A Book of Memories

AUTHOR'S NOTE

It is my pleasant duty to state that what I have written is not my own memoirs. I have written a novel, the recollections of several people separated by time, somewhat in the manner of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. The memoirists might conceivably all be me, though none of them is. So the locations, names, events, and situations in the story aren't real but, rather, products of a novelist's imagination. Should anyone recognize someone, or — God forbid! — should any event, name, or situation match actual ones, that can only be a fatal coincidence, and in this respect, if in no other, I am compelled to disclaim responsibility.