Summerlong (29 page)
Authors: Dean Bakopoulos
Ruth begins to shiver with cold or happiness and she is not sure which it is, but it feels like the latter. She is not sure what any of them will say. Maybe they’ll finally be quiet. That will be a good start. How much of the story will ABC tell and how much of it will she keep to herself? And if she tells the story exactly as it happened, they’ll have to come up with next steps. Whom will they call? How will they tell the story of the summer? And will they call for help right away, or wait until morning? Will they call 911? The Coast Guard? Would they call Ruth’s estranged kids or her nieces and nephews in Davenport who want her money, or will they call Mendez, her lawyer back in Grinnell, who will be trying to reach Charlie about the estate of Gill Gulliver, whom Ruth, at that moment, somehow, suddenly, knows is dead.
A cloud drifts up past the moon and the stars grow dimmer. She’s long since stopped seeing the meteors above her, and the fireflies
have also gone dim, have blown off into the wind like small clouds of ash. On her knees now, she prepares to collapse into the lap of the waves, the unseeable, unsayable truths beneath them.
There will be logistics. Ruth knows this. She thinks of the foursome gathered on the shore. She can almost feel them looking out at the water, paralyzed by what has just occurred. What will they do next?
She doesn’t know, but she does know, with some certainty, one simple truth: they’ll find some way through. They’ll figure it out.
This is, more or less, true of everybody.
My thanks to the Guggenheim Foundation for a fellowship that facilitated the early drafting of this novel, as well as the Mark Gates Memorial Foundation for Wayward Writers. I’m grateful to the incredibly supportive administration, bright colleagues, and wonderful students I have at Grinnell College as well as the inspiring, warm community I find each winter teaching in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson, especially Ellen Bryant Voigt, Charles Baxter, Maurice Manning, Alix Ohlin, Megan Staffel, James Longenbach, and Stacey D’Erasmo, whose lectures and readings directly influenced this novel.
Big love to my family, especially my kids, Lydia and Amos, artists and storytellers both, for the sustaining joy, patience, humor, and beauty that help me through each day.
Many individuals contributed to the writing of this book with their friendship, creative influence, or both: Christina Campbell, Ralph
Savarese, Kim Steele, Coleman, William Jasper, Lee Boudreaux, Ryan Willard, Tina and Caleb Elfenbien, Tim and Jennifer Dobe, Lee Running, Jeremy Chen, Amy Martin, Michael Perry, Natalie Bakopoulos, Justin Vernon, Mere Martinez, Benjamin Percy, Brian Bartels, Marta Rose, Daleth Hall, Patrick Somerville, Emma Borges-Scott, Steve Myck, Steve Pett, David Wells (and the Terry Family Foundation), and Bridget McCarthy. And extra big thanks to Becky Saletan.
Thanks to the Parkington Sisters—Ariel, Sarah, and Rose—whose music, beauty, and wit lit up a dark night of the soul in Iowa City when I needed it most.
The line “Why is it all so difficult?” on page 44 is inspired by Stephen Dobyns’ poem “How To Like It.”
The conversation between Don and Claire on page 318 is influenced by a line in Charles Bukowksi’s
Post Office
: “This kind of life like everybody else’s kind of life: it’s killing us.”
I’d especially like to thank everyone at Ecco Books, including Daniel Halpern, Sonya Cheuse, and Eleanor Kriseman, and, especially my editor, Megan Lynch, as clear-eyed, patient, and bright as they come. When she showed up, so did the light. And finally, deepest gratitude to my agent Amy Williams, an unflappable, hard-nosed, full-hearted, deal-making, and life-changing pal.
DEAN BAKOPOULOS
is the author of the
New York Times
Notable Book
Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon
and
My American Unhappiness.
He holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and is the winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He is the writer-in-residence at Grinnell College, and lives in Iowa.
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Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon
My American Unhappiness
COVER DESIGN BY SARA WOOD
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © BY JOHN LUND/NEVADA WIER/AGEFOTOSTOCK
SUMMERLONG
. Copyright © 2015 by Dean Bakopoulos. 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, transmitted, downloaded, 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.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-232116-9
EPub Edition June 2015 ISBN 9780062321183
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