The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese (48 page)

Huge thanks to my co-conspirators on the front line: Carlos “Sancho Panza” Gomez; Jeff Braverman; Gerry Hadden; Anne Cassuto.

Gratitude and indebtedness to those friends who read drafts and provided invaluable insights in key moments: Dan Coyle, Bill Lychack, Miles Harvey, Anja Hanson, Gibson Fay-Leblanc, Lily King, Tyler Clements, Brock Clarke, Cammie McGovern, and Laura Hohnhold.

Map and illustrations: the ridiculously clutch Benjamin Busch.

Fact-check: Trent McNamara.

Major thanks to Jim Nelson, for his support of this project. And to others in the
GQ
family: Devin Friedman, Dan Riley, Adam Rappaport,
Fred Woodward, Michael Hainey, Mike Benoist, Will Welch, and Ben Bours.

Friends who gave sustenance, help, renewed faith, and enthusiasm when most needed: Wil “Cheese Fry” Hylton, Joel Lovell, Donovan Hohn, Jenny Rosenstrach, Charlie Baxter, Kate Porterfield, Colin Harrison, Mark Bryant, Clare Hertel, Robert Draper, Doug Stanton, Melissa McStay, Derek Pierce, Lynn Sullivan, David Mclain, Andrea Hanson-Carr, Ned Flint, Hallie Gilman, Colin and Kate Snyder, Charlotte Bacon and Brad Choyt, Susan Conley, Tony Kieffer, Joel Antolini, Heidi Marble, Kim Wasco, Rick Lynch, Jeff Eckhouse, Lance Cromwell, Chris Bowe, Stuart Gerson, Moira Driscoll, Edward Lewine, Mark Adams, Paige Williams, the family dinner crew, the Darien posse, the Chatauqua element, the MacDowellers, and everyone at the other Telling Room in Portland, Maine.

Thank you to those who offered space in which I was privileged to write: Patty and Cyrus Hagge, Eliot and Melanie Cutler, and Mark and Aimee Bessire. As well, great thanks to Darien Library and Bowdoin College (to Anthony Walton and Liz Muther); Sampere in Salamanca; and the coffee shop on Forest, all of whom made a home for this book.

Scholars and experts: José David Sacristan, Gerry Dawes, Monica Linton, Patricia Michelson, Ari Weinzweig, Clara Estow. At the University of Burgos: Marta Navazo Ruiz and Ivan Garcia. In Madrid: Pascual Llopis and José Ignacio Casado of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory.

Support: David Granger and Peter Griffin for sending me to Spain in the first place; the incomparable MacDowell Colony and everyone there who encouraged this work, including David Macy, Kyle Oliver, and Courtney Bethel. And as well the NEA, for instrumental funding that kept this project alive at a crucial juncture.

This book also belongs, with love, to my children: Leo, May, and Nicholas, who lived it. And to my brothers (Paterniti and Corbett) and their families; Chris Corbett and Manny Morgan; Diane Bennekemper and Lorraine Martin; the Simmons-Corbett crew; and my
extended family. And to the memory of Arne Heggen, David Stockwood, and Rose Ells, storyteller extraordinaire.

Finally, in Spain: My appreciation to Javier Supuerta, Honorado Escudero and family, Emilia del Rincon, and to the extended Molinos family, including Puri, Angel, Roberto, Mika, Asunita, Josué, and Kiké. To Ambrosio and Asun: an eternal debt of gratitude.
Un abrazo muy fuerte
.

To Guzmán, and its citizens:
Gracias por todo. Alla. Ta’ lo … ¡Venga!
May you live forever, dear village on the hill!

M
ICHAEL
P
ATERNITI
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain
. His writing has appeared in many publications, including
The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Harper’s, Outside, Esquire
, and
GQ
, where he works as a correspondent. Paterniti has been nominated eight times for the National Magazine Award and is the recipient of a NEA grant and two MacDowell Fellowships. He is the co-founder of a children’s storytelling center (
www.tellingroom.org
) in Portland, Maine, where he lives with his wife and their three children.