Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I owe huge and heartfelt thanks to Alexandra Cooper, every writer’s dream editor. Thank you so much for your editorial brilliance, patience, kindness, and humor. I couldn’t have taken this journey without you.

Thank you to Rosemary Stimola, agent extraordinaire and source of endless wisdom.

Many, many thanks and much gratitude to everyone at Simon & Schuster for going so far above and so far beyond. Thanks especially to Justin Chanda, Lizzy Bromley, Krista Vossen, and Julia Maguire.

This book, in its infancy, began at the New School’s MFA program. I owe huge thanks and dozens of cupcakes to the faculty and my fellow students for their invaluable input: David Levithan, Tor Seidler, Sarah Weeks, Amalia Ellison, Lucas Klauss, Maude Bond, Lisa Preziosi, Zach Miller, and Reinhardt Suarez.

Thanks to my mother, Jane Finn, for all her support and encouragement—and for driving across the country with me in a ’98 Volkswagen Cabrio. Twice.

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian—thank you for being my writing buddies in coffee shops all over Brooklyn, and for helping me to find words when I thought I was out of them. Also, for sharing your pastries.

Thanks to Jason Matson, Lola and Jesse Meyers, Laura Martin, Naomi Cutner, and Kate Stayman-London.

And above all, thanks to Amalia Ellison, my best friend. Without you, this book—and so much else—would never have been possible.