Now and Again

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Beyond the world of this novel is another world of people who helped bring it to life — writers and thinkers who opened my eyes or caused me to question, soldiers who shared their experiences, experts who took care of the details of publication, and editors and early readers who understood what I was trying to do — or didn’t, which was helpful too. My heartfelt thanks to you all, particularly to Reagan Arthur and David McCormick, who were there from the beginning; and to Ursula Doyle, Terry Adams, Heather Fain, Matt Carlini, Betsy Uhrig, Shannon Langone, Carrie Neill, Susan Hobson, Bridget McCarthy, Emma Borges-Scott, Ayad Akhtar, Kevin Shushtari, Jami Attenberg, Melissa Sterry, Syndi Allgood, Graham Pulliam, and others who prefer to remain unnamed.

Special thanks go to Bruce Smart for the title; to Kapo Ng and Nico Taylor for the covers; to Kevin and Stephanie for the faith; to Nick for the insights on ethics, eternal return, and amor fati; and to Olivia for her sharp eye and even sharper opinions, as well as for sending me this, from Camus:

Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.