Lights All Night Long

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Emily Cunningham and Samantha Shea for their passion for this project, their brilliant edits, and their calm guidance, without which both this novel and I would be lost. And thank you to Kate Griggs and Michael Burke for turning these pages into a book, and to Gail Brussel, Matt Boyd, and Grace Fisher for bringing that book out into the world.

Thank you to the Wallace Stegner Fellowship, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the University of Michigan M.F.A. program, and the Elizabeth George Foundation for their generous support. And to Elizabeth Tallent, Tobias Wolff, Adam Johnson, Judith Mitchell, Michael Byers, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, and Malena Watrous for their patience and insight.

To Austin, Brad, David, Helen, Juliana, Monique, Nicole, NoViolet, Tony, Shannon, and Lydia C. for helping me see what this novel might be.

To Karolina, for reading this not once, but twice, and for her expertise in editing and in all things Russian; and to Alex Raben for the late night spent in the labyrinth of transliterations.

To Hannah Tinti at One Story and to Linda Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown at Glimmer Train for taking a chance on my writing.

To Svetlana Alexievich for her brilliant and heartbreaking Secondhand Time; to Ian Frazier for Travels in Siberia; to Johann Hari for Chasing the Scream; and to Donald Weber for the photographs in Interrogations, especially Vorkuta and April 26, 2008, Vorkuta, Russia, both of which I turned to time and time again for inspiration.

To Patricia, for being a “Bacca” to my girls every time I disappeared to reckon with this story.

Thank you to my families, the Fitzpatricks and the Davids, for your encouragement and enthusiasm. To Jan, for your endless faith in me. To my brother, whom I look up to even more than Ilya does Vladimir. And to my mother, for inspiring me every day, in every way. Thank you for all the books on tape we listened to, sitting in the car, in the driveway; and thank you for all of the adventures—especially the Russian ones.

To my grandfather, the first writer I knew, and to my father, who wanted to be a writer. I wish you could hold this book in your hands.

Thank you, with every bit of my love, to Margot and Win, who, in acknowledgment of themselves, have typed their names here. And to Grainger for all the moves, all those midwestern winters, for all the drafts you’ve read, and all the love you’ve given. How lucky I am to have you.