Smonk

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Beth Ann Fennelly—my wife, best friend and first reader—for her loving work on the Smonk manuscript; for her advice, criticism, insight and wisdom; and, mainly, for never running screaming from the house. Thanks to my daughter, Claire, whose mishearing of “skunk” gave this book its name, and to my son, Thomas, for joining our family. To my generous, understanding parents, Gerald and Betty Franklin. To my colleagues and students at Ole Miss. To Nat Sobel, more uncle than agent, Judith Weber, and their amazing staff. To Smonk’s early readers: Chris Gay, William Gay, Michael Knight, Hardy Jackson, Jack Pendarvis and Steve Whitton. To Kathy Pories. To the Fairhope, Alabama, gang and especially Sonny Brewer and Joe Formichella. A raised Bud Light to my pals (there and gone) at City Grocery: John, Whitey, Joe, Chip, Enright and Norm. Thanks to Jim Dees, John T. Edge, Tom Howorth, Walter Neill, Ron Shapiro and Franklin Williams. To Richard and Lisa Howorth, Lyn Roberts, and everyone at Square Books. To Earl Brown who took me back to 1876 and Steve Wallace who told me about Old Texas. Continued thanks to all the folks at William Morrow and HarperCollins, especially Tim Brazier, Kevin Callahan, Lisa Gallagher, Michael Morrison, Michael Morris, Sharyn Rosenblum and Claire Wachtel, my editor. And in memory of the writers Larry Brown and James Whitehead.

Portions of Smonk appeared in Murdaland, 9th Letter, Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Alabama Writers and Verb: An Audioquarterly, and I thank these editors.