Maybe our story won’t be exactly that.
But it will be something like that.
For now, Monday turns off the backhoe’s ignition. She and Mab pull me out of my seat. We are all three sliding down the side of the machine, scrambling onto the earth, all in a pile, a single, weeping, trembling organism. Since my chair is back at the plant, they prop me up with their bodies, and we watch together, we three, under the frozen stars, under the dark, until the night lightens and the sun comes up, as the lake becomes a stream and then a river again, as the dam becomes a weir and then a hole and then a bridge between one grassy shore and another, water flowing below again, between what we have rendered at last a fallen, slain, and desiccated chemical plant and our very own small town, our home, Bourne again, coming slowly back to life.
Recommend
One Two Three
for your next book club!
_____________________________
Book Club Guide available at:
www.readinggroupgold.com
Acknowledgments
You read acknowledgments at the end of a book. I write them in the midst of a journey, a long, winding, sometimes fraught one, but one along which I’ve had the best company.
Molly Friedrich, you have charted this course, as ever, and I am so grateful, as ever. My well-deep gratitude also to Lucy Carson, on so many fronts, and to Heather Carr. I would not, could not do this—or really so many things—without you all.
Amy Einhorn, you hacked our way through the vines, and they were dense and thorny. I am profoundly grateful and also profoundly joyful that “dozens” seems to both of us the right number of times to edit a book. Conor Mintzer, you can do and do do everything with such proficiency and grace, and you send me the best emails about all of it. My bottomless thanks to you both.
I was surprised and delighted to find myself at Henry Holt midway through this journey. There, I have been so grateful for the good, hard work of Pat Eisemann, Marian Brown, Catryn Silbersack, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy, Maggie Richards, Chris O’Connell, Eva Diaz, Steven Seighman, Katy Robitzski, Jason Liebman, Allison Carney, Catherine Casalino, Jolanta Benal, Jennie Cohen, Sarah Bowen, Chris Sergio, and Nicolette Seeback.
I have relied along the way on the generosity and expertise and kindness of strangers as well as friends and family. My many thanks to Paul Mariz, Sue Frankel, Dave Frankel, Erin Trendler, Lisa Corr, Jonathan Corr, Nicola Griffith, Kelley Eskridge, Forbes Darby （who also gets credit for the joke about the fish）， Eliza Peoples, Alicia Goodwin, Jennie Shortridge, Dana Spector, Benjamin Dreyer, and Hamilton Cain. And extra, deep, profound gratitude to Julie M. Jones. Thank you, thank you.
I wrote the last words of the first draft of this book at Hedgebrook. I wrote the last words of the last draft of this book at Ragdale. I am deeply grateful to these writing retreat centers, to the wonderful people I met and loved and worked alongside there, to the wonderful people who support these nonprofit organizations. Extra thank-yous to Hannah Judy Gretz, who seeded the next book—an extraordinary gift—but also homed the very finishing touches on this one.
And mostly and always, thank you to my daughter for being you, for growing so well, and for allowing me the space and time to do this. I know this is a sacrifice for you too. And to Paul, everything I want to say is way too mushy for public consumption, and “thank you” doesn’t even begin to express it. Words fail me. And when they do, you are there. More than anything in the world, I am grateful that we get to do this—all of this—together.