people for, after they’ve given me so much, borrowing their names: Mrs. Michele Hofner (née Altimari), my sixth-grade teacher; Dr. Vincent Sherry, my college mentor; and in memory of Alexandra (Alex) Rubenstein; Mrs. Margueritte McGlynn, my highschool English teacher; and the incomparable Sandra Purcell.

These people are, literally and figuratively, The Cat’s Pajamas: my relentlessly elegant agent, Claudia Ballard, and her fortuitously turned ankle; Laura Bonner; Julie Chang; everyone at William Morris; Alexis Washam, my wise, dream-making editor; Rachel Rokicki, Sarah Bedingfield, and the kind, tireless team at Crown Publishers, who made such a special book.

Many years ago I moved to a new city and found a writer’s group. Years passed as in cramped apartments with snacks we shaped ourselves into adults. To the Brooklyn Blackout Writers Group — Tim DeLizza, Aisha Gayle, Jesse Hassenger, Yuka Igarashi, Jennifer Leamy, and Alea Mitchell, thank you for being my first friends in New York.

A bouquet of sharpened Dixon Ticonderogas to: Brooklyn College’s MFA program, especially Joshua Henkin, Lou Asekoff, Michael Cunningham, and Ellen Tremper; the Center for Fiction; Hedgebrook Writer’s Residency; David Horne; The Imitative Fallacies Writer’s Group, members active and inactive; Adam Brown, Elizabeth L. Harris, Elliott Holt, Amelia Kahaney, Helen Phillips, and Mohan Sikka; University of Iowa Press, Scott Lindenbaum, Chris and Mary Austin Marker; One Story, especially Maribeth Bacha, Adina Talve-Goodman, Chris Gregory, Michael Pollock, Hannah Tinti, Karen Seligman, and Julia Strayer; Emily Rosenthal, Phyllis Trout and Brian Brooks; and Ken L. Walker.

These people have supported me since I was a lowercase m: Cindy Augustine, Dana, Nana, Eileen, and Ron Bertotti (thank you for the rides); Karen, Linda, and John Buleza; Tim Carr, Nicole Cavaliere, Diana Waters Davis, Brendan Gaul, Charles Hagarty, Craig Johnson, PJ and Jenna Franceski Linke, Ginger and Charlie McHugh, Scott Wein, and Sadie Ray; with special thanks to Ben Cohen, Laura Halasa, Beth Vasil, and Maryrose Roberts, who never sees why not.

The following man is the bee’s knees: Jim Shepard.

The following musicians helped compose the tune of this book and in the process wove themselves into its melody: Rocco DeCicco, Brian Floody, Lester Grant, Brian Merrill, Aurelio Pacilli, Chris Pistorino, Jason Rabinowitz, Denise Sandole, and my fellow unicorn Shawn Aileen Clark.

I’d like to symbolically adopt a star for the following people: Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Tyler Flynn Dorholt, David Ellis, Cristina Moracho, Anne Ray, Tanya Rey (thank you for the “salsa lessons”), and my first and last reader, Tom Grattan.

To the Bertino family, to Tommy, Marianne, and Leah Dodson, my students, the editors who took a chance on me, and the lovely folks who shared their stories with me after reading mine in Safe as Houses: If you feel like you’re a part of this, you are.

To Sophie, Scat, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the 215, whose mark on me is so indelible a tattoo would be redundant.

Finally, to Thomas Everett Dodson, best dressed, best man, who as a little boy wore his Superman costume underneath his clothes “in case anyone needed rescuing.” You say you don’t wear it anymore, Ted, yet every day I see it.