The Brief History of the Dead

Acknowledgments

I owe thanks to my editors, Edward Kastenmeier and Anya Serota; to my agent, Jennifer Carlson; and to Carin Besser at The New Yorker for her skillful reading of this book's first chapter; as well as to the Arkansas Arts Council for its generous financial support and to Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan, and Angela Cheng Caplan for their interest in the story I've told. In researching Antarctica for the even-numbered chapters of this book, I turned first to the anthology Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration, edited by Clint Willis, which led me directly to Apsley Cherry-Garrard's unparalleled memoir of Antarctic exploration, The Worst Journey in the World, portions of which Laura's own journey recapitulates.