Infinite Ground (20 page)

Thanks to:

Edinburgh public and University libraries – my favourite places in the city, and a refuge over many years; everyone at the Scottish Book Trust, for their support; the Manchester Fiction Prize, for giving me the time to finish the manuscript; and my friends, especially Richard Strachan.

Rachel Conway, my agent at Georgina Capel Associates, whose wit, clarity, and understanding came as a godsend; James Roxburgh, my editor, for his ferocious intelligence and enthusiasm; Megan McLaren, for giving expert feedback on a chapter; and the brilliant Sarah Ream, for helping immeasurably from an early stage. Thanks, also, to the many other people involved in putting the book together, from copy-editing to design.

Note: the microbiology featured in several chapters is always speculative, and sometimes wholly invented.

Martin MacInnes was born in Inverness in 1983. His work has featured in
The White Review
,
Ambit
,
Edinburgh Review
, and several other journals. He held a residency at Cove Park in 2015, and the previous year won the Manchester Fiction Prize and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. He lives in Edinburgh.
Infinite Ground
is his first novel.

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2016 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Martin MacInnes, 2016

The moral right of Martin MacInnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78239 947 6
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 948 3

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk