The Devil's Alphabet

acknowledgments

Many people helped make the book you’re holding (or viewing, or listening to) and I owe them my sincere thanks. Chris Schluep, with a deft hand on the editorial stick, guided this book the final miles over the chilly Hudson. Many more people at Del Rey worked to get these words in front of you, including some—Fleetwood Robbins (who acquired this book when its title was Work to be Named Later), and SueMoe! (one word, with exclamation mark)—who’ve moved on and are greatly missed. Deanna Hoak signed up for a second tour of copyediting. And David Bowie—well, he has no idea how much he helped me write this thing.

My gratitude goes as well to the early readers: Charles Coleman Finlay, Sarah Kelly, Cathrynne M. Valente, and the rest of the Blue Heaven workshop crew who critiqued the first draft; Heather Lindsley, who fine-tuned the second; and Kathy Bieschke, Gary Delafield, and Elizabeth Delafield, who marked up hundreds of pages in between. Emma and Ian Gregory read none of it, but informed all of it.

And to all the Gregorys, Barbaras, Meyers, Riddles, and Heatons, the multitude of aunts, uncles, and cousins—so many cousins!—scattered over the Smokies: thanks for feeding your Yankee relation every time he came to town. Even more than the bizarre residents of Switchcreek, the lonely boy in this book is a creature of pure imagination.