Praying Drunk

Acknowledgments

The following stories originally appeared in these publications:

“The Question of Where We Begin,” Gulf Coast

“You Shall Go Out with Joy and Be Led Forth with Peace,” Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Random House, 2006)

“The Truth and All Its Ugly,” Fifty-Two Stories (HarperPerennial Digital, 2010), Surreal South (Press 53, 2007), in a limited edition letterpress chapbook (Bandit Press, 2010), and as an Amazon standalone e-book (2011)

“Glossolalia,” Forty Stories (HarperPerennial Digital, 2012) and Cream City Review

“Seven Stories About Sebastian of Koulèv-Ville” (as “Seven Stories About Kenel of Koulèv-Ville”), The Iowa Review and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013 (Houghton Mifflin)

“The Sweet Life,” Alimentum

“First, the Teeth,” Redivider

“In a Distant Country,” Ninth Letter

“Suspended,” Brevity

“Lay Me Down in the Blue Grass,” Mid-American Review

“Seven Stories About Sebastian of Koulèv-Ville” (as “Seven Stories About Kenel of Koulèv-Ville”) won the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction

The section titles are taken from the Andrew Hudgins poems “Praying Drunk” and “Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought,” both collected in The Never-Ending (Houghton Mifflin, 1991), which all readers should immediately seek out, buy, read, and treasure. The story “Seven Stories About Sebastian of Koulèv-Ville” also quotes from and paraphrases a portion of “Praying Drunk.”

Thank you to Lee K. Abbott, Erin McGraw, Ethan Canin, Sam Chang, and Andy Greer — mentors and friends. I am grateful for the ongoing support of Deborah Jayne and Ian and Dylan Minor. I am indebted to Douglas Watson, my first reader and closest editor, and to other friends and editors who helped in some way with these stories: Bart Skarzynski, Joe Oestreich, Okla Elliott, Pinckney and Laura Benedict, Kathleen Rooney, Ian Stansel, Nick Bruno, Jamie Renda, Matt Kellogg, Jillian Quint, Jodee Stanley, Dinty Moore, Philip Graham, Peter Selgin, Cal Morgan, Sophie Chabon, Michelle Herman, Lee Martin, Ron Currie, Aaron Gwyn, Karen Babine, and Mike Czyzniejewski. For crucial help on the publishing side: Katherine Fausset, Steve Gillis, Dan Wickett, Ben Percy, Laura van den Berg, Matt Bell, Kristen Radtke, Meg Bowden, Kirby Gann, and Sarah Gorham. For other varieties of help: Melissa Chadburn, Joyelle McSweeney, Stephen Elliott, Isaac Fitzgerald, Kera Bolonik, Dave Daley, Matt Sullivan, Jen Percy, Phil and Lonnie Murphy, Francky and Tania Desir, Meredith Blankinship, Sarah Smith, Jane Bradley, Ed Falco, Deb Olin Unferth, Daniel Handler, George Singleton, Jan Zenisek, Deb West, Wells Tower, Kevin Brockmeier, Dini Parayitam, Nana Nkweti, Jonathan Gharraie, Colin Kostelecky, Devika Rege, Matt Nelson, Josh Rhome, Hannah Kim, Letitia Trent, Luke Renner, Maureen Traverse, Michelle Burke, Ben Stroud, Karen Kovacik, Robert Rebein, Mitchell Douglas, Terry Kirts, Tom Quach, and Connie Brothers. Thank you.