A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel (27 page)
Read A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel Online
Authors: Paul Tremblay
FIRST AND FOREMOST
, thanks to Lisa, Cole, Emma, and the rest of my family who love, support, and put up with me. My wife, Lisa, went above and beyond this time around being a beta reader and her input was invaluable. And my sister Erin let me fictionalize her house.
Huge thanks to this novel’s other beta reader, the talented John Mantooth. I think it was Louis Maistros who once said, “Being asked to read another writer’s rough draft is the literary equivalent of being asked to help a friend move a couch to a new place.” He’s so right, and I so appreciate the heavy lifting that John did with this book.
More huge thanks to my agent, Stephen “They’re coming to get you” Barbara, for his friendship, advice, and support. I’m so lucky to have him on my side.
A thousand and one thank-yous to my amazing editor, Jennifer Brehl. She helped make this the best book it could be. I’d never be able to fully
explain how much her belief in me and this book means. (Everyone, put down the book and clap for Jen, please.)
Big thanks to Kelly O’Connor, Andrea Molitor, and everyone at William Morrow for their support and hard work.
Thank you to two of my best friends and co-conspirators, John Langan and Laird Barron, for listening to me whine, agitate, complain, pontificate, and fret my way through this book, once a week by phone (and too occasionally in person).
Thank you to friends and colleagues who’ve supported, inspired, and helped keep me sane: Karen Brissette (the real one!), Ken Cornwell, Brett Cox, JoAnn Cox, Ellen Datlow, Kurt Dinan, Steve Eller, Andy Falkous and Future of the Left, Geoffrey Goodwin, Brett Gurewitz and Bad Religion, Page Hamilton, Jack Haringa, John Harvey, Stephen Graham Jones, Sandra Kasturi, Matt Kressel, Sarah Langan, Jennifer Levesque, Stewart O’Nan, Brett Savory, Mark Haskell Smith, Simon Strantzas, Dave Zeltserman, and Your Pretty Name.
Photo by Michael Lajoie/Crimson Imagery
PAUL TREMBLAY
is the author of the crime novels
The Little Sleep
and
No Sleep Till Wonderland
and the short story collection
In the Mean Time
. He has also served as the president of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the
Los Angeles Times
and numerous “year’s best” anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his wife and two children.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.
The Little Sleep
No Sleep till Wonderland
In the Mean Time
Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye
Art used throughout © by gualtiero boffi/Shutterstock, Inc.
Cover design by Amanda Kain
Cover photograph © by Forest Woodward/Getty Images
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS
. Copyright © 2015 by Paul Tremblay. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Future of the Left for permission to reprint an excerpt from “An Idiot’s Idea of Ireland,” words and music by Future of the Left © 2013.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Charlotte Perkins Gilman for the excerpt from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” © 1892.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Bad Religion for permission to reprint an excerpt from “My Head Is Full of Ghosts,” words and music by Bad Religion © 2013.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-06-236323-7
EPUB Edition JUNE 2015 ISBN 9780062363251
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