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+{"text":"\n\nFor My Parents\n\n# I\n\nJUST AS DROWNING IS SAID TO BE DELICIOUS WHEN ONE STOPS STRUGGLING, SO I TRIED TO REPRODUCE THAT DELICIOUS SENSATION.\n\n_John Ashbery_\n\nWHAT MEMORY IS NOT A \"GRIPPING\" THOUGHT.\n\n_Lyn Hejinian_\n\nEVERYTHING COMES TOGETHER IN A NOVEL, LIFE IS ANOTHER MATTER.\n\n_Clarence Major_\n\n# NOTES, INSCRIBED INITIALLY IN THE NARROW, RUNNING MARGIN\n\nSuch as it began in the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, on Fathers' Day, you not some babbling prophet but another Negro child, whose parents' random choices of signs would disorient you for years. It was a summer of Malcolms and Seans, as Blacks were transforming the small nation of Watts into a graveyard of smoldering metal. A crueler darkening, as against the assured arrival of dusk. Selma-to-Montgomery. Old folks liked to say he favored the uncle who died young, an artist. In that way, a sense of tradition was upheld, one's place in the reference-chain secured. Digression. Brick houses uniform as Monopoly props lined the lacework of street for miles. Before there was Arlington, there was Palm, indeed a dimmer entity which burns in one's memory like iodine. \"Baltimore Law.\" They eventually settled on a single-family detached, in the Walnut Park section of the city, after months of wrangling with the agent, as it was quite naturally assumed that they, like others who worked for a living, would eventually own their own property. The red cement porch, which Daddy painted at least one time, beneath the gray-greenish, slate-shingled eaves. The draperies had not yet begun to rot, nor had the ottoman relinquished a leg to leaning. Some of them were working at the post office then, though many were unionized auto-plant or factory workers. Cleverness in conformity often goes unnoticed. The block opened out onto the immense Calvary Cemetery that we had heard to be the haunt of vampire mummies, who would lie in wait beneath the headstones for children who failed to say their prayers. In the mirror, an admirer. You dreamed of romping there when older with the tougher boys, smoking cigarettes, copping feels, jumping out from behind trees, playing like an agent from \"Dragnet.\" Crossing the street was considerably more forbidding. Four, in hand. A home in which to watch the seasons pass, to grow old within a chosen \"community.\" Now names of most neighbors have shifted past his consciousness like afternoon shadows across the living room floor. Everyone, except the neighbors, marveled at the size of the basement. Then no one used heroin because they lacked for \"family values,\" even though they spoke so blithely of our \"ghetto.\" Pruitt-Igoe. Words, wildly uttered, acts unmitigated, emergence of their search for validation. Many backyards wore a chain-link garter that stretched out to the alleyway, and so whenever the rudipoots shattered their wine or soda bottles into smithereens of glass, it always fell to us to sweep them up. Now-or-Laters. Snoopy, the second in a cavalcade of pets, would parade regally about the screened-in back porch. Daddy soaked then bathed him in a pan of gasoline to strip his coat of mange, so that when we spoke of him at all, it was as \"under quarantine.\" Children often see with a clarity that adults ignore. Around the corner, down the hill, three blocks or so, until the fields of St. Catherine Labour\u00e9 unreeled before us, as in the scenes in that movie usually broadcast during the \"sweeps\" preceding Christmas, the projector that lighted up the cinema of our childhood dreams. Desire is, among other things, a function of repetition, or so the very patterns of your life have led you to believe. No better place existed to fly kites or box-crates, except Penrose Park, where, one supposed, the nuns never chanced to set habit. You assembled the frame and tail according to the package's confusing directions, which required more than the recommended ten minutes. Junie aided him in getting his aloft, before it tangled and then plummeted with the others. The genius lies in the execution. The Ville, whose village. Shivering, you stood on the sunlight's skirt, yet they laughed as they looked right through you. Shrieks of all sizes and colors would distort the evening air, rendering it opaque and virtually unreadable. Who would not beg to stay out past curfew, when the excitement usually began. \"Catch the ball, boy, catch the ball!\" as it rearranged the contours of our face. \"Tag\" became the game of choice, though we occasionally improvised with \"Batman\" or with \"Jonny Quest.\" Against form. Before the final closing of eyes and the \"good night's sleep,\" the irrepressible march of twilight.\n\n# A CHAIN OF INCIDENTS, ANTECEDENTS, THE VERY EVENTS THEMSELVES\n\nMemory, that vast orchard of myriad, variegated moments, appears to undergo an endless replanting. In the summer the heat would troll across the city like an immense seine, gathering every living and inanimate thing in its folds. This entails no notion of the \"subject.\" Being of Southern blood, nearly all of them could bear it, though not without some cavils and some grudging. Chatillon-DeMenil. Ardor, or another, made the man next door shoot his wife, though at the beginning there was little violence and still the white flight had begun. Contingency spells the death of certitude. Of course everyone had relatives in Arkansas and Mississippi who were on their way, since Negroes just two years before had finally won jobs at the Jefferson Bank. The impact of this pebble of history is barely felt nowadays, particularly by the generation that has benefited most. From West Florissant one could quickly reach the highway heading south to the riverfront, where the Arch and the river-boats reveled. Mill Creek Valley. Few of the homes had central air, a fact made obvious by a simple street review, as almost every other window distended with those plastic, wheezing boxes. This note: Baden sat less than a half-hour's walk away. Somnambulant majority. Like his mother he was said to possess a \"viper's tongue,\" a trait leaving all but the older teachers wary. Her family had washed north in several tides, the main ebbing occurring shortly after the First World War. Whether they came by train or by carriage bears important historical implications. Aos p\u00e9s da cruz. By his time several of the city's schools had been integrated, but the decisive court order lay decades away, and then how often would his parents repeat to him that Sumner High School, founded in 1875, was the \"first comprehensive Black high school this side of the Mississippi.\" St. Louis was spared the riots of that era, despite the anger burgeoning in the projects. Many of the protesters lived within a few miles of where the slaves had been manumitted, a fact particularly evident in Wellston. Well, you needn't. Please print on the dotted line. This, as does each of these flares of intellection, takes note of the structural aspects of signification. Uncle Clarence and Aunt Emma stood guard before an armory of toys, a few of which were older than the century. Like most of the father's family, they represented a higher social class and the products of vibrant miscegenation. Years before, someone, in a spirit one might now term enterprising, had sold the family farm in St. Charles that would have been their birthright. Portage des Sioux. You spoke up, as was usual, but they simply chose to ignore you, interested instead in their game of spades, with its rising, idle chatter. The kitchen of his body in which the fires of history were blazing. In the sword tree there were Osage whom we mistook for Cherokees, which seemed not an uncommon occurrence. Certain actions need no convincing. Veronica, who could tell better stories than one might find in library books, thus assumed the role of playmommy, teaching you how to sing and fight and whom to call \"meshugenah.\" Out of earshot, one heard talk of depression, accompanied by the occasionally unsubtle comment on her weight. Loneliness is solitude unfulfilled by its own presence. Their eyes fled this text, or perhaps its context, one infers, out of a fear of contamination. Mild and muddy springs, hot and humid summers, brief and balmy autumns, how they sabotaged one's readiness for winter. We were admonished to wear caps to prevent an attack of heatstroke, since our heads, small lots of blacktop, proved extraordinary attractors of sun. Ring-A-Levio. Still, he grew dizzy and dropped to his bed of sedge, which they dismissed as so much unnecessary drama. White reflects, relax. \"Speak when you are spoken to and tuck in your lower lip, and save a big kiss for Maman,\" which each, like well-reared little boys, would have done without the threat of a \"whupping.\" Night, a knowing not. Then you noticed the motorboat moored in the Deans' backyard, and went home and dreamt that someone might eventually sail her. The thought alone is often worth the promise. Perhaps out near Lake St. Louis, or in Illinois on Lake Carlyle, or more likely on the Missouri or the Lake of the Ozarks, though the important point was that they could at least afford to. Religion then was but one current in the river of our lives. Poinciana. By adolescence, most of these reflections had lost their color, which adulthood later restored from its dull and pallid palette.\n\n# LANGUAGE, KNOWLEDGE, A TEEMING RIVER OF IMPLICATIONS\n\nA small yet insubordinate squadron of impressions had laid siege to his consciousness since infancy. Everything reposed beneath a glaze of dew, which was each morning's way of announcing its arrival. The slow greening of the daylight through the shutter slats, or evening, when the gangway grew sullen with darkness. Chances are. Shadows appeared to creep across the floor, until you focused to discover them ants. Photographs will substitute for a fully-sketched description. Waterbugs and spiders were really more common, rappelling down the tiles like mountaineers. In the jar, the aphids asphyxiated. With a view to pleasing the adults, you told no one. Moreover he could claim two godfathers, to everyone's amusement, of whom one had served quite honorably in Vietnam. The violent tenor of the recollections, perhaps resulting from a delayed effect, far exceeded what everyone had expected. Your tongue, but a bat in its cavern of reassurance, would take flight when you least expected it. Montgomery, My Lai. Many of the children, except those whose parents were considered \"strivers,\" would walk to the neighborhood school. They first launched his punt at a Montessori Academy, which was thought to enhance a youngster's chances in life. There we could play with Legos of innumerable colors, a pint-sized oven that actually baked, and the other kids, including Patty, who soon became enamored of the red-haired boy. This was before one gained a sense of the \"body\" and could picture oneself \"in affliction.\" Double talk. Eventually they took turns reading the \"Negro\" poets from those yellow-papered books whose covers had long ago disappeared. Usually we would sit and talk, or watch the TV set, or on warmer evenings walk several blocks with the dogs or alone for a \"breath of fresh night air.\" Nice work, if you can get it, and you might get it if you lie. At the corner store, nickel candy and a sody pop, but only if you had been sterling. There never was, consequently, any incentive to steal, since this course of action had not been fostered alongside some greater moral lassitude. Pilfer, for a pal. Occasionally we heard shooting, but most often it was shouting, which a battle of fists or blades would readily resolve. Our ears hammer impressions into audible jewels. Further down the boulevard sat the unimposing branch library, further still the artist's studio. His wife, an artist in her own right, had sculpted the papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 painting of Kali, which hung for years like a totem above the sofas. Chain of Rocks. You drew not only numerous studies of people, but a series of scenes to accompany them, yet they still denied that a child was capable of such work, convinced instead that you had traced or forged. Treemonisha. Just as well, heedlessness or laughter, a sure forgetting. The subsequent art teacher showed a mastery of the art of drawing lips and eyes, and thus encouraged us all to indulge in more identifiably \"African\" forms. Use a pen or pencil and answer all questions. A simpler example: a V with a circle on top, or a colorless ice-cream cone. Eugene Field House. Few things compared to culling lightning bugs live, since your mason jar theater became their nightstage. Roaches formed a different category altogether, like the stains that created a rusty crust upon the motel sheets, or that car that leapt the curb to cut the corner. \"Em, eye, crookaletta, crookaletta, eye, crookaletta, crookaletta, eye, humpback, humpback, eye,\" and thus one could always avoid utter embarrassment in any blackboard bee. The result, a fathoming beneath the flourish of so many notes, a veritable exigesis. Music is the obvious analogue, that inimitable California poet tells us, which, in the context of the life that you have lived so for, is as much truth as trope. Yes and no. Yet, whenever the icecream truck would come by, the first impulse was to run to the window and perform the dance of seven wails. Who would not relent, before such shameless displays of talent. These episodes ceased, however temporarily, in the presence of \"company,\" and at the family reunions, when all small ones were expected to be on their \"absolute best behavior.\" Eventually the blight of crime and drugs would subsume the entire area, forcing a capitulation to the prerogatives of personal safety. And so, as his cousin said more eloquently than the mayor and the experts, when officials speak of \"Urban Renewal,\" it's the Black folks that got to go.\n\n# ARRIVED AT BY RITES, BY RITUALS, A FINAL LINE OF DEFENSE\n\nIn that house then, on that morning, as many in those families were Catholics, they were observed to interact in rhythms common to their faith and class, leaving abstract yet indelible imprints on the etching-plate of others. There who could ever truly \"be a boy,\" given the demands of such games of truth. Magnificat. The grandparents' church sat on a street named Cote Brilliante, where the shade stood as still as the spire. They had become Presbyterians, a sect commensurate with a certain social standing. This preoccupation with the religious aspect points to a fuzzy, metaphysical nature. Natural Bridge. Several liquor stores sat in walking distance of that narrow, Negro crossroads, having reared and raised the men who owned them. Oh now, go to it, jazzmen. The excommunicated, like the divorced, were denied the most blessed sacrament, yet we refrained from overt comment on them as we had learned our contempt to be un-Christian. The paralyzing force of such inflexibility soon endeared you to certain Protestants, which only the testimony of succeeding years demonstrated the power to dispel. Underlining this were nuns who bore the names of exalted men, who taught their lessons in frowns and furrowed chins. In the end this disquieting descant left each child more unsure than before. His heart is a grotto bearing witness to others' kindnesses. A sudden musicality of phrase, as when one hears the windowpanes humming. Louis the Conqueror, not High John. Although in our sepia book of saints we were usually drawn to the visage of St. Martin de Porres, our city had received its name from the patron saint of France. Pronounced phonetically, after the British fashion. Religion now plays such an ambiguous role in American children's development. \"Pass the plate, don't keep us late,\" which confirmed that he had originally been a Baptist. The priest, whose voice engraved these messages into our callow youth, would homilize before leading the whole congregration in song. Though his claps seldom managed to keep the beat, we thought them to be heartfelt. Nave of doves. A stranger terror lurked within the confessional, which was unlighted and reeked of sweat. Dance of the infidels. Aleikam salaam one replied to the man who peddled oils, incense, revolutionary tracts, and slender, mimeographed volumes of poetry. And so by the end of the Detroit riots they had chosen completely new names, thereby casting off another aspect of their heritage. Isis, Icarus, Iscariot, Idris. \"I discovered that I could never remember how my favorite songs went,\" she wrote as if in anticipation of your \"problem.\" Sunday-school lessons and softly spoken psalms had lodged in that crystalline realm of the mind which the swirl of adolescence would dissolve. To reach the building on Kingshighway required a half-hour drive from home, yet you could always sneak in through the side doors if late or you forgot your tithe, or beg for doughnuts if the culprits were gas and cigarettes. Something, however, points to behavior that is indisputably trifling. In the interim he flipped through the bulletins, which were troves of vital information. Memories, like cataracts, sometimes blind us to the present. All the cats come in. He prayed, kneeling solemnly on the rug's sandpapery surface, but his prayers remained wholly unanswered. A call, as always, upon the authority of the ancestors, at a pitch such as might befit a cantilene. Innumerable the issues they hid before the children, thinking them simply incapable of coping. Cousins who were Jehovahs argued that Jesus died on a tree, enlisting anecdotes and apocrypha as their proof. At Mass no one caught the spirit like those \"Pennycostals\" do. More baffling was why they called the holy bread the \"host,\" why it could not touch our hands, and why it resided hidden in the \"sepulcher.\" Would it melt in the mouth or turn to flesh again, and then how on God's earth could someone swallow? Dim body, dazzling body. When the fun began it was frequently bedtime. Volubility unchecked in an imaginative child is a sure prescription for disaster. Although he tried to cloak these comments in a voiceless whisper, his voice dispersed the silence like a well-cast stone.\n\n# TEXTS, CONTEXT, A FEAR OF CONTAMINATION\n\nEducation, they counseled us, is the one, true key, yet the school was known less for its floors of tidy classrooms than for its gym with collapsible bleachers and that polished, hardwood floor. Promise-harness. The committee, comprising the clergy and the most prominent lay members, rechristened the complex after the first Black Catholic bishop, which provided even the most taciturn with an engaging topic of discussion. Simply naming, while powerful, never proves enough. He was usually charily chosen for the kickball teams, or last for any sport requiring aggression. A palpable terror, a shortness of breath. Consolation lay in the reading contests and the sketching assignments, when we could excel far beyond the expectations of both teachers and friends. My teeth cast a gleaming net for you, a white and wordless reply. Cardinal Ritter. \"Poetry\" served then as the recitative of bible-men and the pimp who stayed on the corner, or the huckster who with brio sold them a faulty vacuum cleaner. In those days we could recall the names and life stories of the major Black inventors almost as readily as our multiplication tables, though in truth a disjuncture persisted between their paradigms and how we perceived them, which neither teachers nor other adults sought to bridge. No one really slept at naptime. After the wedding, marked by a holy sacrament which he believed he understood, he and the other children brought Mrs. Orange her namesake fruit. In fourth grade, following a premise that defied \"equality,\" the classes cleaved into two distinct and ability-based homerooms, which garnered for the smaller, brighter class a rancor it little deserved. \"Freedom School.\" Thus that year proceeded by way of experimental groupings and methods, which sound nothing short of radical in the context of education today. Many the nuns who scored the names of saintly men in their heads until each was resurrected by reflex, and who, in daily sweeps past their desks, left a near-visible trail of camphor. With your hair cut so short, the older boys renamed you \"Shine,\" rubbing your head as though it were their own personal talisman. \"Sensitive.\" Yet who did not desire to follow their model, for they were more real than his idols. What little boys do. Behavior enough to gain us mention in the newspaper, where he spoke of his desire to be popular, or in the parlance of those days, the \"Caped Crusader.\" Ivanhoe, Pip, and Peter Pan led the list of childhood favorites, though it was hard to identify with that bespectacled, British \"John.\" His father would not hesitate to mine him for that single ore of truth, since this, he had convinced himself, was a father's chief occupation. If you therefore were one who regularly lied, then your recollections might consist of the sum total of your childhood fictions. He waited but the invitations never materialized, so he learned to create small diversions for himself. A cleansing thus ensued, an art of remembering developed, a renewal undeniably the result. \"Straight-A, Straight-A, nothing but a sissyboy who's scared to play,\" they screamed burning tracks across the playground, their faces brown, blazing globes of glee, as he crumpled near the swingset like a raveling, forgotten husk-doll. Repression's effects assume manifold forms. One option proposed seriously was that of skipping a grade, though they feared that might warp her emotional development. In other words, neither parent had expected such a fragile character, though they bore the verdict better once they had bought it. Some children are badly suited to this world, though their elders rarely gather this fact until the dawn of the teen years, when the complement of options has shrunk to zero. Baldwins reclined between a Jong, several Cozzenses, and two Morrisons, but Michener's opera had long held sway of the bookshelf. Neither Bolivia nor Paraguay has an ocean port, you learned from encyclopedias at the great-aunt's house. A few of them so old that they crumbled between the fingers, others crinkled with that odor of never having been fully opened. The genius lay in the execution, or at least in how she kept the deception from becoming apparent. Ebony and Black Enterprise graced the marble coffee table, though Jet garnered everyone's initial review. Our generation possesses only a cursory sense of the world that our ancestors braved, though the burdens of history bear unmovably upon us. Homer G. Phillips. Rollerskating in the summer around Steinberg Rink, or else in one of many indoor halls, and when he was old enough to wield a racket, tennis in O'Fallon Park. Sugarloaf Mound. One assessment: the chill cast the courts in a crepuscular light. Stan, who coached the older, lither players, sported a thick, beguiling mustache, while coiled hairs spilled from the V-neck of his jersey, leaving us with a sensation that we were yet unable to name. Ruby, my dear. \"Swing, baby, lemme hear that ball sing and dance, serve, but not so much racket string, you got it, now, whoa, don't fling it.\" By perfecting a strategy, we learned gradually, we could organize and master almost any game, a lesson as applicable and valuable outside the court as on it.\n\n# II\n\nIN THE FACE OF THE NIGHT'S HYSTERIA, WE SHOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT, QUIETLY, THAT WHATEVER HAPPENED IS EXPLICABLE.\n\n_Samuel R. Delany_\n\nAFTER ALL, IT WAS ONLY OUR LIFE, OUR LIFE AND ITS FORGETTING.\n\n_Li-Young Lee_\n\nFOR IN THE BILLOWING AIR I WAS FLEET AND GREEN RIDING BLACKLY THROUGH THE ETHEREAL NIGHT TOWARDS MEN'S WORDS WHICH I GRACEFULLY UNDERSTOOD\n\n_Frank O'Hara_\n\n# CLEANSING, THROUGH THE ART OF REMEMBERING, A RENEWAL\n\nPicnics swarmed those summers as fervidly as bees, though he feigned to ignore the insects unless they graced him with a sting. Wasps and garter snakes composed a different cohort, sending you screaming through the screen door in out of the dark. \"La Ba-Kair.\" Certain sensations are unrenderable in sequential terms. Even small animals recognize this. To salve a yellowjacket attack his mother would apply baking soda. In essence she was redrawing the outer surface of his \"lovemap.\" Towards the end of May the city would parade its wares before the river like a tired, forsaken bride. This entails a \"localized\" notion of the subject. The two aunts, which is what we also called close female family friends, resided in the Laclede Town Houses, where Damie used to keep her beauty shop. Whether these still present advisable housing options no longer remains in doubt. Analysis involves a subtler mode of seeing. Chestnut Valley Sound. It was assumed that they would eventually own property like the TV families, though no one had taken much account of the difficulties involved in obtaining a mortgage. By then the flow of white residents away had become a hemorrhage but there was almost still no de facto desegregation. William Greenleaf Eliot. During the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, they drove all day to Grand Rapids, where he imagined the ground wore a purple shawl of lilacs and the legions of \"cousins\" would greet us as though we were returning from exile. There, the earth lay parched and bare, though you remember more the orderly grid of streets. The trellis of names of his grandfather's people climbed bewilderingly before him, thus he reconstructed each cousin's relation on a daily basis. A Golden Gloves boxer, an amateur star. Who knew what to make of the other grandmother's people, whose aloofness one took for granted. Vain vacuity. At first he would squirm in the barber's chair, lest they inflict on him another Quo Vadis, but as he aged he learned to appreciate the barber's focused attention, the tender, careful play of those fingers. \"Tutti-frutti, good bootie,\" Afro-Sheen, Congo Queen. The coolest picks, plastic, tricolored, with long metal prongs, flaunted their power-fist end first, and because they could not stay corralled in a pocket, one had to be vigilant so as not to lose them. Upright in our afros like coxcombs brought dismay to the faces of our mothers, but how else could we boys display them so that the girls would not fail to see them. \"Well, how do I look?\" knowing that no one with any decency would answer. The desire to be seen was an attempt to escape alterity, or in other words, to shift from the margins to the center. If he has to then he ought to, but he needn't. One learned not to slam the oven door since the cake inside might fall, and to wash one's hands with vigor before sitting down at table. Then the father would order a pizza since he could not cook, though by seven Jeffrey, the younger brother, had become handy with flapjacks. The effect is essentially novelistic, though its fictiveness remains another matter. Summer itself was often not a strong enough attractor, so they adorned it with a garland of festivals. At the Veiled Prophet Fair, or the Strassenfest, which was smaller, couples traded leers and melodies while waltzing about the grounds in lederhosen. One is often prone to reduce such situations to the results of lifestyle choices. Through the air interlaced the aroma of wurst and sauerkraut with almost visible ribbons of beer. Raus, Ihr kleine M\u00e4user, raus. Juneteenth, later, crowning the most torrid month, when the scions of the former slaves celebrated their ongoing battle for freedom. Inquiry thereby becomes a ceaseless aspect of living, its complement a vital and vigorous sense of improvisation. Against meaning. Lacking any concept of the \"body\" beyond its being the locus of received sensations, his self-esteem derived mainly from what others identified in him physiquely. In your case your hair was never considered completely \"good,\" which was why she quickly picked your friend instead. Imagine: one's fingers as the branches from which the fruits of one's desires tumble. You hid but they had quit the game some hours before, thus in the end no one came seeking. The problem is one of choosing. Daddy was always eager to play catch, since he felt society expected this from a loving, caring father. A confidence that soared and a glovehand that fell, still there was no baseball near either. Duplicity has killed more Black men than gin. In a southpaw, what they appreciate most is this sort of \"live arm.\" From his mouth words rushed like richly fed rapids, leaving him ever vulnerable to ascription.\n\n# RECORDS, ACCOUNTS, ACCUMULATION AS EXPLICATION\n\nThe sun rose and the sun set yet he did not leave the bed. Eventually you would come to rationalize these events as minor flaws of character. A clue, alcohol. Blue barge of our sympathies, float past this scene of woe. Melodrama substituted for melancholy. Holidays, folks buzzed and flitted about like fruit flies, yet as a child you lacked the power to shoo them. Inevitably epithets would detonate upon the driveway's head or a fist would soar through the air to its punch, but we grinned as if suspended, gay lanterns through the outplaying of each episode, for we realized only twilight could ensure a dimming of the hubbub. Absent of all of these kernels of drama those occasions might have proven less festive, although the bitter winter months would have departed sooner. Easter, that Christian estuary. Caps, scarves, and Afros bloomed upon their heads like versicolored, April crocuses. We took pride in showing off our newly made suits, which testified to our grandmother's artistry. Old shoes with their patina of brown polish, old socks where the heels had worn threadbare. The photographs document the changes in the family's sense of fashion, but reveal no more than a hint of the unraveling of its internal social fabric. Creditors calling night and day. Complain, and you might be blamed. On Thanksgiving after Nana had cleared the turkey and dressing and the turnip greens from the dining-room table, everyone would gather to play Po-Ke-No. The grown folks gossiped and argued over bid-whist or poker while we huddled before the prime-time specials. \"Whatever you do, don't touch the cards in the kitty,\" a command that they learned to obey. No niggers, renegers. The reviled and unschooled \"Mississippi\" types. Perhaps there are exaggerations that enhance the flow of a few of these stories, but each, on the whole, constitutes a regime of truth. Fleur-de-lys. Needless to repeat, someone kept saying that the troops were coming home, though the news commentator's words contradicted this. A disproportionate number from that neighborhood, crippled in combat. One still identified with him and wanted him too. If the number of your dependent children has increased during the weeks claimed, you must report to your local office to claim the dependency allowance. Around that time they found lead in the wallpaper. Maudlin malingerers, lingering madly. Consider: images of Vietnam, the assassinations, and Watergate bear that fuzzy, bluish-white glimmer, since nearly all your recollections of that era's major events are but the residue of each evening's televised diversions. Despite the activism the uneven terrain of history remains, the challenge, however, no longer to write the unrecorded story. What's going on. The Vanderfords, meaning Big Preston and Cleo, kept a pen full of beagles, \"the hunting dogs,\" which were loosed in that collision with the trailer. Marion, sleeping at the time like a cat in sunlight, did not even suffer a concussion. Accidents, like epiphanies, deplete one's store of metaphors. Pannonica. \"Don't think you're getting away with something, 'cause I know you better than you know yourself,\" so how were we, mere children, to respond. However, they polished off a jug of Koolaid by themselves and lay sick to their stomachs during dinnertime. In other words, innocence, no sense, a nuisance. Blind-slight rendered the story that he was beginning unreadable, thus he settled for staging wars between his miniature militias. One's back is the stairwell to the attic of one's thoughts, or the pilaster shoring up one's shoulder-eaves. And so in her elaborate mythology of action, if it was not uncouth it was unorthodox, and if not unorthodox, obnoxious, and if it did not fit within this carefully constructed rubric, then it simply was not worthy of expression. Given this as your premise, you were lucky to continue down the path of literature at all. Turner Hall Turnverein. And so, encased in each attempt to make himself heard lies the aim to site his personal development within the broader historical record.\n\n# SIGNS, SCENES, A PSYCHIC TRAIL OF ASSIGNATIONS\n\nSex, that sublime sum of bodily attraction, served as little more than one factor in the algebra of their juncture. Would they kiss, as they were expected to, or go further, as their parents hoped and feared. Chances are. Yet the light and the hours spun out to their end like spindles spinning free of thread. At the party, given to introduce him to manhood, his hips turned with Peggy's like finely tuned gears. She was thirty, he fourteen. Lion of the Valley. Guilt hung around his neck like an asafetida bag, warding off all but the most persistent fantasies. \"Don't be bringing no babies into this house,\" uttered as much to persuade as to warn. They seemed incapable of conceiving of gay or lesbian people, except in terms of slurs or epithets. A word is a sword that cuts with less effort, though the wounds will often last longer. The man in the hat and trenchcoat approached him in a way that was not considered quite acceptable. A sly glance, espied, from the corners of the eyes. Shame, and more of the same. Oppression is most effective when its aims are effected voluntarily. The one or two girls that you raised the courage to call wanted more than anything to be considered best friends. Still one dreamt up schemes to enter that schema, which conferred on its residents the validation of \"normality.\" She giggled, then inched towards the passenger-side door when your hand flopped fish-flat onto her thigh. Primitive parameters. Intuition provided the first step, information the second, until he realized that by combining the two he was creating a handy index of being. We were always the first to grace the dance floor, for our self-esteem derived primarily from others initially identified in us physiquely. Evonce. Boys should not flap their arms when they run downstairs, or cover their mouths when they laugh. Dignity is occasionally a byproduct of discretion. Let's get it on. By focusing on his footwork, he could think of the men he had spotted on the street and still not lose his rhythm. Meanwhile, her shawl slid down unhurriedly, to reveal lightly lotioned, amber shoulders. Who had no idea of how to meet another, or how to love another, and this was before our current plague era. Things were rumored to occur in \"The Loop\" in Forest Park, where the curtain of trees kept most actions hidden. One need not overlook the beauty cast by a man's hands, though as with women the face and lower regions usually garner the most attention. \"Watch your date and not the other guys dancing,\" he chimed to himself as reinforcement. Reality, that rude intruder. After the fingers reached the chest and the legs locked, everything proceeded much more smoothly. A soothing stroke. Your penis is a woodwind that some play better than others. What two men do. He sang but they hardly listened and so they could not repeat what they had heard. \"Who can make head or tail of these so-called stories,\" as if this were not the aim of your aesthetic. The fundamental instability of two lovers' relationship becomes most apparent when they must live together, since cohabitation tends to magnify the sharpest edges of any personality. Avoid contact with magnetic surfaces. Of course we knew the general proscriptions for comportment, but being teenagers frequently failed to follow them, imagining ourselves nearly men, on the adult side of twenty-one. Fun after dark, though of the sort best enjoyed by one alone. Later that night their fingers passed from the Ouija board to each other's shoulders, thighs, yet not one rose to flee the room or uttered a single cry. Accusations flew, but we knew. Straight, no chaser. Though effective as an initial strategy, transgression devolves swiftly into an end in itself.\n\n# A FATHOMING BENEATH A FLOURISH OF NOTES, AN EXIGESIS\n\nDesire, among other things, derives its force from repetition, or so your general pattern of behavior would lead you to believe. Neither parent had initially expected such a fragile character, though they hid their disappointment beneath a flurry of activity. Ut natura poesis: autumn arrived to our wonderment, introduced by the river's murmur. Stands of birches, poplars, shuddered with delight, as the park glimmered with the embers of Indian summer. Carondelet. His hopes and dreams were maturing with each subtle change in the weather, like the peppers she had suspended from the gaspipe. Ambivalence towards the cool and fleeting day, towards the cold and stolid night hours. Play your number. Your mother was extraordinarily attentive to gradations of demeanor, which allowed her to catalogue, to cope with, the frequent shifts in attitude. Comprehension does not hinge upon an image. The view beyond the patio too was transforming as through a kaleidoscope, changing daily its array of moods and colors into ever more awe-provoking patterns. Our dreams are but hulls for our souls. Every house had a dog, but only one dog had a doghouse. We would leap upon the car hoods when a mad dog came charging, or failing this we shimmied up the telephone poles. The authority inherent in each of these words never exceeds the dictates of practical truth. Then they would put on the albums or forty-fives and dim the basement lights, and begin to perform the newest dance. Such delivery, a diva. Everyone studied their moves with care so that at someone else's house they would not slip up. In this way, a sense of tradition was nurtured, which others wrongly attributed to their \"nature.\" He was afraid of standing with his back to the curb, for fear that the unknown might seize him. \"Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, too scared to know where your shadow's at!\" After a certain age it was not considered proper to sew, just as it had never been appropriate to knit, and yet in late adolescence and adulthood he would require these skills, as well as the ability to darn. The cooler boys built their own go-carts, while the wealthier ones received scooters or velos, but for him a bicycle would have to suffice, even though it devoured his mother's entire paycheck. With glee they assembled the roadster, the chief pleasure coming from the effects of the glue. Bakai. Brief observation of any personality proves that human existence cannot be reduced to a science. \"Fat meat is greasy, dark meat is sweet,\" which always induced a burst of laughter, since they were expecting what they had been promised, a few lines from an Augustan. By choosing and extolling certain models to the exclusion of all others, he sought to deny the impending crisis of his own self-representation. Beneath the brownblack thicket of your hair a trove of information lies waiting. Then they remembered how, after supper, their parents had read to them slowly, which taught them to appreciate the aural potency of words. Analysis entails a subtler mode of seeing. The concatenation of names rose like a conjurer's prologue: Brazil, Liberia, Nigeria, Cuba, Eritrea. Silence poses a unique dilemma. Language leads to one bank, knowledge to the other, yet little prepares them for fording the teeming river of expectations. Who would say \"bed\" when \"grave\" was more accurate, who denied a distinction between \"naming\" and \"calling.\" Yet a great fear inheres in much of what was discussed, for something points to behavior that was \"trifling.\" The dyspeptic Confederate doctor, however, consequently wanted no part of his son, and so he named him after the demoted Union general before abandoning him altogether. Later the mythology would fulfill itself, creating a whole new myth of their paternal origins. Soulard Market. Of course she was overjoyed that she could pass as a Filipino or when tanned as a product of some \"Caribbean island's gentry,\" a fact which they derided with snide remarks, though they secretly envied her \"passport.\" In D.C. or Atlanta is where you'll find a real landed Black society, he recalled his father preaching, in scorn of the rivertown's provincial elite. \"And don't you get no airs cause ain't nobody stuttin' you,\" advice so sound that whosoever could might risk denying it. The threat and the promise, Palmares. Our generation lacks more than a cursory sense of the world that our ancestors faced, which surprises no one cognizant of the contempt in which the nuances of history are currently held. The function and effect of titles, as in most cases of naming, however, depends on one's ability to differentiate signs. Ornithology. And so, in an effort to make so many shorter stories richer, these overtures ought to be read as a series of extended annotations.\n\n# THE TERRITORY OF HISTORY, WHOSE UNRECORDED STORY\n\nToynbee, in a letter to the prior, his friend and spiritual advisor, proposed the thesis that St. Louis had consisted of an originary Creole core. This center, he argued, successive waves of English Southerners and Yankees, then Irish, and later Germans, had subsumed, thereby eliding the reality of the pre-Spanish Indian presence or the various African slaves and freemen who had helped to found the city in 1764. Men are the question, and their efficient reintegration. Jacques Clamorgan. Such was the splendor of those erstwhile eras, when the streetcars ran from St. Charles to Kirkwood. Slaves had been sold at market on the steps of the grand courthouse that we now glided through in awe. The tour guide, however, slighted this aspect of the building's history, believing this subject disruptive and unrelated to his evocations. Steerage, so as to get over here. Who spoke of the African-American denizens, through the metaphor of an unablatable excrescence. Chauffeur's Club combos. A nearly incestuous series of interrelations allowed the founding families to retain their property and titles. Pierre de Lacl\u00e8de de Liguest. Some forty years later the gynecomastic general approved the fire sale as a way of cutting his losses, though great doubt remains in many minds as to whether the land was his to sell. To what extent is American history the history of American capital. But that former Haitian slave wrought all of this. If they could only have steered him to the piano sooner, he might have elected a more worthwhile enterprise. So much of our sense of identity depends on this desire for attention, yet we conversely deem it unseemly to draw great notice to ourselves. Incongruous, in Congress. Later the laity repainted the walls so that the saints resembled their families. As in all propaganda, substance was sacrificed for superficial appeal. We took turns reciting the \"Negro\" poets at one of those gatherings for children that bourgeois yet working-class parents felt would instill a sense of pride and self-recognition. These occasions, arrived at by appropriating known and invented rituals, constituted, as they would eventually comprehend, a fragile line of defense. By the end of two years most of the families had dropped out, proving that indifference constitutes a political stance too. It is better not to mention names as they often indict the collective memory. If in doubt refer to the operation manual. Dumas School. Some of those formerly \"colored\" institutions would eventually vanish through consolidation as part of the desegregational restructuring plan, their memories blazons on the minds of their alumni, their names empty vessels of sound to the children who might roam their abandoned grounds today. The effect, from this coign of vantage, verges plainly on the novelistic. But oh, Saint Louis, such a colored town, a minefield of myth and memory. Their father, while listening to Coltrane, was poring through Cleaver in the evenings, though it would be a few years before they connected that author with the pig-eared copy of Soul on Ice. Ron Karenga, another. Daddy also coached basketball as a means of providing those boys with a viable life-alternative. Later on, he was as prone to drink as he was to cuss, a fact that rapidly trained them to tread as if on crystal. Note that it is easy to underestimate the power of representation, and yet to fixate on this site of contestation to the exclusion of other problematic areas is to consign the nature of the struggle to the scopopsychic realm. Uh-huh. With the tape recorder she fashioned her own call-in program, devoted to the theme of history, which allowed her to bypass the usual crank callers and the necessity of masking her voice. \"And what on earth are we supposed to do with you now,\" to which you balked at furnishing an answer. As the child of an alcoholic one tends to retreat from conflict, which engenders further conflict itself. Transforming the letters, nevertheless, into fully formed words was as important a confidence-builder as keeping the bike aloft on the graveled road or reaching the lake's mile marker. Thus he wrote but they professed to comprehend not a word, claiming the entire text unfolded like a riddle. Black pearls. The doctor, a born-again Christian, approached his mother in a way that was not quite acceptable, which he couched within a discourse of \"friendship\" and \"salvation.\" In retrospect you see why others failed to intervene, though at the time this marked the final betrayal. One's trunk thus brimmed with daggers of vengeance, which one sheathed to forestall any bloodshed. In all of this we detect the influence of the media, which points to a fundamental failure of resistance. Kinds of blue. Truth, that abstruse and unrepenting philosopher wrote, is another aspect of revealing.\n\n# A CALL TO THE ANCESTORS, A CANTILENE\n\nWith each move we refashioned fresh and functional identities, imposed in part by the will of each new neighborhood's children, influenced too in part by these opportunities to be reborn. The prisonhouse of cogito. Scenarios: alternately Friday and Crusoe, at other points Gallant or Goofus, most often one of the numerous TV characters like J.J. or Fonzie or Raj, but then there appeared that moment at the peak of yet another family crisis when he proclaimed himself the next Percy Shelley. They consequently decried literature as a guide to the life that one lived, as mere retreat, fool's flight from the world's true horrors, but instead he derived from these stories, those poems, maps to realizable liberty, and took in each finished text a step ever closer to the zone of deliverance. East Saint Louis. In Los Angeles and its environs, scale appeared to warp itself, for they drove and they drove and they drove some more, yet they still had not gotten there. What he noticed first were the palm trees hovering above, the heat's white shuddering at the horizon, the waves' soft churning as they lapped upon the shore, the sparkling mazes of the supermarkets. Out of earshot, shouts and whispers. So much to tell which they concealed from the children, convinced of their inability to cope. One's mouth is the runway from which the possible taxis, alights in words, or the hangar in which life's verities, lies lie dormant. Left alone you marched through all of the Dr. Seusses, then shocked them by declaiming passages aloud. \"Keep reading in this dim light, you're gonna lose your eyesight,\" a warning unheeded before the promise of so much prose. We could spend hours in the upstairs stacks just wiping dust from the spines in order to examine the titles better. Who recited the four main rivers that feed the Missouri in Missouri\u2014the Gasconade, the Osage, the Locust, the Chariton\u2014though the Cuivre River flows into the Mississippi. Your memory is transformative as opposed to eidetic, which best serves the purposes of literature or lying. Other times the jones they traded could have filled their own dictionary, which led him to indite a mini-lexicon. Klactoveededstene. And so we never, under any circumstances, experienced a dearth of interesting material, nor did we ever presume we might be wasting our time. Back at home, in the waters of the Northlands pool, he began his training to become a \"dolphin,\" which the traumatic event at the Tiny Tots school would disastrously interrupt. She placed her heel on his best friend's head, daring either to cry or to climb out of the water. A terrible wailing, a scream from below. Myth or mendacity, depending on how you tell it. After the hurling into the deep end your confidence returned, so that as you swam for the bobbing buoy you considered only the mirthful aspect of that moment. Still, when one speaks of ethics one is implicitly speaking of actions, and when one talks of morals one is talking about beliefs. Poorly marked or unmarked responses will count against your total. Nana required that we bow our heads and utter a passage of Scripture before lifting even napkin or fork, while at home we rarely prayed, but simply plunged right in. The other grandmother, Maman, never obliged them to say grace, however manners mattered at her table too. \"Clear the peas off your plate, please,\" achieved with the aim to appease. Raised on the harsh Mississippi soil, the grandfather knew the rudiments of self-sufficient farming, such as how to keep bugs from devouring potatoes without pesticides, or how to sow okra seed, and leading them down to the drainage lagoon, explained the lack of necessary acreage for corn. In their minds, as in the then-current television shows, however, the farmer still continued to constitute a mildly romantic figure. Federated Block Units. In such cases you might recur to therapy against the more infrequent response of analysis, just as one in a political setting might appeal to nature against interpretation. \"Salt peanuts, salt peanuts,\" the President gaily sang, words the little boys knew belonged to Daddy and \"Dizzy.\" Joplinesque. To speak of culture is to foreshadow a battle. And so when the fun began it was bedtime, few pleas for leeway proving persuasive. He fled as a matter of course but no one deigned to follow, so he eventually had to skulk back home. Giant steps. Love, therefore, assumes the status of a cynosure, when in truth it is but one outward manifestation of the internal discourse of returning.\n\n# III\n\nBEHOLD ST. LOUIS, CITY HONORED NEAR AND FAR NAMESAKE OF THE GREAT CRUSADER IN COLUMBIA'S CROWN, A STAR!\n\n_Susan Louise Marsh_\n\nA LEADING CITIZEN WROTE IN l8l8 THAT \"THE PREVAILING LANGUAGE OF THE WHITE PERSONS ON THE STREETS WAS FRENCH THE NEGROES OF THE TOWN SPOKE FRENCH. ALL THE INHABITANTS USED FRENCH TO THE NEGROES THEIR HORSES, AND THEIR DOGS.\"\n\n_Audrey L. Olson_\n\nST. LOUIS \/ SUCH A COLORED TOWN \/ A WHISKEY BLACK SPACE OF HISTORY & NEIGHBORHOOD \/ FOREVER OURS TO LAWRENCEVILLE\n\n_Ntozake Shange_\n\n# MULTEITIES, DISJUNCTIONS, INTENSE POLYSEMIC PLEASURES\n\nBy the autumn of his childhood they had abandoned their prefab in the ghetto for a ranch house in a suburb whose property values and lack of crime could boast of national renown. No one, you understand, carped at the size of the required down payment, since it was assumed that they would eventually own their own property. Ignorance is incapable of concealing itself. Out there many of the Blacks were descended from the slaves or servants who had once managed those estates, so tensions were bound to abound when the educational system finally integrated. Douglass School. Few Negro families had settled land as far out as Red Bud, though even Franklin and Jefferson Counties had shown a minimal Black presence since well before the Civil War. This unconcern with the questions of whether a \"there\" was there, or of what this \"there\" consisted, remained unnamed until a later encounter with what they were denouncing as \"pragmatism.\" History has been kindest to the charming old German quarter, where the wealthier or more committed ones had hidden in their rathskellers those dark fugitives headed north for freedom. Information, he first noticed, in a series of notes that someone had inscribed in the narrow, running margin. \"Missouri Compromise.\" Out there then one never needed to lock one's doors or speak to one's neighbors for weeks. Once a week a man, bearing more than a minor resemblance to the president whose name became a curseword, delivered orange juice and grape drink and lemonade just as they had observed in the movies. My address, Madras. Hush Puppies, bell-bottom denims, a Bengal-striped shirt, though you refused to be photographed in platforms. A fulvous swatch of velour that tired the eyes, your sweater was the only one lighter than your skin. \"Dibs on your Tootsie-Roll\" was all they had to say to quash any attempts to deny them, so you broke it into morsels as had been demonstrated on TV, and went home without anticipating a \"Thank you.\" Boys should not flap their arms when they run down stairs, or cover their mouths when they laugh, proscriptions made less to correct a child's deportment choices than to allay a parent's useless fears. \"Though the crust may be brown the bread is still white.\" Lacking any real conception of evil, a child is prone to explore the limits of her will. He fought back but they laughed at him, so that he discovered his skill as jokester, but he kept in mind the example of Richard Pryor. Mode for Joe. The father eventually began to dwell on the numerous half-veiled jealousies this move and its aftermath induced. Often, he would speak of Captain Wendell O. Pruitt, and the other Tuskegee flyers, who had never been properly honored. Just remembering the treatment of all those distinguished Black airmen filled his eyes with tears of awe and bitterness. Benign neglect. Who stood and saluted when the flag flapped high, who sang the anthem without anger. Time is no equalizer. As you will recall she was a blond divorc\u00e9e with two attractive kids, whom she appeared to love more dearly than she did the thought of them. Although working-class and Irish, they quickly ignited a friendship, which differed from what we had encountered in the city. Civility offers an acceptable way to evade the issues at hand. Name us anonymous. \"Grumio erat coquus,\" he yelled out in earnest, to the consternation of a number of his classmates and the instructor. Chalk hurled at the head was the usual punishment, though kneeling while hoisting a dictionary was not unknown. My mind is the sandbox that my thoughts play in, or the court in which they exercise their claims to reason. Nine, the magic number. Quietly they strode through the grounds of the Eden Seminary, the thrill of actually being there far more compelling than anything they encountered therein. Reinhold Niebuhr. Accordingly, along with the doctrinal classes the Opus-Dei brothers offered scale-model construction; however, journalism more thoroughly captured his mood. By then it was the Bicentennial, and you were playing \"John Henry\" in the program at the Loreto-Hilton, which entailed memorizing a medley of songs, and learning how to swing an invisible hammer. Hurry up this way again. More the name of the Algonquin Golf Club where one caddied than any other identifiable aspect, and the waiting buckets of crawdads which made the traipse across the greens go more quickly. Of course, the city's importance had diminished progressively since the days when it had served as the gateway to the West, though one's perspective on this fact waxes as one gains distance from it. DeSoto. Having abandoned it for the far more sterile suburbs, they were drawn back to that laboratory of human interaction. Against closure. As a result those endlessly engaged in the quest for happiness usually constitute the unhappiest lot. Anthropology offers us among its many conclusions that boys throw a certain way, girls another.\n\n# THESES, ANTITHESES, A WELTER OF THEORIES\n\nTrundling through the pass of bald maples across the valley of ice, he felt bound irrevocably to the outside world and to some inner, still aspiring self. Schneeblick, so blink now. Daylight, reflecting off the soundless frostscape of the nursery, transformed his hands into two bars of franklinite. The early, wintry sunsets arrived, and then, although they waited, nothing. O soul, sublime subject of bodily subtraction, which the sky has entombed in all this whiteness. He cowered in fear of the implications of such thoughts, yet brazenly continued to think them. His mother nevertheless purchased two pairs of long johns which inevitably curled and shrank. These scaled the calves like spiders, forcing one to wrench until they reached the socks. Indifference is not the same as ambivalence, which proceeds from different situational premises. Joliet, P\u00e8re Marquette. Most winters pinched the flesh like pincers, yet a few hacked through the bones like scythes. Often the ground glared back as would a freshly Windexed mirror, so that when he fell, breaking what the doctor termed a \"coccyx,\" seven years of bad luck became part of the bargain. One loses 90 percent of one's body heat through the head, though most worry about the throat, feet, and limbs. \"Where did you leave your gloves this time?\" which kept us silent, praying against frostbite. Catch-a-girl, kiss-a-girl. One could still go tobogganing down the steeper part of Art Hill, but there were lesser hills much closer in the more historic parts of Webster, where the dauntless ones could sled or ski-board on a stolen trashcan top. On your back, in the snow, making angels the sun would summon. White swath. Summer they awaited for its bounty of trips and excursions, such as a return to Meramec Caverns or Silver Dollar City, now, from what he read, not far from where the Klan was presently headquartered. A cathode bath usually proves easier than self-immersion in a written text, thus did the ends of those evenings eddy through that small, transfixing screen. On the other hand, you noted at the Monet exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, which you attended with your classmates and the chaperone, that although painting had once served as the transcriptor of the soul, it now mainly served to break the hold of mechanical reproduction. The effect is essentially Suric, or \"Quranic\" with the subject matter secular. What seized their interest without parallel was the spectacle of the soldier grinding with the half-asleep young woman, which they watched through the undraped hotel window, while their elders snored two rooms away. Boys view, voyeurs. Yet he persisted in his interpretation of the surface of the oil, or was it charcoal mixed with oil, since for something so thick and black that one can make little of it, appreciation becomes an effect rather than an immediate feeling of the picture, followed by a gradual perceptive glowing. A guide, unbidden. Now he sings, now he sobs. And so although the choice between competingoptions creates a thicket of perplexing problems, one still can envision that open meadow of narrative possibilities, as that New York poet of the process of makes clear in his expressively opaque treatise. \"Stop where you are and do not move,\" the policemen yelled out in unison. Dizzy, however, he dropped to his frozen, grassy bed, which they disdained as \"so much unnecessary drama.\" I'n-Shta-Heh. Mittened, parkaed, he etched the scene around him with a penknife on a board the reverend had discarded. Please read directions carefully before opening. Stripped bare of all life, all color, the outdoors seemed in mourning, so we crept towards the road on our tiptoes, cringing that our crunching might offend. Lester leaps in. They too were unable, remember, to categorize to their satisfaction the book of drawings, and went about dismissing them as the products of a \"troubled\" mind. Snowblink, now blink, see. One's thoughts are the goads that drive one's calf-like existence forward, strange, diaphanous gods reappearing day and night. Marronage. Seen properly as a field of multeities, characterized by the presence of so many disjunctions, one might learn to appreciate this experience if only for the intense polysemic pleasures that it offers. Worry later. And so it was at that time when you lacked any real notion of the \"body\" that your grandfather lay silent on his deathbed, cradling you in his still strong arms. Appalled, they refuse to believe that you have told, since they remember your vows of silence.\n\n# PERMANENCE OR EVANESCENCE, THE PROCESS OF THE REAL\n\nThe studied obscurity of those avant la lettre poets derives primarily from their desire to conceal. In your eyes, however, she reckoned the plight of the artist, which seduced her even more thoroughly, though you protested rightly that such suffering pales in comparison to what most other human beings endure. Trumpet-in-the-morning. Then mother left for work as father was returning half-asleep from his shift, so bundled up we too set off along the longer route that passed the stately \"Century\" houses. Another path, across the train tracks near the home for \"wayward girls,\" where he leered and poked his crotch through the fence, until the stones began to rain upon him. Recall how before you had spent the afternoons with Nana, and how when you grew old enough to walk to school your peculiar cast of companions, though your dispositions often left you all at war. Our legs are the pistons that fire our march through life, or at night two pipes through which each previous day's dramas drain. Circuits, circadia. The long way had led past Mr. Ward's gas station, where Gandy, known as \"Sarge\" from his army days, repaired cars. The other way promised a leaf-canopied stroll through a modest residential section, which you imagined had been the haunts of that playwright's \"Toussaint,\" and the store not far from the abandoned trolley tracks, where one could linger over stalls of tangerines and Chinese apples or on hot days purchase taffy and \"Bomb Pops.\" Comparing this much later to the daily drives out to the Priory in Cr\u00e8ve Coeur, what strikes you most is how fundamental and relative the relations are between distance and perspective. Back-and-Forth. \"What will it take to get this garden growing?\" a clarion to lift the rake and hoe, though the result would remain that patch of scrub that cumbered in the shade of the collapsing carport. Through the window of the backporch where the great-aunt sheltered her orchids, one surveyed with admiration the bay of asters, zinneas, and marigolds, and by stretching one's senses just a quarter of a yard, one could almost touch the impatiens that cloaked the edges of the gangway. Grandfather, on the other hand, cultivated several plots of fruits and vegetables, among them tomatoes, turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and watermelons, which sated both mind and stomach, especially during the desperate years. A little work is a wondrous thing, too much toil becomes a torment. Consequently when they began to cook peas as well as plant, pick, and shell them, it clarified once and for all the formerly central role of agriculture. Therapy, and not analysis, is our normal mode of reaction. This interpretation, however, of the poet's striking originality failed to cite his filial reliance on preexisting discourse. By clever manipulation of a French accent, he convinced the teacher that he had lived in Martinique. She grimaced as you described fishing in S\u00e3o Paulo because she knew you were no longer just recounting but had crossed the lying-line. \"Is that any way to behave around adults,\" the emphasis primarily falling on adults. For while one might presume that originality overrides any deficit of the recollective faculties, more often than not it marks memory's return in an unforeseen guise. Usually they could laugh off the slight attacks and raillery, but even the mildest comments hooked their self-perception like an angler's gaff. Any fellow can break a rule, and every fool will mend it. \"Monkey, monkey, swinging from a tree, better run and hide or he'll jump on me.\" You beseeched them but they belittled this as mere unmanliness, sure any empathy might blunt the sharpness of your sorrow. Listening implies a desire to surrender. In one of his most spectacular fits, he confessed to having fathered other children during his libertine days, yet their resulting expressions barely altered their pre-formed masks of dismay. And yet what distinguished this moment from all of the others was the announcement that one of these too-numerous offenses had earned him a black-magic curse from the forsaken girl's mother. Good rhetoric always resurrects an argument. Hothouse. By propounding these theses and their concomitant antitheses, she subjected us to her usual welter of theories, and in so doing she appeared to have shrunk the polymorphous body of history into one monoeth(n)ic narrative so as to create a signifying medium that posed and answered all of its own questions. Huh. Blues, shoes, and a districtful of booze. In other words, private property and \"propriety\" are to the EuroAmerican bourgeois what the land and ancestors were to his other forebears, the fulcrum around which their entire sociopolitical view turned, and turns.\n\n# INTUITION, INFORMATION, A HANDY INDEX OF BEING\n\nGripping the chrysalis between the thumb and index finger you could divine the outlines of your future, for if such beauty might arise from a thing so hideous, you were persuaded that, despite your present, inelegant form, at least a few momentous transformations must await you. Out of nowhere. In back of the house sprawled the tree-nursery's dun and barren acres which had long since closed to commerce. To the neighborhood kids we claimed this as our own yard despite the blatantly red-tagged markers, until Ebony, our beloved Labrador retriever, fell dead from some herbicides the land's real owners had sprayed there. Behind the tool shed they retreated: behinds, bared teats. What would be sufficient under such trying circumstances. \"Colored ABC Darians.\" Eventually a \"camp\" experience assumed the status of a \"solution,\" though the reality of day camps, summer camps and scout camp depended on the year and their ever precarious finances. Prolonged exposure to sunlight will lead to yellowing or further surface degradation. Jumping double-dutch, till the night sky touched the ground, or jacks, but still the girls would play too fairly. Among our crew Kill the Man with the Ball prevailed or else a few rounds of Red Rover, and on days when there were only two of us, we might even resort to hopscotch. Each of them pined for a particular counselor, Kay M. being the one that he chose, for in spite of their snickers at her red hair and freckles, he found her laugh and wry spirit irresistible. Alone, and at best bereft. At scout camp the man was showering with his \"sons,\" which sent a shudder of recognition up their spine. Numerous dissimilarities, however, distinguished the boys, yet in general they were thought to think as one. L'envie, envy. Written records exist as testimony beside the oral accounts of those present, as though the accumulation of all these voices would effect a kind of \"explication.\" Who would cut such a big piece of the sweet-potato pie when so many good people in Africa go hungry. Peru, se compriende, is the country north of Chile and south of Colombia, he reread in those encyclopedias at the great-aunt's house, which not only listed Thailand as \"Siam\" but Zimbabwe as a colony called \"Rhodesia.\" \"If I were she,\" she corrected, digging sharply into your statement, to ensure that proper diction would take root. The source of oratory. Not infrequently some would express a yearning for a return to the era of the city's ascendancy, which was fitting as nostalgia rarely broaches the enigma of reason. Hiram R. Revels. In spite of the concatenation of family disasters they were still running with that bourgie crowd. A boon, apparently, when they won that all-expense-paid trip to Mexico, since, as that gossip announced to all around her at the luncheon, they both held such \"menial jobs.\" Cotillion de Le\u00f3n. How long would you be away from us, what would you bring us back, or would you decide to forsake us altogether. A lingering terror, an absence of breath. The parents, politically active in those heady days, eagerly lent their time and support, because that decent Irish family, and not the others they had come across, led the local corps of Democrats. Amid them, the middling ones. Shortly thereafter the actor assumed the nation's highest office, which precipitated the local organization's disintegration through anger, distrust, and apathy. \"St. Louis Movement.\" With much fanfare, they commenced the beautillion militaire, which would be written up in all the Negro papers, and which he eschewed, to the dissatisfaction of certain relatives, out of an unexplained personal disinclination. In which affect becomes a guide and source, but to what: all, and nothing. The hurly-burly that ensued exceeded what we had expected, and yet we did not kowtow, but stood our unstable ground, knowing that later events, in which we determined our future, would bear such decisions out. Your feet are the very rotors that propel you through today, or on occasion two trusty harrows that render the moment around you fertile. Still no one could explain why on that side he had so many \"grandfathers,\" who arrived and departed as regularly as the dun-notes. Mercy, mercy, me. \"I'll turn my tail to the wind to make sure y'all have something to eat,\" thus who would dare to question the deeper contradictions in her reasoning. Let's cool one. Which portended obliquely the theater of our future, but left to chance the curtain calls to come. They were horrified, however, that you could dredge up such minuscule details, since they had invested their reserves of faith in the telescopic movement of the years.\n\n# WORDS, ACTS, A SEARCH FOR VALIDATION\n\nFrom their perch on the telephone wires a choir of songbirds greeted him, thereby slaking his starved sensibilities with a scenario that the whiter months had withheld. Lily, thou gay and hardy flower. Geraniums, jotted in your curling stenographer's notebook, in \"plastic graves on the windowsill,\" belied, as did the charging, mewling cat, the dispassion of the afternoon's unfolding. Never wearying of his records of these private adventures, he began to expend even longer hours on recondite projects, including the creation of a pseudo-African board game and a private linguistic mythopoetics. \"I said put down that pen and pick up that football, and go out and play with the other boys,\" thus condemned, without jury, to the tribunal of the outdoors, the others. O oriole, oracle! Abstraction is a literal and figurative subtraction which incurs no net loss of value. In suburbia someone has to mow the lawn, of course, thus it fell within your purview, so you heaved and you hove, wrenching the mower along the slope, until it accidentally plunged into the sinkhole. Recriminations bloomed like shrapnel, as though the action, though an error, were a crime. Emprizes, for others more enterprising. Both poetry and fiction, however, find their roots in the act of making, a supposition grown gradually clearer as he explored the possibilities of reading. Upon your five-speed, across the asphalt, whirring as the blackbird flies. Dreams consequently assumed the contours, colors of the interior of the town's modest main library, where months seemingly elapsed as he maundered among the stacks, yet these reverie-journeys sometimes transmogrified into horrifying, recurrent nightmares in which, after each withdrawal of a careful selection of books, he arrived home to find himself either blind or illiterate. Such fears, though they initially seemed to possess an immobilizing permanence, disappeared amid the evanescence of each day's flux, a fact that displayed for him the shifting character of being, or phrased more prosaically, the process of the unreeling of the real. An alphabet, analphabet. All information will be kept confidential. Unlike that of our parish church, the Priory's plan was circular, with its white concrete parabolas by the Italian architect Neri and its collection of hand-crafted station altars, which usually seemed to be swathed in an otherworldly aroma of incense. Then his gaze would follow the black band of cassocks attenuating towards the entrance, entranced as he was by the stark and formal beauty of this relic of the ancient, Christian past. Silence poses a shrewder dilemma. Yet one had to endure the monks under other, more trying conditions, such as when they called upon one to conjugate the pluperfect subjunctive of the Latin verb \"to bear,\" or to find the maximum and minimum areas of a football field. The essence of mathematics lies in these abilities to order and abstract. Aural, unreal. Our souls, consequently, are the assembly plants from which all passions emanate, but as we have come to recognize it is easier generally to list the classical passions of the soul than to define adequately either \"passion\" or \"soul.\" Legei hoti touto alethes estin, a phrase he memorized so as to keep a good Greek motto at heart. Whatever flew up into the flue. Initially he would feign a stomach ache to gain his parents' sympathy, but alas, once this pattern had established itself, these pains became valid physiological crises. One should not, on the other hand, dismiss the portents of recurrent, minor aches. Elephant Rocks. In any case you were said to wield a vibrant, plastic tongue. Browsing as they had so many times at this particular local record store, they were trying to concentrate on the album and cassette-tape titles before them, but they could not shuck their nervousness at being stalked about the aisles by the floor and assistant managers. Pooseyite, hoosier. \"Don't you ever turn your back to a nigger and a cash register,\" the cashier, thinking us out of earshot, asserted baldly. Esteem, mise en ab\u00eeme. \"A white freak like her is what I'm looking for now, y'all, 'cause when I was your age I had me quite a few,\" to which they wrinkled their mouths in disgust, the gestures a seal of their future. If you're light, you're all right, if you're brown, hang around, if you're black, get back. There are some taboos best left unbroken. Ask me now. Such expansive lyricism might be worthy of reprobation were not the very phenomenon of our lives a boundless source of poetry.\n\n# INQUIRY AS THE ACT OF LIVING, VITAL IMPROVISATION\n\nMissouri, being an amalgam of nearly every American region, presents the poet with a particularly useful analogue for an articulation of the \"American,\" though close inspection shows a sum less metaphorically potent than its metonymically dissoluble parts. Show me. Having seen over four hundred skirmishes during the Civil War, the state ranked second only to Virginia in battle quantity, yet this factlet often receives scant mention in the most authoritative studies of that conflict. Yet with her Confederate government-in-exile and Republicanism on the wax, it was hard to keep up interest in the failing Southern cause. When later we spent a few days in Columbia, in Kansas City, in Jefferson City and the Ozark region, the breadth and diversity of the region's people and landscapes impressed themselves on us such that we vowed never again to reduce them to an anecdote. Shepherd of the Hills. And so, despite his urgings and the many texts they were poring through, they never discussed the implications of Duden's Report, the failed revolution of 1848, or the impact of the free blacks and their relationship with the Union Army in any class or forum, believing such trifles of the past at most a burden, and at the very least distasteful. A thirst for the trueness of lives and language, he anguishes ever. \"Old Mazoo.\" More amusing always to prattle about the flailing baseball Cardinals, who, with the acquisition of Ozzie and Dale and Willie, and the stewardship of Whitey and Red, would reprise their winning ways within a year. To wit, intuit. \"Salus populi suprema lex esto,\" uttered as much to contradict reality as to invoke it. In bygone years a community led by cooks and chauffeurs, carpenters, day laborers, and bootblacks, governed by ministers and Pullman porters, with that rare doctor or lawyer occupying the social summit. Knobnoster. By the time of the Miami riots they had selected new names and identities, thereby casting off another aspect of their oppressive heritage. The legacy as your grandfather and father had bequeathed it, which you rejected in favor of more compelling fantasy. Assembling all these puzzling pieces really requires the skills of a geographer-historian, which put his meager training and interests in some stead. Credit history for its luminous legerdemain, its adroit, unseen revisions, what the first six years write the next six erase, what one century pens with the most illuminative articulation, the consequent one hundred years transform into an entirely new text, unrecognizable at first glance. There but for the great hoax go our eyes. Having outgrown their former diversions, such as bike riding, crawfishing, and skateboarding, they locked themselves up in their rooms where they drew the shades before listening to records alone, or when not on the phone arranging dates and rendezvous, prowled the streets in someone's mother's car. Others might elect drugs as their chief form of recreation, though liquor was certifiably more common. This entails a decentered notion of the \"subject.\" Reefer, rifer. The parents misread the signals or misconstrued each scene as they doggedly followed the trail of assignations. Please wait for dial tone before inserting quarter. The maliciousness of the storeclerks and the indifference of the teachers was later demonstrated to be part of a greater structural problem. Few, however, admit a predilection for improper relations of power, so as to present a front of probity, propriety. In the absence of a system of pure and unmediated signs, he nearly gave up on living altogether. Our recollective faculties extensively employ this function, dredging doggedly through the muck in search of that vital image. Free rides on the roller coaster and ridiculing the tourists from Iowa were the chief benefits of working at Six Flags, yet others who had traveled told of far more gravity-defying attractions and far more gullible targets elsewhere. The genius lies, in the execution. Bidding their co-workers adieu, he drove her home, where she begged him to come in, blow off a few hours, yet he declined, afraid she might be seeking more, for he had been warned innumerable times about their motives. Most lives are held together by this unspoken chain of commitments which we honor or break as the moment demands. \"Now look here, baby, don't be wasting my time,\" as if one's presence alone were insufficient. Your spirit, a small fluorescent candle, never cedes to any circumstance its gleaming. Festival of Lights. Throughout he could recollect no negative references to Jews, though not because his parents rarely encountered them. Your recourse to a chain of corrections thereby functioned as a method of establishing certainty.\n\n# LITERATURE AS A GUIDE TO THE LIFE LIVED, A DELIVERANCE\n\nOn the template of night's sky they visually traced the constellations, which proved far more difficult to perform at home than they had witnessed at the planetarium. Thus, the worn yet lyric intensity of each evening's secret offering, what its occurrence might furnish beyond our small and sparsely lit furnace. Meate-chi-cippi. Lay teachers and priests, the latter becowled and armed with crisp, authentic British accents, appealed to the authority of the \"Classical\" European tradition, now besieged with conflict to the point of internal sedition, like so much once imparted by \"masters.\" Samuel Clemens. Throughout the boys a spirit of ridicule, beneath a veneer of respect, but only later would they fathom the immensity of their debt to these ill-paid, beleaguered pedagogues. Meachum Park. In the classroom Homer, Cicero, Melville, Tennyson, Hemingway, and Mauriac, while on the sly you perused Onstott, Heinlein, and Walker, yet those that would forge your aesthetic center in those formative years were Joyce, Tagore, Faulkner, and Morrison. Oozing, seething magma of presence, what I represents. \"Gee, that's interesting, I had never noticed any patterns there,\" to which our silence was as much disproof as concurrence. Their theories to explain all manner of matter, though no theory to explain this thirst for theories. In the laboratory at the famous midwestern university, he prepared slides and learned the rudiments of neuroanatomy, sometimes growing giddy from the fumes of the rarefying benzene. Whereupon the accident with the microtome, which they shied away from shaping into a lawsuit. \"J'averterai Bill d\u00e8s qu'il sera revenu,\" repeat it, to impress them. Ultimately although some tired of bandying about \"Nigger Jim\" or \"pickanines\" before him, most were reveling in the new climate of conservatism, which introduced far more subtle ways of impressing upon others one's social and economic superiority. Time had come to begin applying to college, the next step to which the aspirations of their class had most logically led. Please remove seal before opening. \"Harvard don't keep on folks who can't pay or charm their way!\" she cackled, her face a cracking, crackling lantern. Who would leave the city of one's birth without hesitation, lest one suffocate under the swaddle of so much past. Convogosa. The strain of our ruse quite rightly blinded us, until we lost sight of who we truly were. Many of them now worked at the post office, which had become such a trying job. One must, in other words, eventually come to terms with the provisional. According to the standards the images conveyed, your appearance was grotesquely disharmonic. High butt, narrow hips, broad shoulders, full lips. As a result you cut the cake or stollen into minuscule pieces, aiming to perfect yourself, yet deep down you knew the real reason behind your actions was to savor more fully each morsel. In this way a sense of economy developed, whose flip side became an inability to see the larger picture. \"Happy Days.\" Now you must talk up our quarrel. It is foolish, the perceptive film theorist noted, for them to invoke post-modernity when as a people they appear to have been bypassed by the modern. Besides, dialogue has proven so woefully insufficient, though we continue to invest our energies in it. Your cognizance linked these as a chain of incidents, closer observation made clear their antecedents, but what you sought, like any artist, were the very events themselves. St. Louis Blues. Afterwards, we dispersed to our pre-appointed stations in society, with many becoming doctors, bankers, or mechanics. This naturally obviated the need for friendly contact or regular, intimate phone calls. Hindsight is often crueler than an unforgiving lover; perfidy is the knife that wounds far more deeply than others. The parents were still whispering something about those two, which lent this all an aura of shame. Always the desire to be loved formed the nucleus, about which other events and moments, positive, negative, or otherwise, whirred like the elementary particles. Some men, women, certain trees, bare certainties. Were these accounts, as was projected for this aesthetic project, selected and set down as carefully as tesseracts, the cumulative effect would approximate that of a living, dazzling, eighteen-panel mosaic. Given the general trends towards ignorance and indifference, however, no one thought to challenge his methods, let alone his motives. We took turns reciting poems by the Black Arts poets from one of those volumes now growing dusty on the godmother's bookshelves. \"Man, you don't even know the scrapple from the apple, and you ain't gon' get that out no old dead cracker's book,\" our reply a prolonged, anguished stare into a portrait of life dissolving before us. Thus his musings, when written down, gradually melded, gathered shape, solidified like a well-mixed m\u00e2ch\u00e9, and thus, upon rereading them he realized what he had accomplished was the construction of an actual voice. The final dances of youth, dim incandescence. Willow weep for me. And so, patient reader, these remarks should be duly noted as a series of mere life-notes aspiring to the condition of annotations.\n\nBoston\u2014Dorchester\u2014St. Louis\u2014Charlottesville\n\n1992\u20131994\n\n# REFERENCES & NOTES\n# REFERENCES\n\nCollins, Earl A., _Folk Tales of Missouri_ , Christopher Publishing House: Boston, 1935.\n\nFoley, William E., _A History of Missouri, 1673 to 1820_ , University of Missouri Press: Columbia, 1971.\n\nFranklin, John Hope, _From Slavery to Freedom_ , Vintage: New York, 1969.\n\nLipsitz, George, _A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition_ , Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1988.\n\nMarch, David D., _A History of Missouri_ (4 vols.), University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1967.\n\nMarsh, Sarah Louise, and Charles G. Vannest, _Missouri Anthology_ , Christopher Publishing House: Boston, 1932.\n\nOlson, Audrey L., _St. Louis Germans, 1850\u20131920_ , Arno Press: New York, 1980.\n\nPeper, Christian B., Ed., _An Historian's Conscience: The Correspondence of Arnold J. Toynbee and Columba Cary-Elwes, Monk of Ampleforth_ , Beacon Press: Boston, 1986.\n\nPrimm, James Neal, _The Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri_ , Pruett Publishing Company: Boulder, 1990.\n\n# NOTES\n\n**pages** |   \n---|---  \n | Rudipoots: A colloquialism akin to \"ghettoheads,\" meaning an ignorant or foolish person.  \n | Chatillon-DeMenil: This refers specifically to the historic mansion and tourist site in south St. Louis that once housed the family of Dr. Nicholas de Menil, a prominent resident of the nineteenth century, and more broadly to the era of St. Louis's ascendancy.  \n | Aos p\u00e9s da cruz: A Pinto Gon\u00e7alves tune, as played by Miles Davis, a native East St. Louisan, with Gil Evans and orchestra, in a Columbia recording from the 1960s. \"Aos p\u00e9s da cruz,\" a Portuguese phrase, translates into English as \"at the foot of the cross.\"  \n | Ring-A-Levio: A common children's game in which members of one group try to find and capture hidden members of another group.  \n | Poinciana: An ornamental shrub commonly found in the West Indies; also the title of a song by Simon and Bernier, played exquisitely by Ahmad Jamal on his Pershing Lounge session of 1958.  \n | Chain of Rocks: A series of bluffs, with a park, overlooking the Mississippi River north of St. Louis City.  \n | Treemonisha: A 1905 opera by Scott Joplin, written while he was resident in Sedalia, MO, and not premiered until 1972, in Atlanta, GA. The theme of the opera is the salvation of the Black race through education, and Treemonisha, a young woman, is the protagonist.  \n | Aleikam salaam: Arabic for \"And peace be with you,\" the traditional reply to a greeting.  \n | La Ba-Kair: The French popular nickname for the great Josephine Baker, a native St. Louisan.  \n | Raus, Ihr kleine M\u00e4user, raus: German for \"Get out of here, you little mice, get out of here!\"  \n | Juneteenth: In the Midwest and South(west), this celebration, usually June 17, commemorates the day when slaves of those regions learned they were no longer in bondage.  \n | Pannonica: The title of a serene Charlie Parker composition, named after the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a Jazz patroness of some renown, in whose apartment Parker died in 1955.  \n | Turner's Hall _Turnverein_ : A St. Louis based German gymnastic society, whose small arsenal and membership would form part of the Unionist \"Home Guard\" organized by Samuel Blair in pre\u2013Civil War St. Louis.  \n | Asafetida: A malodorous medicinal gum, believed to ward off illness, that was sometimes placed in a sack or bag and strapped around the neck of Southern black children.  \n | Evonce: A composition by Danny Quebec West and Idrees Sulieman, played by Thelonious Monk and his combo in a Blue Note recording from the 1940s.  \n | Carondelet: The name of the city, founded in 1767, avenue, commons and park in the St. Louis area. Baron de Carondelet in 1793 organized the (re)settlement of the native Indians in Louisiana territory.  \n | Bakai: A composition by Cal Massey, as played by Jazz visionary John Coltrane and a sextet on a Prestige recording from the late 1950s. According to the liner notes by Ira Gitler, \"Bakai,\" an Arabic term, translates as \"cry\" in English.  \n | Palmares: The great city established by escaped slaves, or _quilombo_ , in the seventeenth century in northeastern Brazil. Palmares was also known as the \"Black Troy.\"  \n | Klactoveededstene: A composition by Jazz trumpeter and bandleader Dizzie Gillespie.  \n | Grumio erat coquus: Latin for \"Grumio was the cook.\" An adaptation of a line from the early levels in the Cambridge Latin Series.  \n | Schneeblick: German for \"snowglance, snowgaze.\" A neologism, after Paul Celan.  \n | I'n-Shta-Heh: Little Osage for \"Heavy eyebrows,\" the name given to the French colonizers.  \n | Marronage: French, for the condition of being a _marron_ , or runaway\/escaped slave, in a francophone nation or colony, such as Haiti before 1804.  \n | Legei hoti touto alethes estin: Ancient Greek for \"He says this all to be the truth.\"  \n | Salus populi suprema lex esto: Latin for \"Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law,\" the official motto of Missouri.  \n | Meate-chi-cippi: The Algonkian name for the Mississippi River, it means \"Father of the Waters.\"  \n | Convogosa: A brave mythic Illinois chief whose courageous stand in self-defense supposedly left the \"Footprint on the Rocks\" in southwestern Illinois across the Mississippi from St. Louis.\nCopyright \u00a9 1995 by John Keene\n\nAll rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.\n\nAcknowledgments: Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors and publishers of magazines in which sections of _Annotations_ first appeared: _Callaloo_ , _Eyeball_ , _Hambone_ , _The Kenyon Review_ , and _o.blek_.\n\nAuthor's Note: Thanks are due to the Artists Foundation of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, whose Fellowship partially supported the creation of this work.\n\nFirst published as New Directions Paperbook 809 in 1995\n\nPublished simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited\n\neISBN 9780811225861\n\nNew Directions Books are published for James Laughlin\n\nby New Directions Publishing Corporation,\n\n80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n**Begin Reading**\n\nTable of Contents\n\nA Preview of _See Me_\n\nA Preview of _Two By Two_\n\nPhotos\n\nReading Group Guide\n\nNewsletters\n\nCopyright Page\n\nIn accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n_For the Lewis family:  \nBob, Debbie, Cody, and Cole.  \nMy family_\n\n# Acknowledgments\n\nOkay, I'll be honest. It's sometimes hard for me to write acknowledgments for the simple reason that my life as an author has been blessed with a kind of professional stability that strikes me as somewhat rare in this day and age. When I think back to my earlier novels and reread the acknowledgments in, say, _Message in a Bottle_ or _The Rescue,_ I see names of people with whom I still work today. Not only have I had the same literary agent and editor since I began writing, but I've worked with the same publicists, film agent, entertainment attorney, cover designer, and salespeople, and one producer has been responsible for three of the four film adaptations. While it's wonderful, it also makes me feel like something of a broken record when it comes to thanking these people. Nonetheless, each and every one of them deserves my gratitude.\n\nOf course, I have to begin\u2014as always\u2014with thanking Cat, my wife. We've been married eighteen years and have shared quite a life together: five children, eight dogs (at various times), six different residences in three different states, three very sad funerals of various members of my family, twelve novels and another nonfiction work. It's been a whirlwind since the beginning, and I can't imagine experiencing any of it with anyone else.\n\nMy children\u2014Miles, Ryan, Landon, Lexie, and Savannah\u2014are growing up, slowly but surely, and while I love them dearly, I'm proud of each and every one of them.\n\nTheresa Park, my agent at Park Literary Group, is not only one of my closest friends, but a fantastic one at that. Intelligent, charming, and kind, she's one of the great blessings of my life, and I'd like to thank her for everything she's done.\n\nJamie Raab, my editor at Grand Central Publishing, also deserves my gratitude for all she does. She puts the pencil to the manuscript in hopes of making it the best it can be, and I'm fortunate to have had access to her intuitive wisdom when it comes to novels. More than that, I'm lucky to call her a friend.\n\nDenise DiNovi, the fabulous producer of _A Walk to Remember, Message in a Bottle,_ and _Nights in Rodanthe,_ is my best friend in Hollywood, and I look forward to those times on the film set, simply so we have a chance to visit.\n\nDavid Young, the new CEO of Grand Central Publishing (well, not exactly new anymore, I suppose), has not only become a friend, but one who deserves my heartfelt thanks, if only because I have the nasty tendency to deliver my manuscripts at the very last possible moment. Sorry about that.\n\nBoth Jennifer Romanello and Edna Farley are publicists and friends, and I've adored working with them since _The Notebook_ was published in 1996. Thanks for all that you do!\n\nHarvey-Jane Kowal and Sona Vogel, who do the copyediting, always deserve my thanks for catching the \"little errors\" that inevitably crop up in my novels.\n\nHowie Sanders and Keya Khayatian at UTA deserve my thanks for the good fortune I've had in film adaptations. I appreciate all that both of you do.\n\nScott Schwimer always watches out for me, and I've come to think of him as a friend. Thanks, Scott!\n\nMany thanks to Marty Bowen, the producer responsible for _Dear John_. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.\n\nThanks again to Flag for another wonderful cover.\n\nAnd finally, many thanks to Shannon O'Keefe, Abby Koons, Sharon Krassney, David Park, Lynn Harris, and Mark Johnson.\n\n# Prologue\n\n _February 2007_\n\nStories are as unique as the people who tell them, and the best stories are those in which the ending is a surprise. At least, that's what Travis Parker recalled his dad telling him when he was a child. Travis remembered the way his dad would sit on the bed beside him, his mouth curling into a smile as Travis begged for a story.\n\n\"What kind of story do you want?\" his dad would ask.\n\n\"The best one ever,\" Travis would answer.\n\nUsually, his dad would sit quietly for a few moments, and then his eyes would light up. He'd put his arm around Travis and in a pitch-perfect voice would launch into a story that often kept Travis awake long after his dad had turned out the lights. There was always adventure and danger and excitement and journeys that took place in and around the small coastal town of Beaufort, North Carolina, the place Travis Parker grew up in and still called home. Strangely, most of them included bears. Grizzly bears, brown bears, Kodiak bears... his dad wasn't a stickler for reality when it came to a bear's natural habitat. He focused on hair-raising chase scenes through the sandy lowlands, giving Travis nightmares about crazed polar bears on Shackleford Banks until he was well into middle school. Yet no matter how frightened the stories had made him, he would inevitably ask, \"What happened next?\"\n\nTo Travis, those days seemed like the innocent vestiges of another era. He was forty-three now, and as he parked his car in the parking lot of Carteret General Hospital, where his wife had worked for the past ten years, he thought again about the words he'd always said to his father.\n\nAfter stepping out of the car, he reached for the flowers he'd brought. The last time he and his wife had spoken, they'd had an argument, and more than anything he wanted to take back his words and make amends. He was under no illusions that the flowers would make things better between them, but he wasn't sure what else to do. It went without saying that he felt guilty about what had happened, but married friends had assured him that guilt was the cornerstone of any good marriage. It meant that a conscience was at work, values were held in high esteem, and reasons to feel guilty were best avoided whenever possible. His friends sometimes admitted their failures in this particular area, and Travis figured that the same could be said about any couple he'd ever met. He supposed his friends had said it to make him feel better, to reassure him that no one was perfect, that he shouldn't be so hard on himself. \"Everyone makes mistakes,\" they'd said, and though he'd nodded as if he believed them, he knew they would never understand what he was going through. They couldn't. After all, their wives were still sleeping beside them every night; none of them had ever been separated for three months, none of them wondered whether their marriage would ever return to what it once had been.\n\nAs he crossed the parking lot, he thought about both of his daughters, his job, his wife. At the moment, none of them gave him much comfort. He felt as though he were failing in practically every area of his life. Lately, happiness seemed as distant and unattainable to him as space travel. He hadn't always felt this way. There had been a long period of time during which he remembered being very happy. But things change. People change. Change was one of the inevitable laws of nature, exacting its toll on people's lives. Mistakes are made, regrets form, and all that was left were repercussions that made something as simple as rising from the bed seem almost laborious.\n\nShaking his head, he approached the door of the hospital, picturing himself as the child he had been, listening to his father's stories. His own life had been the best story ever, he mused, the kind of story that should have ended on a happy note. As he reached for the door, he felt the familiar rush of memory and regret.\n\nOnly later, after he let the memories overtake him once again, would he allow himself to wonder what would happen next.\n\n# PART ONE\n\n# One\n\n_May 1996_\n\nTell me again why I agreed to help you with this.\" Matt, red-faced and grunting, continued to push the spa toward the recently cut square at the far edge of the deck. His feet slipped, and he could feel sweat pouring from his forehead into the corners of his eyes, making them sting. It was hot, way too hot for early May. Too damn hot for this, that's for sure. Even Travis's dog, Moby, was hiding in the shade and panting, his tongue hanging out.\n\nTravis Parker, who was pushing the massive box alongside him, managed to shrug. \"Because you thought it would be fun,\" he said. He lowered his shoulder and shoved; the spa\u2014which must have weighed four hundred pounds\u2014moved another couple of inches. At this rate, the spa should be in place, oh... sometime next week.\n\n\"This is ridiculous,\" Matt said, heaving his weight into the box, thinking that what they really needed was a team of mules. His back was killing him. For a moment, he visualized his ears blowing off the sides of his head from the strain, shooting in both directions like the bottle rockets he and Travis used to launch as kids.\n\n\"You've already said that.\"\n\n\"And it isn't fun,\" Matt grunted.\n\n\"You said that, too.\"\n\n\"And it isn't going to be easy to install.\"\n\n\"Sure it is,\" Travis said. He stood and pointed to the lettering on the box. \"See? It says right here, 'Easy to Install.'\" From his spot beneath the shady tree, Moby\u2014a purebred boxer\u2014barked as if in agreement, and Travis smiled, looking way too pleased with himself.\n\nMatt scowled, trying to catch his breath. He hated that look. Well, not always. Most of the time he enjoyed his friend's boundless enthusiasm. But not today. Definitely not today.\n\nMatt reached for the bandanna in his rear pocket. It was soaked with sweat, which had of course done wonders for the seat of his pants. He wiped his face and wrung the bandanna with a quick twist. Sweat dribbled from it like a leaky faucet onto the top of his shoe. He stared at it almost hypnotically, before feeling it soak through the light mesh fabric, giving his toes a nice, slimy feel. Oh, that was just dandy, wasn't it?\n\n\"As I recall, you said Joe and Laird would be here to help us with your 'little project' and that Megan and Allison would cook some burgers and we'd have beer, and that\u2014oh yeah, installing this thing should only take a couple of hours at the most.\"\n\n\"They're coming,\" Travis said.\n\n\"You said that four hours ago.\"\n\n\"They must be running a little late.\"\n\n\"Maybe you never called them at all.\"\n\n\"Of course I called them. And they're bringing the kids, too. I promise.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Soon.\"\n\n_\"Uh-huh,\"_ Matt answered. He stuffed the bandanna back in his pocket. \"And by the way\u2014assuming they don't arrive soon, just how on earth do you think the two of us will be able to lower this thing into place?\"\n\nTravis dismissed the problem with a wave as he turned toward the box again. \"We'll figure it out. Just think how well we've done so far. We're almost halfway there.\"\n\nMatt scowled again. It was Saturday\u2014Saturday! His day of recreation and relaxation, his chance to escape from the grindstone, the break he _earned_ after five days at the bank, the kind of day he _needed._ He was a loan officer, for God's sake! He was supposed to push paper, not hot tubs! He could have been watching the Braves play the Dodgers! He could have been golfing! He could have gone to the beach! He could have slept in with Liz before heading to her parents' house like they did almost every Saturday, instead of waking at the crack of dawn and performing manual labor for eight straight hours beneath a scalding southern sun....\n\nHe paused. Who was he kidding? Had he not been here, he would have definitely spent the day with Liz's parents, which was, in all honesty, the main reason he'd agreed to Travis's request in the first place. But that wasn't the point. The point was, he didn't need this. He really didn't.\n\n\"I don't need this,\" he said. \"I really don't.\"\n\nTravis didn't seem to hear him. His hands were already on the box, and he was getting into position. \"You ready?\"\n\nMatt lowered his shoulder, feeling bitter. His legs were shaking. Shaking! He already knew he'd be in serious, double-dose-of-Advil pain in the morning. Unlike Travis, he didn't make it into the gym four days a week or play racquetball or go running or go scuba diving in Aruba or surfing in Bali or skiing in Vail or anything else the guy did. \"This isn't fun, you know?\"\n\nTravis winked. \"You said that already, remember?\"\n\n\"Wow!\" Joe commented, lifting an eyebrow as he walked the perimeter of the hot tub. By then, the sun was beginning its descent, streams of gold reflecting off the bay. In the distance, a heron broke from the trees and gracefully skimmed the surface, dispersing the light. Joe and Megan, along with Laird and Allison, had arrived a few minutes before with kids in tow, and Travis was showing them around. \"This looks great! You two did all of this today?\"\n\nTravis nodded, holding his beer. \"It wasn't so bad,\" he said. \"I think Matt even enjoyed it.\"\n\nJoe glanced at Matt, who lay flattened in a lawn chair off to the side of the deck, a cold rag over his head. Even his belly\u2014Matt had always been on the pudgy side\u2014seemed to sag.\n\n\"I can see that.\"\n\n\"Was it heavy?\"\n\n\"Like an Egyptian sarcophagus!\" Matt croaked. \"One of those gold ones that only cranes can move!\"\n\nJoe laughed. \"Can the kids get in?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I just filled it, and the water will take a little while to heat up. The sun will help, though.\"\n\n\"The sun will heat it within minutes!\" Matt moaned. \"Within seconds!\"\n\nJoe grinned. Laird and the three of them had gone to school together since kindergarten.\n\n\"Tough day, Matt?\"\n\nMatt removed the rag and scowled at Joe. \"You have no idea. And thanks for showing up on time.\"\n\n\"Travis said to be here at five. If I had known you needed help, I would have come earlier.\"\n\nMatt slowly shifted his gaze to Travis. He really hated his friend sometimes.\n\n\"How's Tina doing?\" Travis said, changing the subject. \"Is Megan getting any sleep?\"\n\nMegan was chatting with Allison at the table on the far end of the deck, and Joe glanced briefly in her direction. \"Some. Tina's cough is gone and she's been able to sleep through the night again, but sometimes I just think that Megan isn't wired to sleep. At least, not since she became a mom. She gets up even if Tina hasn't made a peep. It's like the quiet wakes her up.\"\n\n\"She's a good mom,\" Travis said. \"She always has been.\"\n\nJoe turned to Matt. \"Where's Liz?\" he asked.\n\n\"She should be here any minute,\" Matt answered, his voice floating up as if from the dead. \"She spent the day with her parents.\"\n\n\"Lovely,\" Joe commented.\n\n\"Be nice. They're good people.\"\n\n\"I seem to recall you saying that if you had to sit through one more of your father-in-law's stories about his prostate cancer or listen to your mother-in-law fret about Henry getting fired again\u2014even though it wasn't his fault\u2014you were going to stick your head in the oven.\"\n\nMatt struggled to sit up. \"I never said that!\"\n\n\"Yes, you did.\" Joe winked as Matt's wife, Liz, rounded the corner of the house with Ben toddling just in front of her. \"But don't worry. I won't say a word.\"\n\nMatt's eyes darted nervously from Liz to Joe and back again, checking to see if she'd heard.\n\n\"Hey, y'all!\" Liz called out with a friendly wave, leading little Ben by the hand. She made a beeline for Megan and Allison. Ben broke away and toddled toward the other kids in the yard.\n\nJoe saw Matt sigh in relief. He grinned and lowered his voice. \"So... Matt's in-laws. Is that how you conned him into coming here?\"\n\n\"I might have mentioned it,\" Travis smirked.\n\nJoe laughed.\n\n\"What are you guys saying?\" Matt called out suspiciously.\n\n\"Nothing,\" they said in unison.\n\nLater, with the sun down and the food eaten, Moby curled up at Travis's feet. As he listened to the sound of the kids splashing away in the spa, Travis felt a wave of satisfaction wash over him. This was his favorite kind of evening, whiled away to the sound of shared laughter and familiar banter. One minute Allison was talking to Joe; the next minute she was chatting with Liz and then Laird or Matt; and so on for everyone seated around the outdoor table. No pretenses, no attempts to impress, no one trying to show anyone up. His life, he sometimes thought, resembled a beer commercial, and for the most part, he was content simply to ride the current of good feeling.\n\nEvery now and then, one of the wives would get up to check on the kids. Laird, Joe, and Matt, on the other hand, reserved their child-rearing duties at times like these to periodically raising their voices in hopes of calming down the kids or preventing them from teasing or accidentally hurting one another. Sure, one of the kids would throw a tantrum now and then, but most problems were solved with a quick kiss on a scraped knee or a hug that was as tender to watch from a distance as it must have been for the kid to receive.\n\nTravis looked around the table, pleased that his childhood friends not only had become good husbands and fathers, but were still a part of his life. It didn't always turn out that way. At thirty-two, he knew that life was sometimes a gamble, and he'd survived more than his share of accidents and falls, some of which should have inflicted far more serious bodily injury than they had. But it wasn't just that. Life was unpredictable. Others he'd known growing up had already died in car accidents, been married and divorced, found themselves addicted to drugs or booze, or simply moved away from this tiny town, their faces already blurring in his memory. What were the odds that the four of them\u2014who'd known one another since kindergarten\u2014would find themselves in their early thirties still spending weekends together? Pretty small, he thought. But somehow, after hanging together through all the adolescent acne and girl troubles and pressure from their parents, then heading off to four different colleges with differing career goals, they had each, one by one, moved back here to Beaufort. They were more like family than friends, right down to coded expressions and shared experiences that no outsiders could ever fully understand.\n\nAnd miraculously, the wives got along, too. They'd come from different backgrounds and different parts of the state, but marriage, motherhood, and the endless gossip of small-town America were more than enough to keep them chatting regularly on the phone and bonding like long-lost sisters. Laird had been the first to marry\u2014he and Allison had tied the knot the summer after they graduated from Wake Forest; Joe and Megan walked the aisle a year later, after falling in love during their senior year at North Carolina. Matt, who'd gone to Duke, met Liz here in Beaufort, and they were married a year after that. Travis had been the best man in all three weddings.\n\nSome things had changed in the past few years, of course, largely because of the new additions to the families. Laird wasn't always available to go mountain biking, Joe couldn't join Travis on the spur of the moment to go skiing in Colorado as he used to, and Matt had all but given up trying to keep up with him on most things. But that was okay. They were all still available enough, and among the three of them\u2014and with enough planning\u2014he was still able to make the most of his weekends.\n\nLost in thought, Travis hadn't realized that the conversation had lapsed.\n\n\"Did I miss something?\"\n\n\"I asked if you'd talked to Monica lately,\" Megan said, her tone letting Travis know he was in trouble. All six of them, he thought, took a bit too much interest in his love life. The trouble with married people was that they seemed to believe that everyone they knew should get married. Every woman Travis dated was thus subjected to subtle, though unyielding, evaluation, especially by Megan. She was usually the ringleader at moments like these, always trying to figure out what made Travis tick when it came to women. And Travis, of course, loved nothing more than to push her buttons in return.\n\n\"Not recently,\" he said.\n\n\"Why not? She's nice.\"\n\nShe's also more than a little neurotic, Travis thought. But that was beside the point.\n\n\"She broke up with me, remember?\"\n\n\"So? It doesn't mean she doesn't want you to call.\"\n\n\"I thought that's exactly what it meant.\"\n\nMegan, along with Allison and Liz, stared at him as if he were just plain dense. The guys, as usual, seemed to be enjoying this. It was a regular feature of their evenings.\n\n\"But you were fighting, right?\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"Did you ever think she might have simply broken up with you because she was angry?\"\n\n\"I was angry, too.\"\n\n\"Why?'\n\n\"She wanted me to see a therapist.\"\n\n\"And let me guess\u2014you said you didn't need to see one.\"\n\n\"The day I need to see a therapist is the day you see me hike up my skirt and crochet some mittens.\"\n\nJoe and Laird laughed, but Megan's eyebrows shot up. Megan, they all knew, watched Oprah nearly every day.\n\n\"You don't think men need therapy?\"\n\n\"I know I don't.\"\n\n\"But generally speaking?\"\n\n\"Since I'm not a general, I really couldn't say.\"\n\nMegan leaned back in her chair. \"I think Monica might be on to something. If you ask me, I think you have commitment issues.\"\n\n\"Then I'll make sure not to ask you.\"\n\nMegan leaned forward. \"What's the longest you've ever dated someone? Two months? Four months?\"\n\nTravis pondered the question. \"I dated Olivia for almost a year.\"\n\n\"I don't think she's talking about high school,\" Laird cracked. Occasionally, his friends enjoyed throwing him under the bus, so to speak.\n\n\"Thanks, Laird,\" Travis said.\n\n\"What are friends for?\"\n\n\"You're changing the subject,\" Megan reminded him.\n\nTravis drummed his fingers on his leg. \"I guess I'd have to say... I can't remember.\"\n\n\"In other words, not long enough to remember?\"\n\n\"What can I say? I've yet to meet any woman who could measure up to any of you.\"\n\nDespite the growing darkness, he could tell she was pleased by his words. He'd learned long ago that flattery was his best defense at moments like these, especially since it was usually sincere. Megan, Liz, and Allison were terrific. All heart and loyalty and generous common sense.\n\n\"Well, just so you know, I like her,\" she said.\n\n\"Yeah, but you like everyone I date.\"\n\n\"No, I don't. I didn't like Leslie.\"\n\nNone of the wives had liked Leslie. Matt, Laird, and Joe, on the other hand, hadn't minded her company at all, especially when she wore her bikini. She was definitely a beauty, and while she wasn't the type he'd ever marry, they'd had a lot of fun while it lasted.\n\n\"I'm just saying that I think you should give her a call,\" she persisted.\n\n\"I'll think about it,\" he said, knowing he wouldn't. He rose from the table, angling for an escape. \"Anyone need another beer?\"\n\nJoe and Laird lifted their bottles in unison; the others shook their heads. Travis started for the cooler before hesitating near the sliding glass door of his house. He darted inside and changed the CD, listening to the strains of new music filtering out over the yard as he brought the beers back to the table. By then, Megan, Allison, and Liz were already chatting about Gwen, the woman who did their hair. Gwen always had good stories, many of which concerned the illicit predilections of the town's citizens.\n\nTravis nursed his beer silently, looking out over the water.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" Laird asked.\n\n\"It's not important.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\nTravis turned toward him. \"Did you ever notice how some colors are used for people's names but others aren't?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"White and Black. Like Mr. White, the guy who owns the tire store. And Mr. Black, our third-grade teacher. Or even Mr. Green from the game Clue. But you never hear of someone named Mr. Orange or Mr. Yellow. It's like some colors make good names, but other colors just sound stupid. You know what I mean?\"\n\n\"I can't say I've ever thought about it.\"\n\n\"Me neither. Not until just a minute ago, I mean. But it's kind of strange, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Laird finally agreed.\n\nBoth men were quiet for a moment. \"I told you it wasn't important.\"\n\n\"Yes, you did.\"\n\n\"Was I right?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nWhen little Josie had her second temper tantrum in a fifteen-minute span\u2014it was a little before nine\u2014Allison scooped her into her arms and gave Laird _the look,_ the one that said it was time to go so they could get the kids in bed. Laird didn't bother arguing, and when he stood up from the table, Megan glanced at Joe, Liz nodded at Matt, and Travis knew the evening was at an end. Parents might believe themselves to be the bosses, but in the end it was the kids who made the rules.\n\nHe supposed he could have tried to talk one of his friends into staying, and might even have gotten one to agree, but he had long since grown accustomed to the fact that his friends lived their lives by a different schedule from his. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that Stephanie, his younger sister, might swing by later. She was coming in from Chapel Hill, where she was working toward a master's degree in biochemistry. Though she would stay at their parents' place, she was usually wired after the drive and in the mood to talk, and their parents would already be in bed. Megan, Joe, and Liz rose and started to clean up the table, but Travis waved them off.\n\n\"I'll get it in a while. No big deal.\"\n\nA few minutes later, two SUVs and a minivan were being loaded with children. Travis stood on the front porch and waved as they pulled out of the driveway.\n\nWhen they were gone, Travis wandered back to the stereo, sorted through the CDs again, and chose _Tattoo You_ by the Rolling Stones, then cranked up the volume. He pulled at another beer on his way back to his chair, threw his feet up on the table, and leaned back. Moby sat beside him.\n\n\"Just you and me for a while,\" he said. \"What time do you think Stephanie will be rolling in?\"\n\nMoby turned away. Unless Travis said the words _walk_ or _ball_ or _go for a ride_ or _come get a bone,_ Moby wasn't much interested in anything he had to say.\n\n\"Do you think I should call her to see if she's on her way yet?\"\n\nMoby continued to stare.\n\n\"Yeah, that's what I thought. She'll get here when she gets here.\"\n\nHe sat drinking his beer and stared out over the water. Behind him, Moby whined. \"You want to go get your ball?\" he finally said.\n\nMoby stood so quickly, he almost knocked over the chair.\n\nIt was the music, she thought, that proved to be the clincher in what had already been one of the most miserable weeks of her life. Loud music. Okay, nine o'clock on a Saturday night wasn't so bad, especially since he obviously had company, and ten o'clock wasn't all that unreasonable, either. But eleven o'clock? When he was alone and playing fetch with his dog?\n\nFrom her back deck, she could see him just sitting there in the same shorts he'd worn all day, feet on the table, tossing the ball and staring at the river. What on earth could he be thinking?\n\nMaybe she shouldn't be so hard on him; she should simply ignore him. It was his house, right? King of the castle and all that. He could do what he wanted. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he had neighbors, including her, and she had a castle, too, and neighbors were supposed to be considerate. And truth be told, he'd crossed the line. Not just because of the music. In all honesty, she liked the music he was listening to and usually didn't really care how loud or how long he played it. The problem was with his dog, Nobby, or whatever he called him. More specifically, what his dog had done to her dog.\n\nMolly, she was certain, was pregnant.\n\nMolly, her beautiful, sweet, purebred collie of prizewinning lineage\u2014the first thing she'd bought herself after finishing her physician assistant rotations at the Eastern Virginia School of Medicine and the kind of dog she'd always wanted\u2014had noticeably gained weight during the last couple of weeks. Even more alarming, she noticed that Molly's nipples seemed to be growing. She could feel them now whenever Molly rolled over to have her tummy scratched. And she was moving more slowly, too. Add it up, and Molly was definitely on her way to birthing a litter of puppies that no one on earth was ever going to want. A boxer and a collie? Unconsciously she squinched up her face as she tried to imagine how the puppies would look before finally forcing the thought away.\n\nIt had to be that man's dog. When Molly was in heat, that dog had practically staked out her house like a private detective, and he was the only dog she'd seen wandering around the neighborhood in weeks. But would her neighbor even consider fencing his yard? Or keeping the dog inside? Or setting up a dog run? No. His motto seemed to be \"My dog shall be free!\" It didn't surprise her. He seemed to live his own life by the same irresponsible motto. On her way to work, she saw him running, and when she got back, he was out biking or kayaking or inline skating or shooting baskets in his front drive with a group of neighborhood kids. A month ago, he'd put his boat in the water, and now he was wakeboarding as well. As if the man weren't active enough already. God forbid the man should work a minute of overtime, and she knew that he didn't work at all on Fridays. And what kind of job let you head off every day wearing jeans and T-shirts? She had no idea, but she suspected\u2014with a grim sort of satisfaction\u2014that it more than likely required an apron and name tag.\n\nOkay, maybe she wasn't being entirely fair. He was probably a nice guy. His friends\u2014who appeared normal enough and had kids to boot\u2014seemed to enjoy his company and were over there all the time. She realized she'd even seen a couple of them at the office before, when their kids had come in with the sniffles or an ear infection. But what about Molly? Molly was sitting near the back door, her tail thumping, and Gabby felt anxious at the thought of the future. Molly would be okay, but what about the puppies? What was going to happen to them? What if no one wanted them? She couldn't imagine taking them to the pound or the SPCA or whatever it was they called it here, to be put to sleep. She couldn't do that. She wouldn't do that. She wasn't going to have them murdered.\n\nBut what, then, was she going to do with the puppies?\n\nIt was all his fault, and he was just sitting there on his deck with his feet propped up, acting as if he didn't have a care in the world.\n\nThis wasn't what she'd dreamed about when she'd first seen the house earlier this year. Even though it wasn't in Morehead City, where her boyfriend, Kevin, lived, it was just minutes across the bridge. It was small and almost half a century old and a definite fixer-upper by Beaufort standards, but the view along the creek was spectacular, the yard was big enough for Molly to run, and best of all, she could afford it. Just barely, what with all the loans she'd taken out for PA school, but loan officers were pretty understanding when it came to making loans to people like her. Professional, educated people.\n\nNot like Mr. My Dog Shall Be Free and I Don't Work Fridays.\n\nShe drew a deep breath, reminding herself again that the man might be a nice guy. He always waved to her whenever he saw her pulling in from work, and she vaguely remembered that he'd dropped off a basket of cheese and wine to welcome her to the neighborhood when she'd moved in a couple of months back. She hadn't been home, but he'd left it on the porch, and she'd promised herself that she'd send a thank-you note, one that she never quite got around to writing.\n\nHer face squinched unconsciously again. So much for moral superiority. Okay, she wasn't perfect, either, but this wasn't about a forgotten thank-you note. This was about Molly and that man's wandering dog and unwanted puppies, and now was as good a time as any for them to discuss the situation. He was obviously awake.\n\nShe stepped off the back deck and started toward the tall row of hedges that separated his house from hers. Part of her wished Kevin were with her, but that wasn't going to happen. Not after their spat this morning, which started after she'd casually mentioned that her cousin was getting married. Kevin, buried in the sports section of the newspaper, hadn't said a word in response, preferring to act as if he hadn't heard her. Anything about marriage made the man get as quiet as a stone, especially lately. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised\u2014they'd been dating almost four years (a year less than her cousin, she was tempted to point out), and if she'd learned one thing about him, it was that if Kevin found a topic uncomfortable, then more than likely he wouldn't say anything at all.\n\nBut Kevin wasn't the problem. Nor was the fact that lately she felt as though her life weren't quite what she'd imagined it would be. And it wasn't the terrible week at the office, either, one in which she'd been puked on three\u2014 _three!_ \u2014times on Friday alone, which was an alltime office record, at least according to the nurses, who didn't bother to hide their smirks and repeated the story with glee. Nor was she angry about Adrian Melton, the married doctor at her office who liked to touch her whenever they spoke, his hand lingering just a bit too long for comfort. And she surely wasn't angry at the fact that through it all, she hadn't once stood up for herself.\n\nNosiree, this had to do with Mr. Party being a responsible neighbor, one who was going to own up to the fact that he had as much of a duty to find a solution to their problem as she did. And while she was letting him know that, maybe she'd mention that it was a little late for him to be blaring his music (even if she did like it), just to let him know she was serious.\n\nAs Gabby marched through the grass, the dew moistened the tips of her toes through her sandals and the moonlight reflected on the lawn like silver trails. Trying to figure out exactly where to begin, she barely noticed. Courtesy dictated that she head first to the front door and knock, but with the music roaring, she doubted he'd even be able to hear it. Besides, she wanted to get this over with while she was still worked up and willing to confront him head-on.\n\nUp ahead, she spotted an opening in the hedges and headed toward it. It was probably the same one that Nobby snuck through to take advantage of poor, sweet Molly. Her heart squeezed again, and this time she tried to hold on to the feeling. This was important. Very important.\n\nFocused as she was on her mission, she didn't notice the tennis ball come flying toward her just as she emerged from the opening. She did, however, distantly register the sound of the dog galloping toward her\u2014but only distantly\u2014a second before she was bowled over and hit the ground.\n\nAs she lay on her back, Gabby noted dully that there were way too many stars in a too bright, out-of-focus sky. For a moment, she wondered why she couldn't draw breath, then quickly became more concerned with the pain that was coursing through her. All she could do was lie on the grass and blink with every throb.\n\nFrom somewhere far away, she heard a jumble of sounds, and the world slowly started coming back into focus. She tried to concentrate and realized that it wasn't a jumble; she was hearing voices. Or, rather, a single voice. It seemed to be asking if she was okay.\n\nAt the same time, she gradually became conscious of a succession of warm, smelly, and rhythmic breezes on her cheek. She blinked once more, turned her head slightly, and was confronted with an enormous, furry, square head towering over her. Nobby, she concluded fuzzily.\n\n\"Ahhhh...,\" she whimpered, trying to sit up. As she moved, the dog licked her face.\n\n\"Moby! Down!\" the voice said, sounding closer. \"Are you okay? Maybe you shouldn't try to get up yet!\"\n\n\"I'm okay,\" she said, finally raising herself into a seated position. She took a couple of deep breaths, still feeling dizzy. Wow, she thought, that really hurt. In the darkness, she sensed someone squatting beside her, though she could barely make out his features.\n\n\"I'm really sorry,\" the voice said.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"Moby accidentally knocked you down. He was going after a ball.\"\n\n\"Who's Moby?\"\n\n\"My dog.\"\n\n\"Then who's Nobby?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe brought a hand to her temple. \"Never mind.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you're okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said, still dizzy but feeling the pain subside to a low throb. As she began to rise, she felt her neighbor place his hand on her arm, helping her up. She was reminded of the toddlers she saw at the office who struggled to stay balanced and remain upright. When she finally had her feet under her, she felt him release her arm.\n\n\"Some welcome, huh?\" he asked.\n\nHis voice still sounded far away, but she knew it wasn't, and when she faced him, she found herself focusing up at someone at least six inches taller than her own five feet seven. She wasn't used to that, and as she tilted her head upward, she noticed his angled cheekbones and clean skin. His brown hair was wavy, curling naturally at the ends, and his teeth gleamed white. Up close, he was good-looking\u2014okay, really good-looking\u2014but she suspected that he knew it as well. Lost in thought, she opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again, realizing she'd forgotten the question.\n\n\"I mean, here you are, coming over to visit, and you get slammed by my dog,\" he went on. \"Like I said, I'm really sorry. Usually he pays a bit more attention. Say hey, Moby.\"\n\nThe dog was sitting on his haunches, acting pleased as punch, and with that, she suddenly remembered the purpose of her visit. Beside her, Moby raised a paw in greeting. It was cute\u2014and he _was_ cute for a boxer\u2014but she wasn't about to fall for it. This was the mutt who'd not only tackled her, but ruined Molly as well. He probably should have been named Mugger. Or better yet, Pervert.\n\n\"You sure you're okay?\"\n\nThe way he asked made her realize that this wasn't the sort of confrontation she'd wanted, and she tried to summon the feeling she'd had on her way over.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she said, her tone sharp.\n\nFor an awkward moment, they eyed each other without speaking. Finally he motioned over his shoulder with his thumb. \"Would you like to sit on the deck? I'm just listening to some music.\"\n\n\"Why do you think I want to sit on the deck?\" she snapped, feeling more in control.\n\nHe hesitated. \"Because you were coming over?\"\n\nOh yeah, she thought. That.\n\n\"I mean, I suppose we could stand here by the hedges if you'd rather,\" he continued.\n\nShe held up her hands to stop him, impatient to get this over with. \"I came over here because I wanted to talk to you...\"\n\nShe broke off when he slapped at his arm. \"Me, too,\" he said before she could get started again. \"I've been meaning to drop by to officially welcome you to the neighborhood. Did you get my basket?\"\n\nShe heard a buzzing near her ear and waved at it. \"Yes. Thank you for that,\" she said, slightly distracted. \"But what I wanted to talk about...\"\n\nShe trailed off when she realized he wasn't paying attention. Instead, he was fanning the air between them. \"You sure you don't want to head to the deck?\" he pressed. \"The mosquitoes are vicious around the bushes here.\"\n\n\"What I was trying to say was\u2014\"\n\n\"There's one on your earlobe,\" he said, pointing.\n\nHer right hand shot up instinctively.\n\n\"The other one.\"\n\nShe swatted at it and saw a smear of blood on her fingers as she pulled her hand back. Gross, she thought.\n\n\"There's another right by your cheek.\"\n\nShe waved again at the growing swarm. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"Like I said, it's the bushes. They breed in the water, and it's always moist in the shade....\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she relented. \"We can talk on the deck.\"\n\nA moment later they were in the clear, moving quickly. \"I hate mosquitoes, which is why I've got some citronella candles going on the table. That's usually enough to keep them away. They get much worse later in the summer.\" He left just enough space between them so they wouldn't accidentally bump. \"I don't think we've formally met, by the way. I'm Travis Parker.\"\n\nShe felt a flicker of uncertainty. She wasn't here to be his buddy, after all, but expectation and manners prevailed, and she answered before she could stop herself. \"I'm Gabby Holland.\"\n\n\"Nice to meet you.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said. She made a point to cross her arms as she said it, then subconsciously brought a hand to her ribs where a dull ache remained. From there, it traveled to her ear, which was already beginning to itch.\n\nStaring at her profile, Travis could tell that she was angry. Her mouth had a tight, pinched look he'd seen on any number of girlfriends. Somehow he knew the anger was directed at him, though he had no idea why. Aside from being tackled by the dog, that is. But that wasn't quite it, he decided. He remembered the expressions that his kid sister, Stephanie, was famous for, ones that signaled a slow buildup of resentment over time, and that's how Gabby seemed to be acting now. As if she'd worked herself up to this. But there the similarities with his sister ended. While Stephanie had grown up to become a certifiable beauty, Gabby was attractive in a similar but not quite perfect kind of way. Her blue eyes were a little too wide set, her nose was just a bit too big, and red hair was always hard to pull off, but somehow these imperfections lent an air of vulnerability to her natural good looks, which most men would find arresting.\n\nIn the silence, Gabby tried to collect her thoughts. \"I was coming over because\u2014\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" he said. \"Before you begin, why don't you sit down? I'll be right there.\" He started for the cooler, then rotated in midstride. \"Would you like a beer?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" she said, wishing she could get this over with. Refusing to sit down, she turned with the hope of confronting him as he strode past. But, too quickly, he dropped into his chair, leaned back, and put his feet on the table.\n\nFlustered, Gabby continued to stand. This was not working out as she'd planned.\n\nHe popped open his beer and took a short pull. \"Aren't you going to sit?\" he asked over his shoulder.\n\n\"I'd rather remain standing, thank you.\"\n\nTravis squinted and shaded his eyes with his hands. \"But I can barely see you,\" he said. \"The porch lights are shining behind you.\"\n\n\"I came over here to tell you something\u2014\"\n\n\"Can you move just a few feet to the side?\" he asked.\n\nShe made an impatient noise and moved a few steps.\n\n\"Better?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\nBy then, she was almost against the table. She threw up her hands in exasperation.\n\n\"Maybe you should just sit,\" he suggested.\n\n\"Fine!\" she said. She pulled out a chair and took a seat. He was throwing this whole thing completely out of whack. \"I came over because I wanted to talk to you...,\" she began, wondering if she should start with Molly's situation or what it generally meant to be a good neighbor.\n\nHe raised his eyebrows. \"You've already said that.\"\n\n\"I know!\" she said. \"I've been trying to tell you, but you haven't let me finish!\"\n\nHe saw her glare at him just the way his sister used to but still had no idea what she was so wound up about. After a second, she began to speak, a bit hesitantly at first, as if wary that he was going to interrupt her again. He didn't, and she seemed to find her rhythm, the words coming more and more quickly. She talked about how she'd found the house and how excited she'd been, and how owning a home had been her dream for a long time, before the topic wandered to Molly and how Molly's nipples were getting bigger. At first, Travis had no idea who Molly was\u2014which lent that part of the monologue a surreal quality\u2014but as she continued, he gradually realized that Molly was Gabby's collie, which he'd noticed her walking occasionally. After that, she began talking about ugly puppies and murder and, strangely, something about neither \"Dr. Hands-on-me\" nor vomit having anything to do with the way she was feeling, but in all honesty, it made little sense until she started gesturing at Moby. That allowed him to put two and two together until it dawned on him that she believed Moby was responsible for Molly getting pregnant.\n\nHe wanted to tell her that it wasn't Moby, but she was on such a roll, he thought it best to let her finish before protesting. By that point, her story had veered back on itself. Bits and pieces of her life continued to come tumbling out, little snippets that sounded unrehearsed and unconnected, along with bursts of anger randomly directed his way. It felt as though she went on for a good twenty minutes or so, but Travis knew it couldn't have been that long. Even so, being on the receiving end of a stranger's angry accusations about his failures as a neighbor wasn't exactly easy, nor did he appreciate the way she was talking about Moby. Moby, in his opinion, was just about the most perfect dog in the world.\n\nSometimes she paused, and in those moments, Travis tried unsuccessfully to respond. But that didn't work, either, because she immediately overrode him. Instead, he listened and\u2014at least in those moments when she wasn't insulting him or his dog\u2014sensed a trace of desperation, even some confusion, as to what was happening in her life. The dog, whether she realized it or not, was only a small part of what was bothering her. He felt a surge of compassion for her and found himself nodding, just to let her know he was paying attention. Every now and then, she asked a question, but before he could respond, she would answer for him. \"Aren't neighbors supposed to consider their actions?\" Yes, obviously, he started to say, but she  beat him to it. \"Of course they are!\" she cried, and Travis found himself nodding again.\n\nWhen her tirade finally wound down, she ended up staring at the ground, spent. Although her mouth was set in that same straight line, Travis thought he saw tears, and he wondered whether he should offer to bring her a tissue. They were inside the house\u2014too far away, he realized\u2014but then he remembered the napkins near the grill. He rose quickly, grabbed a few, and brought them to her. He offered her one, and after debating, she took it. She wiped the corner of her eyes. Now that she'd calmed down, he noted she was even prettier than he'd first realized.\n\nShe drew a shaky breath. \"The question is, what are you going to do?\" she finally asked.\n\nHe hesitated, trying to draw a bead on what she meant. \"About what?\"\n\n\"The puppies!\"\n\nHe could hear the anger beginning to percolate again, and he raised his hands in an attempt to calm her. \"Let's start at the beginning. Are you sure she's pregnant?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm sure! Didn't you hear a word I said?\"\n\n\"Have you had her checked by a vet?\"\n\n\"I'm a physician assistant. I spent two and a half years in PA school and another year in rotations. I know when someone's pregnant.\"\n\n\"With people, I'm sure you do. But with dogs, it's different.\"\n\n\"How would you know?\"\n\n\"I've had a lot of experience with dogs. Actually, I\u2014\"\n\nYeah, I'll bet, she thought, cutting him off with a wave. \"She's moving slower, her nipples are swollen, and she's been acting strangely. What else could it be?\" Honestly, every man she'd ever met believed that having a dog as a kid made him an expert on all things canine.\n\n\"What if she has an infection? That would cause swelling. And if the infection is bad enough, she might be in some pain, too, which could explain the way she's acting.\"\n\nGabby opened her mouth to speak, then closed it when she realized that she hadn't thought of that. An infection _could_ cause swelling in the nipples\u2014mastitis or something like that\u2014and for a moment, she felt a surge of relief wash through her. As she considered it further, however, reality came crashing back. It wasn't one or two nipples, it was all of them. She twisted the napkin, wishing he would just _listen._\n\n\"She's pregnant, and she's going to have puppies. And you're going to have to help me find homes for them, since I'm not bringing them to the pound.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it wasn't Moby.\"\n\n\"I knew you were going to say that.\"\n\n\"But you should know\u2014\"\n\nShe shook her head furiously. This was so typical. Pregnancy was always a woman's problem. She stood up from her chair. \"You're going to have to take some responsibility here. And I hope you realize it's not going to be easy to find homes for them.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"What on earth was that about?\" Stephanie asked.\n\nGabby had disappeared into the hedge; a few seconds later, he'd seen her enter her home through the sliding glass door. He was still sitting at the table, feeling slightly shell-shocked, when he spotted his sister approaching.\n\n\"How long have you been here?\"\n\n\"Long enough,\" she said. She saw the cooler near the door and pulled out a beer. \"For a second there, I thought she was going to punch you. Then I thought she was going to cry. And then she looked like she wanted to punch you again.\"\n\n\"That's about right,\" he admitted. He rubbed his forehead, still processing the scene.\n\n\"Still charming the girlfriends, I see.\"\n\n\"She's not my girlfriend. She's my neighbor.\"\n\n\"Even better.\" Stephanie took a seat. \"How long have you been dating?\"\n\n\"We're not. Actually, that's the first time I've ever met her.\"\n\n\"Impressive,\" Stephanie observed. \"I didn't think you had it in you.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You know\u2014making someone hate you so quickly. That's a rare gift. Usually you have to know a person better first.\"\n\n\"Very funny.\"\n\n\"I thought so. And Moby...\" She turned toward the dog and lifted a scolding finger. \"You should know better.\"\n\nMoby wiggled his tail before getting to his feet. He walked toward her, nuzzling Stephanie in her lap. She pushed the top of the head, which only made Moby push back harder.\n\n\"Easy there, you old hound dog.\"\n\n\"It's not Moby's fault.\"\n\n\"So you said. Not that she wanted to hear it, of course. What's with her?\"\n\n\"She was just upset.\"\n\n\"I could tell. It took me a little while before I could figure out what she was talking about. But I must say that it was entertaining.\"\n\n\"Be nice.\"\n\n\"I am nice.\" Stephanie leaned back, evaluating her brother. \"She was kind of cute, don't you think?\"\n\n\"I didn't notice.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure you didn't. I'd be willing to bet it was the first thing you noticed. I saw the way you were ogling her.\"\n\n\"My, my. You're in quite a mood this evening.\"\n\n\"I should be. The exam I just finished was a killer.\"\n\n\"What does that mean? You think you missed a question?\"\n\n\"No. But I had to really think hard about some of them.\"\n\n\"Must be nice being you.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is. I've got three more exams next week, too.\"\n\n\"Poor baby. Life as a perpetual student is so much harder than actually earning a living.\"\n\n\"Look who's talking. You were in school longer than me. Which reminds me... how do you think Mom and Dad would feel if I told them I wanted to stay in for another couple of years to get my PhD?\"\n\nAt Gabby's house, the kitchen light flashed on. Distracted, he took a moment to answer.\n\n\"They'd probably be okay with it. You know Mom and Dad.\"\n\n\"I know. But lately I get the feeling that they want me to meet someone and settle down.\"\n\n\"Join the club. I've had that feeling for years.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but it's different for me. I'm a woman. My biological clock is ticking.\"\n\nThe kitchen light next door flashed off; a few seconds later, another flashed on in the bedroom. He wondered idly whether Gabby was turning in for the night.\n\n\"You've got to remember that Mom was married at twenty-one,\" Stephanie went on. \"By twenty-three, she already had you.\" She waited for a response but got nothing. \"But then again, look how well you turned out. Maybe I should use that as my argument.\"\n\nHer words filtered in slowly, and he furrowed his brow when they finally registered.\n\n\"Is that an insult?\"\n\n\"I tried,\" she said with a smirk. \"Just checking to see if you're paying attention to me or whether you're thinking about your new friend over there.\"\n\n\"She's not a friend,\" he said. He knew he sounded defensive but he couldn't help it.\n\n\"Not now,\" his sister said. \"But I get a funny feeling she will be.\"\n\n# Two\n\nGabby wasn't sure how she felt after leaving her neighbor's, and all she could do after closing her door was to lean against it while she tried to regain her equilibrium.\n\nMaybe she shouldn't have gone over there, she thought. It certainly hadn't done any good. Not only hadn't he apologized, he'd gone so far as to deny that his dog was responsible. Still, as she finally moved away from the door, she found herself smiling. At least she'd done it. She'd stood up for herself and told him exactly how it was going to be. It had taken courage to do that, she told herself. She normally wasn't very good at speaking her mind. Not to Kevin about the fact that his plans for their future seemed to go only as far as the next weekend. Or to Dr. Melton about the way she felt when he touched her. Not even to her mom, who always seemed to have opinions on how Gabby could improve herself.\n\nShe stopped smiling when she caught sight of Molly  sleeping in the corner. A quick peek was enough to remind her that the end result hadn't changed and that maybe, just maybe, she could have done a better job of convincing him that it was his duty to help her. As she replayed the evening, she felt a wave of embarrassment. She knew she'd been rambling, but after being knocked down, she had lost her focus, and then her frustration had rendered her completely unable to stop talking. Her mother would have had a field day with that one. She loved her mother, but her mother was one of those ladies who never lost control. It drove Gabby crazy; more than once during her teenage years, she'd wanted to take her mother by the arms and shake her, just to elicit a spontaneous response. Of course, it wouldn't have worked. Her mother would have simply allowed the shaking to continue until Gabby was finished, then smoothed her hair and made some infuriating comment like \"Well, Gabrielle, now that you've gotten that out of your system, can we discuss this like ladies?\"\n\n_Ladies_. Gabby couldn't stand that word. When her mother said it, she was often plagued by a sweeping sense of failure, one that made her think she had a long way to go and no map to get there.\n\nOf course, her mother couldn't help the way she was, any more than Gabby could. Her mother was a walking clich\u00e9 of southern womanhood, having grown up wearing frilly dresses and being presented to the community's elite at the Savannah Christmas Cotillion, one of the most exclusive debutante balls in the country. She had also served as treasurer for the Tri Delts at the University of Georgia, another family tradition, and while in college, she had apparently been of the opinion that academics were far less important than working toward a \"Mrs.\" degree, which she believed the only career choice for a proper southern lady. It went without saying that she wanted the \"Mr.\" part of the equation to be worthy of the family name. Which essentially meant rich.\n\nEnter her father. Her dad, a successful real estate developer and general contractor, was twelve years older than his wife when they'd married, and if not as rich as some, he was certainly well-off. Still, Gabby could remember studying the wedding photos of her parents as they stood outside the church and wondering how two such different people could have ever fallen in love. While her mom loved the pheasant at the country club, Dad preferred biscuits and gravy at the local diner; while Mom never walked as far as the mailbox without her makeup, Dad wore jeans, and his hair was always a bit disheveled. But love each other they did\u2014of this, Gabby had no doubt. In the mornings, she would sometimes catch her parents in a tender embrace, and never once had she heard them argue. Nor did they have separate beds, like so many of Gabby's friends' parents, who often struck her as business partners more than lovers. Even now, when she visited, she would find her parents snuggled up on the couch together, and when her friends marveled, she would simply shake her head and admit that for whatever reason, they were perfectly suited to each other.\n\nMuch to her mother's endless disappointment, Gabby, unlike her three honey blond sisters, had always been more like her father. Even as a child, she preferred overalls to dresses, adored climbing in trees, and spent hours playing in the dirt. Every now and then, she would traipse behind her father at a job site, mimicking his movements as he checked the seals on newly installed windows or peeked into boxes that had recently arrived from Mitchell's hardware store. Her dad taught her to bait a hook and to fish, and she loved riding beside him in his old, rumbly truck with its broken radio, a truck he'd never bothered to trade in. After work, they would either play catch or shoot baskets while her mom watched from the kitchen window in a way that always struck Gabby as not only disapproving, but uncomprehending. More often than not, her sisters could be seen standing beside her, their mouths agape.\n\nWhile Gabby liked to tell people about the free spirit she'd been as a child, in reality she'd ended up straddling both her parents' visions of the world, mainly because her mom was an expert when it came to the manipulative power of motherhood. As she grew older, Gabby acquiesced more to her mother's opinions about clothing and _the proper behavior for ladies,_ simply to avoid feeling guilty. Of all the weapons in her mother's arsenal, guilt was far and away the most effective, and Mom always knew just how to use it. Because of a raised eyebrow here and a little comment there, Gabby ended up in cotillion classes and dance lessons; she dutifully learned to play the piano and, like her mother, was formally presented at the Savannah Christmas Cotillion. If her mother was proud that night\u2014and she was, by the look on her face\u2014Gabby by that time felt as if she were finally ready to make her own decisions, some of which she knew her mother wouldn't approve. Sure, she wanted to get married and have children someday just like Mom, but by then she'd realized that she also wanted a career like Dad. More specifically, she wanted to be a doctor.\n\nOh, Mom said all the right things when she found out. In the beginning, anyway. But then the subtle guilt offensive began. As Gabby aced exam after exam in college, her mom would sometimes frown and wonder aloud whether it was possible to both work full-time as a doctor and be a full-time wife and mother.\n\n\"But if work is more important to you than family,\" her mom would say, \"then by all means, become a doctor.\"\n\nGabby tried to resist her mother's campaign, but in the end, old habits die hard and she eventually settled on PA school instead of medical school. The reasons made sense: She'd still see patients, but her hours would be relatively stable and she'd never be on call\u2014definitely a more family-friendly option. Still, it sometimes bugged her that her mother put the idea in her mind in the first place.\n\nBut she couldn't deny that family was important to her. That's the thing about being the product of happily married parents. You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that, you think you're entitled to live it. So far, though, it wasn't working out as planned. She and Kevin had dated long enough to fall in love, survive the ordinary ups and downs that break most couples apart, and even talk about the future. She had decided that he was the one she wanted to spend her life with, and she frowned, thinking about their most recent argument.\n\nAs if sensing Gabby's distress, Molly struggled to her feet and waddled over, nuzzling Gabby's hand. Gabby stroked her fur, allowing it to run through her fingers.\n\n\"I wonder if it's stress,\" Gabby said, wishing her life could be more like Molly's. Simple, without cares or responsibilities... well, except for the pregnancy part. \"Do I seem stressed to you?\"\n\nMolly didn't answer, but she didn't have to. Gabby knew she was stressed. She could feel it in her shoulders whenever she paid the bills, or when Dr. Melton leered at her, or when Kevin played stupid about what she'd expected by agreeing to move closer to him. It didn't help that, aside from Kevin, she didn't really have any friends here. She'd barely gotten to know anyone outside the office, and truth be told, her neighbor was the first person she'd spoken with since she'd moved in. Thinking back, she supposed she could have been nicer about the whole thing. She felt a twinge of remorse about spouting off the way she had, especially since he did seem like a friendly guy. When he'd helped her up, he'd seemed almost like a friend. And once she'd started babbling, he hadn't interrupted her once, which was sort of refreshing, too.\n\nIt was remarkable now that she thought about it. Considering how crazy she must have sounded, he hadn't gotten upset or snapped at her, which was something Kevin would have done. Just thinking about the gentle way he'd helped her to her feet made the blood rush to her cheeks. And then there had been a moment after he'd handed her the napkin that she'd caught him staring at her in a way that suggested he'd found her attractive as well. It had been a long time since something like that had happened, and even though she didn't want to admit it, it made her feel good about herself. She missed that. Amazing what a little truthful confrontation could do for the soul.\n\nShe went into the bedroom and slipped into a pair of comfy sweats and a soft, worn shirt she'd owned since her freshman year in college. Molly trailed behind her, and when Gabby realized what she needed, she motioned toward the door.\n\n\"You ready to go outside?\" she asked.\n\nMolly's tail started to wag as she moved toward the door. Gabby inspected her closely. She still looked pregnant, but maybe her neighbor had a point. She should bring her to the vet, if only to be sure. Besides, she had no idea how to care for a pregnant dog. She wondered if Molly needed extra vitamins, which reminded her again that she was falling behind in her own resolution to lead a healthier life. Eating better, exercising, sleeping regularly, stretching: She'd planned to start as soon as she'd moved into the house. A new-house resolution of sorts, but it hadn't really taken hold. Tomorrow, she'd definitely go jogging, then have a salad for lunch and another one for dinner. And since she was ready to get on with some serious life changes, she might just ask Kevin point-blank about his plans for their future.\n\nThen again, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Standing up to the neighbor was one thing; was she ready to accept the consequences if she wasn't happy with Kevin's answer? What if he had no plans? Did she really want to quit her first job after a couple of months? Sell her house? Move away? Just how far was she willing to go?\n\nShe wasn't sure of anything, other than the fact that she didn't want to lose him. But trying to be healthier\u2014now that, she could definitely do. One step at a time, right? Her decision made, she stepped onto the back deck and watched as Molly padded down the steps and headed toward the far end of the yard. The air was still warm, but a light breeze had picked up. The stars spread across the sky in random, intricate patterns that, aside from the Big Dipper, she'd never been able to discern, and she resolved that she'd buy a book on astronomy tomorrow, right after lunch. She'd spend a couple of days learning the basics, then invite Kevin to spend a romantic evening at the beach, where she'd point to the sky and ever so casually mention something astronomically impressive. She closed her eyes, imagining the scene, and stood straighter. Tomorrow, she'd start becoming a new person. A better person. And she'd figure out what to do about Molly, too. Even if she had to beg, she'd find homes for every one of those puppies.\n\nBut first, she'd bring her to the vet.\n\n# Three\n\nIt was shaping up to be one of those days when Gabby wondered why she'd decided to work in a pediatric office. She had the chance, after all, to work in a cardiology unit at the hospital, which had been her plan all the way through PA school. She had loved assisting in challenging surgeries, and it seemed like a perfect fit until her final rotation, when she happened to work with a pediatrician who filled her head with ideas about the nobility and joy of caring for infants. Dr. Bender, a gray-haired medical veteran who never stopped smiling and knew practically every child in Sumter, South Carolina, convinced her that while cardiology might pay better and seem more glamorous, there was nothing quite as rewarding as holding newborns and watching them develop over the critical first years of life. Usually she nodded dutifully, but on her last day, he'd forced the issue by placing an infant in her arms. As the baby cooed, Dr. Bender's voice floated toward her: \"In cardiology, everything is an emergency and your patients always seem to get sicker, no matter what you do. After a while, that has to be draining. It can burn you out quick if you're not careful. But caring for a little fella like this...\" He paused, motioning to the baby. \"This is the highest calling in the world.\"\n\nDespite a job offer in cardiology at a hospital in her hometown, she'd taken a job with Drs. Furman and Melton in Beaufort, North Carolina. Dr. Furman struck her as oblivious, Dr. Melton struck her as a flirt, but it was an opportunity to be nearer to Kevin. And on some level, she'd believed that Dr. Bender just might be right. He'd been right about the infants. For the most part, she loved working with them, even when she had to give them shots and their screams made her wince. Toddlers were okay, too. Most of them had darling personalities, and she loved to watch as they cuddled their blankets or teddy bears and stared at her with guileless expressions. It was the parents who drove her crazy. Dr. Bender had failed to mention one critical point: In cardiology, you dealt with a patient who came to the office because he or she wanted or needed to; in pediatrics, you dealt with a patient who was often under the care of neurotic, know-it-all parents. Eva Bronson was a case in point.\n\nEva, who was holding George on her lap in the exam room, seemed to be looking down her nose at Gabby. The fact that she wasn't technically a physician and was relatively young made many parents believe she was little more than an overpaid nurse.\n\n\"Are you sure Dr. Furman can't squeeze us in?\" She emphasized the word _doctor._\n\n\"He's at the hospital,\" Gabby replied. \"He won't be in until later. Besides, I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me. Your son seems fine.\"\n\n\"But he's still coughing.\"\n\n\"Like I said before, toddlers can cough for up to six weeks after a cold. Their lungs take longer to heal, but it's perfectly normal at this age.\"\n\n\"So you're not going to give him an antibiotic?\"\n\n\"No. He doesn't need one. His ears were clear, his sinuses were clear, and I didn't hear any evidence of bronchitis in his lungs. His temperature is normal, and he looks healthy.\"\n\nGeorge, who'd just turned two, was squirming in Eva's lap, trying to get free, a bundle of happy energy. Eva tightened her grip.\n\n\"Since Dr. Furman's not here, maybe Dr. Melton should see him. I'm pretty sure he needs an antibiotic. Half the kids in his day care are on antibiotics right now. Something's going around.\"\n\nGabby pretended to write something in the chart. Eva Bronson always wanted an antibiotic for George. Eva Bronson was an antibiotic junkie, if there was such a thing.\n\n\"If he spikes a fever, you can bring him back and I'll examine him again.\"\n\n\"I don't want to bring him _back._ That's why I brought him in _today._ I think he should see a _doctor._ \"\n\nGabby did her best to keep her tone steady. \"Okay, I'll see if Dr. Melton can squeeze in a couple of minutes for you.\"\n\nAs she left the room, Gabby paused in the hallway, knowing she needed to prepare herself. She didn't want to talk to Dr. Melton again; she'd been doing her best to avoid him all morning. As soon as Dr. Furman had left for the hospital to be present at an emergency C-section at Carteret General Hospital in Morehead City, Dr. Melton had sidled up next to her, close enough for her to notice that he'd recently gargled with mouthwash.\n\n\"I guess we'll be on our own this morning,\" he'd said.\n\n\"Maybe it won't be too busy,\" she'd said neutrally. She wasn't ready to confront him, not without Dr. Furman around.\n\n\"Mondays are always busy. Hopefully we won't have to work through lunch.\"\n\n\"Hopefully,\" she'd echoed.\n\nDr. Melton had reached for the file on the door of the exam room across the hall. He'd scanned it quickly, and just as Gabby was about to leave, she'd heard his voice again. \"Speaking of lunch, have you ever had a fish taco?\"\n\nGabby blinked. \"Huh?'\n\n\"I know this great place in Morehead near the beach. Maybe we could swing by. We could bring some back for the staff, too.\"\n\nThough he had maintained a pretense of professionalism\u2014he would have sounded the same way had he been speaking to Dr. Furman\u2014Gabby had felt herself recoil.\n\n\"I can't,\" she'd said. \"I'm supposed to bring Molly to the vet. I made an appointment this morning.\"\n\n\"And they can get you in and out of there in time?\"\n\n\"They said they would.\"\n\nHe had hesitated. \"Okay then,\" he'd said. \"Maybe another time.\"\n\nAs Gabby reached for a file, she'd winced. \"You okay?\" Dr. Melton had asked.\n\n\"I'm just a little sore from working out,\" she'd said before disappearing into the room.\n\nActually, she was really sore. Ridiculously sore. Everything from her neck to her ankles throbbed, and it seemed to be getting worse. Had she simply jogged on Sunday, she figured she probably would have been okay. But that hadn't been enough. Not for the new, improved Gabby. After jogging\u2014and proud of the fact that even though her pace had been slow, she hadn't had to stop once to walk\u2014she'd headed to Gold's Gym in Morehead City to sign up for a membership. She'd signed the paperwork while the trainer explained the various classes with complicated names that were scheduled almost every hour. As she got up to leave, he'd mentioned that a new class called Body Pump was about to start in a few minutes.\n\n\"It's a fantastic class,\" he'd said. \"It works the whole body. You get strength and cardio in a single workout. You should try it.\"\n\nSo she had. And may God forgive him for how it made her feel.\n\nNot immediately, of course. No, during the class, she'd been fine. Though deep down she knew she should pace herself, she found herself trying to keep up with the scantily clad, surgically enhanced, mascara-wearing woman next to her. She'd lifted and pushed weights, jogged in place to the beat, then lifted some more and jogged in place, over and over. By the time she left, with muscles quivering, she'd felt as if she'd taken the next step in her evolution. She'd ordered herself a protein shake on the way out the door, just to complete the transformation.\n\nOn the way home, she'd swung by the bookstore to buy a book on astronomy, and later, as she was about to fall asleep, she'd realized she felt better about the future than she had in a long time, except for the fact that her muscles seemed to be stiffening by the minute.\n\nUnfortunately, the new, improved Gabby had found it exceptionally painful to rise from bed the following morning. Everything hurt. No, scratch that. It was beyond hurt. Way beyond. It was excruciating. Every muscle in her body felt as if it had been run through a juice blender. Her back, her chest, her stomach, her legs, her butt, her arms, her neck... even her fingers ached. It took three attempts to sit up in bed, and after staggering to the bathroom, she'd found that brushing her teeth without screaming took a herculean amount of self-control. In the medicine cabinet, she'd found herself reaching for pretty much everything\u2014Tylenol, Bayer aspirin, Aleve\u2014and in the end, she'd decided to take them all. She'd washed down the pills with a glass of water and watched herself wince while swallowing.\n\nOkay, she admitted, maybe she'd overdone it.\n\nBut it was too late now, and even worse, the painkillers hadn't worked. Or maybe they had. She was, after all, able to function in the office, as long as she moved slowly. But the pain was still there, and Dr. Furman was gone, and the last thing she wanted was to deal with Dr. Melton.\n\nWithout another option, she asked one of the nurses which room he was in and, after knocking on the door, poked her head in. Dr. Melton looked up from his patient, his expression becoming animated as soon as he saw her.\n\n\"Sorry to interrupt,\" she said. \"Can I talk to you for a second?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said. He rose from his stool, set aside the file on his way out, and closed the door behind him. \"Did you change your mind about lunch?\"\n\nShe shook her head and told him about Eva Bronson and George; he promised he'd talk to them as quickly as he could. As she left, she could feel his eyes lingering on her as she limped down the hall.\n\nIt was half-past noon when Gabby finished with her last patient of the morning. Clutching her purse, she hobbled toward her car, knowing she didn't have much time. Her next appointment was in forty-five minutes, but assuming she wasn't held up at the vet, she would be okay. It was one of the nice things about living in a small town of fewer than four thousand people. Everything was only minutes away. While Morehead City\u2014five times the size of Beaufort\u2014was just across the bridge that spanned the Intracoastal Waterway and the place where most people did their weekend shopping, the short distance was enough to make this town feel distinct and isolated, like most of the towns _down east,_ which was what the locals called this part of the state.\n\nIt was a pretty place, especially the historic district. On a day like today, with temperatures perfect for strolling, Beaufort resembled what she imagined Savannah to be in the first century of its existence.\n\nWide streets, shade trees, and a little more than a hundred restored homes occupied several blocks, eventually giving way to Front Street and a short boardwalk that overlooked the marina. Slips were occupied by leisure and working boats of every shape and size; a magnificent yacht worth millions might be docked next to a small crab boat on one side, with a lovingly maintained sailboat on the other. There were a couple of restaurants with gorgeous views: old, homegrown places with local character, complete with covered patios and picnic tables that made customers feel as if they were on vacation in a place where time stood still. On occasional weekend evenings, bands would perform at the restaurants, and last summer on the Fourth of July, when she was visiting Kevin, so many people came to hear the music and see the fireworks that the marina literally filled with boats. Without enough slips to accommodate them, the boats were simply tied up to one another, and their owners would walk from boat to boat until they reached the dock, accepting or offering beers to strangers as they went.\n\nOn the opposite side of the street, there were real estate offices mingled with art shops and tourist traps. In the evenings, Gabby liked to stroll through the art shops to examine the work. When she was young, she'd dreamed of painting or drawing for a living; it took a few years before she realized that her ambition far exceeded her talent. That didn't mean she couldn't appreciate quality work, and every now and then she found a photograph or painting that made her pause. Twice, she'd actually made purchases, and both paintings now hung in her house. She'd considered buying a few more to complement them, but her monthly budget prevented it, at least for the time being.\n\nA few minutes later, Gabby pulled into her driveway and yelped as she got out of the car before gamely making her way to the front door. Molly met her on the porch, took her sweet time smelling the flower bed until she took care of business, then hopped into the passenger seat. Gabby yelped again as she got back in, then rolled down the window so Molly could hang her head out, something she loved to do.\n\nThe Down East Veterinary Clinic was only a couple of minutes away, and she pulled into the parking lot, listening to the crunch of gravel beneath her wheels. A rustic and weathered Victorian, the clinic building appeared less like an office than a home. She slipped a leash on Molly, then stole a glance at her watch. She prayed the vet would be quick.\n\nThe screen door opened with a loud squeak, and she felt Molly tug at the leash as she was confronted with odors typical of animal clinics. Gabby approached the front desk, but before she could speak, the receptionist stood up from behind her desk.\n\n\"Is this Molly?\" she asked.\n\nGabby didn't bother to hide her surprise. Living in a small town still took some getting used to. \"Yeah. I'm Gabby Holland.\"\n\n\"Nice to meet you. I'm Terri, by the way. What a beautiful dog.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"We were wondering when you'd get here. You have to get back to work, right?\" She grabbed a clipboard. \"Let me go ahead and get you set up in a room. You can do the paperwork there. That way, the vet can see you right away. It shouldn't be long. He's almost done.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Gabby said. \"I really appreciate it.\"\n\nThe receptionist led them to an adjoining room; just inside was a scale, and she helped Molly get on it. \"It's no big deal. Besides, I bring my kids to your pediatric office all the time. How do you like it so far?\"\n\n\"I'm enjoying it,\" she said. \"It's busier than I thought it would be.\"\n\nTerri recorded the weight, then proceeded down the hallway. \"I just love Dr. Melton. He's been wonderful with my son.\"\n\n\"I'll tell him,\" Gabby said.\n\nTerri motioned to a small room furnished with a metal table and plastic chair and handed the clipboard to Gabby. \"Just fill that out, and I'll let the doctor know you're here.\"\n\nTerri left them alone, and Gabby gingerly took a seat, wincing as she felt the muscles in her legs plead in agony. She took a couple of deep breaths, waiting until the pain passed, then filled out the paperwork while Molly wandered the room.\n\nLess than a minute later, the door opened and the first thing Gabby noticed was the white smock; an instant later, the name embroidered in blue letters. Gabby was just about to speak, but sudden recognition made it impossible.\n\n\"Hi, Gabby,\" Travis said. \"How are you?\"\n\nGabby continued to stare, wondering what on earth he was doing here. She was about to say something when she realized that his eyes were blue, when she'd thought they were brown. Strange. Still\u2014\n\n\"I take it this is Molly,\" he said, interrupting her thoughts. \"Hey, girl...\" He squatted and rubbed Molly's neck. \"You like that? Oh, you're a sweet one, aren't you? How you feeling, girl?\"\n\nThe sound of his voice brought her back, and memories of their argument the other night followed. \"You're\u2014you're the vet?\" Gabby stammered.\n\nTravis nodded as he continued to scratch Molly's neck. \"Along with my dad. He started the clinic, I joined him after I finished school.\"\n\nThis couldn't be happening. Of all the people in this town, it had to be him. Why on earth couldn't she have an ordinary, uncomplicated day?\n\n\"Why didn't you say anything the other night?\"\n\n\"I did. I told you to bring her to the vet, remember?\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed. The man seemed to enjoy infuriating her. \"You know what I mean.\"\n\nHe looked up. \"You mean about me being the vet? I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't let me.\"\n\n\"You should have said something anyway.\"\n\n\"I don't think you were in any mood to hear it. But that's water under the bridge. No hard feelings.\" He smiled. \"Let me check this girl out, okay? I know you have to get back to work, so I'll make this quick.\"\n\nShe could feel her anger rising at his nonchalant \"No hard feelings.\" Part of her wanted to leave right then. Unfortunately, he was already beginning to prod Molly's belly. Nor, she realized, could she rise quickly, even if she tried, since right now her legs seemed to be on strike. Chagrined, she crossed her arms and felt something akin to a knife blade plunging into her back and shoulders while Travis readied the stethoscope. She bit her lip, proud of the fact she hadn't yelped again.\n\nTravis glanced at her. \"You okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she said.\n\n\"You sure? You seem like you're in pain.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she repeated.\n\nIgnoring her tone, he returned his attention to the dog. He moved the stethoscope, listened again, then examined one of her nipples. Finally, he slipped on a rubber glove with a snap and did a quick internal.\n\n\"Well, she's definitely pregnant,\" he said, removing the glove and tossing it into the bin. \"And from the looks of things, she's about seven weeks along.\"\n\n\"I told you.\" She glared at him. And Moby is responsible, she refrained from adding.\n\nTravis stood and put the stethoscope back into his pocket. He reached for the clipboard and flipped the page.\n\n\"Just so you know, I'm pretty sure Moby's not responsible.\"\n\n\"Oh, no?\"\n\n\"No. Most likely it's that Labrador I've seen around the neighborhood. I think he's old man Cason's, but I'm not positive about that. It might be his son's dog. I know he's back in town.\"\n\n\"What makes you so sure it's not Moby?\"\n\nHe started making notes, and for a moment, she wasn't sure he'd heard her.\n\nHe shrugged. \"Well, for one thing, he's been neutered.\"\n\nThere are moments when mental overload can render words impossible. All at once, Gabby saw a mortifying montage of herself babbling and crying and finally storming off in a huff. She _did_ have a vague memory of him trying to tell her something, all of which served to make her feel queasy.\n\n\"Neutered?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" He looked up from the clipboard. \"Two years ago. My dad did it here in the office.\"\n\n\"Oh...\"\n\n\"I tried to tell you that, too. But you left before I had a chance. I felt sort of bad about it, so I stopped by on Sunday to tell you then, but you were out.\"\n\nShe said the only thing that came to mind. \"I was at the gym.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Good for you.\"\n\nIt took some effort, but she uncrossed her arms. \"I guess I owe you an apology.\"\n\n\"No hard feelings,\" he said again, but this time it made her feel even worse. \"But listen, I know you're in a rush, so let me tell you a bit about Molly, okay?\"\n\nShe nodded, feeling as if she'd been placed in the corner by her teacher, still thinking about her tirade on Saturday night. The fact that he was being gracious about it somehow made it even worse.\n\n\"The gestation period lasts nine weeks, so you've got another two weeks. Her hips are wide enough, so you don't have to worry about that, which was why I wanted you to bring her in. Collies sometimes have small hips. Now, normally, there's nothing you need to do, but keep in mind that most likely she'll want a cool, dark place to have her puppies, so you might want to put some old blankets down in the garage. You have a door from the kitchen, right?\"\n\nShe nodded again, feeling as if she were shrinking.\n\n\"Just leave it open, and she'll probably start wandering in there. We call it nesting, and it's perfectly normal. Odds are she'll have the puppies when it's quiet. At night, or while you're at work, but remember this is completely natural, so there's nothing to worry about. The puppies will know how to wean right away, so you don't need to be concerned about that, either. And you'll most likely throw out the blankets, so don't use anything fancy, okay?\"\n\nShe nodded for the third time, feeling ever smaller.\n\n\"Other than that, there's not much more you need to know. If there are any problems, you can bring her to the office. If it's after hours, you know where I live.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat. \"Okay.\"\n\nWhen she said nothing else, he smiled and began to move toward the door. \"That's it. You can bring her back home if you'd like. But I'm glad you brought her in. I didn't think it was an infection, but I'm happy I made sure.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Gabby mumbled. \"And again, I'm really sorry....\"\n\nHe held up his hands to stop her. \"It's no problem. Really. You were upset, and Moby does wander the neighborhood. It was an honest mistake. I'll see you around, okay?\" By the time he gave Molly a final pat, Gabby felt six inches tall.\n\nOnce Travis\u2014Dr. Parker\u2014left the exam room, she waited for a long moment to be certain he was gone. Then slowly, painfully, she rose from her chair. She peeked out the door and, after making sure the coast was clear, went to the receptionist's desk, where she quietly paid her bill.\n\nBy the time she got back to work, the only thing Gabby knew for certain was that as forgiving as he'd been, she'd never live down what she'd done, and since there wasn't a rock large enough for her to crawl under, it was in her best interest to find a way to avoid him for a while. Not forever, of course. Something reasonable. Like the next fifty years.\n\n# Four\n\nTravis Parker stood by the window, watching as Gabby led Molly back to the car. He was smiling to himself, amused by her expressions. Though he barely knew her, he'd seen enough to conclude that she was one of those people whose expressions were a window to their every feeling. It was a rare quality these days. He often felt that too many people lived their lives acting and pretending, wearing masks and losing themselves in the process. Gabby, he felt certain, would never be that way.\n\nPocketing his keys, he headed for his truck, with the promise that he'd be back from lunch in half an hour. He retrieved his cooler\u2014he packed his lunch every morning\u2014and drove to his usual spot. A year ago he'd purchased a plot of land overlooking Shackleford Banks at the end of Front Street, with the thought that one day he'd build his dream home there. The only problem was that he wasn't quite sure what that entailed. For the most part, he led a simple life and dreamed of throwing up a rustic little shack like the kind he'd seen in the Florida Keys, something with lots of character that appeared a hundred years old on the outside but was surprisingly bright and roomy on the inside. He didn't need much space\u2014a bedroom and maybe an office in addition to the living area\u2014but as soon as he'd start the process, he'd reason that the lot was better suited for something more family-friendly. That rendered the image of his dream home fuzzier, since it no doubt included a future wife and kids, neither of which he was even close to imagining.\n\nSometimes, the way he and his sister had turned out struck him as strange, since she, too, was in no hurry to marry. Their parents had been married for almost thirty-five years, and Travis could no more picture either of them single than he could picture himself flapping his arms and zooming into the clouds. Sure, he'd heard the stories of how they'd met on a church group camping trip while they were in high school, how Mom had cut her finger while slicing a piece of pie for dessert, and how dad had clamped his hand over the wound like a surgical bandage to stem the bleeding. One touch and \"Bing, bang, boom, just like that,\" Dad would say, \"I knew she was the one for me.\"\n\nSo far, there'd never been a bing, bang, boom for Travis. Nothing even close, for that matter. Sure, there was his high school girlfriend, Olivia; everyone at the school seemed to think they were perfect for each other. She lived across the bridge in Morehead City these days, and every now and then he'd run into her at Wal-Mart or Target. They'd chat for a minute or so about nothing important and then amicably go their separate ways.\n\nThere had been countless girlfriends since Olivia, of course. He wasn't clueless when it came to women, after all. He found them attractive and interesting, but more than that, he was genuinely fond of them. He was proud of the fact that he'd never had what could even remotely be considered a painful breakup for either him or one of his exes. The breakups were almost always mutual, petering out like a soggy fuse on a firecracker as opposed to the big kaboom of fireworks overhead. He considered himself friends with all of his exes\u2014Monica, his latest, included\u2014and figured they'd say the same thing about him. He wasn't right for them, and they weren't right for him. He'd watched three former girlfriends get married off to great guys, and he'd been invited to all three weddings. He seldom thought about finding _permanence_ or _his soul mate,_ but in the rare times he did, he always ended up imagining finding someone who shared the same active, outdoor passions he did. Life was for living, wasn't it? Sure, everyone had responsibilities, and he didn't mind those. He enjoyed his work, earned a good living, owned a house, and paid his bills on time, but he didn't want a life where those things constituted all there was. He wanted to experience life. No, change that. He _needed_ to experience life.\n\nHe'd been that way for as long as he could remember. Growing up, Travis had been organized and capable when it came to school, getting good grades with a minimum of fuss or anxiety, but, more often than not, just as happy with a B instead of an A. It drove his mother crazy\u2014\"Imagine how well you could do if you applied yourself,\" she repeated every time a report card came home. But school didn't excite him the way riding his bike at breakneck speed or surfing in the Outer Banks did. While other kids thought about sports in terms of baseball and soccer, he thought of floating on air on his motorbike as he soared off a dirt ramp or the rush of energy he felt when he successfully landed it. He was an X Games kind of kid, even before there was such a thing, and by thirty-two, he'd pretty much done it all.\n\nIn the distance, he could see wild horses congregating near the dunes of Shackleford Banks, and as he watched them, he reached for his sandwich. Turkey on wheat with mustard, an apple, and a bottle of water; he had the same thing every day, after the exact same breakfast of oatmeal, scrambled egg whites, and a banana. As much as he craved the occasional adrenaline rush, his diet couldn't be more boring. His friends marveled at the rigidity of his self-control, but what he didn't tell them was that it had more to do with his limited palate than discipline. When he was ten, he'd been forced to finish a plate of Thai noodles drenched in ginger, and he'd vomited most of the night. Ever since then, the faintest whiff of ginger would send him gagging to the bathroom, and his palate had never been the same. He became timid about food in general, preferring plain and predictable to anything with exotic flavor; then gradually, as he grew older, he cut out the junk. Now, after more than twenty years, he was too afraid to change.\n\nAs he enjoyed his sandwich\u2014plain and predictable\u2014he wondered at the direction of his thoughts. It wasn't like him. He usually wasn't prone to deep reflection. (Another cause of the inevitable soggy fuse, according to Maria, his girlfriend of six years ago.) Usually he just went about his life, doing what needed to be done and figuring out ways to enjoy the rest of his time. That was one of the great things about being single: A person could pretty much do what he wanted, whenever he wanted, and introspection was only an option.\n\nIt had to be Gabby, he thought, though for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. He barely knew her, and he doubted whether he'd even had a chance to meet the real Gabby Holland yet. Oh, he'd seen the angry one the other night and the mea culpa one just a little while ago, but he had no idea how she behaved under ordinary circumstances. He suspected that she had a good sense of humor, though on closer reflection, he couldn't pin down the reason he thought so. And she was no doubt intelligent, though he could have deduced that on the basis of her job. But other than that... he tried and failed to picture her on a date. Still, he was glad she'd come by, if only to give them a chance to start over as neighbors. One thing he'd learned was that bad neighbors could make a person miserable. Joe's neighbor was the kind of guy who burned leaves on the first gorgeous day of spring and mowed his lawn first thing Saturday mornings, and the two of them had nearly come to blows more than once after a long night with the baby. Common courtesy, it sometimes seemed to Travis, was going the way of the dinosaurs, and the last thing he wanted was for Gabby to feel any reason to avoid him. Maybe he'd invite her over the next time his friends came by....\n\nYeah, he thought, I'll do that. The decision made, he gathered his cooler and started back toward his truck. On tap that afternoon were the regular assortment of dogs and cats, but at three, someone was supposed to be bringing in a gecko. He liked treating geckos or any exotic pet; the idea that he knew what he was talking about, which he did, always impressed the owners. He enjoyed their awed expressions: _I wonder if he knows the exact anatomy and physiology of every creature on earth._ And he pretended that he did. But fact was a bit more prosaic. No, he of course didn't know the ins and outs of every creature on earth\u2014who could?\u2014but infections were infections and pretty much treated the same way regardless of species; only the medication dose was different, and that he had to verify in a reference book he kept on his desk.\n\nAs he got in the car, he found himself thinking about Gabby and wondering whether she'd ever gone surfing or snowboarding. It seemed unlikely, but at the same time, he had the strange feeling that, unlike most of his exes, she would be up for either of those two things, given the opportunity. He wasn't sure why, and as he started the engine he tried to dismiss the notion, doing his best to convince himself it didn't matter. Except for the fact that, somehow, it did.\n\n# Five\n\nOver the next two weeks, Gabby became an expert in making a covert entry and exit, at least when it came to her house.\n\nShe had no other choice. What on earth could she say to Travis? She'd made a fool of herself, and he'd compounded the matter by being so forgiving, which obviously meant that coming and going required a new set of rules, one in which avoidance was Rule #1. Her only saving grace\u2014the only positive thing to come out of the whole experience\u2014was that she'd apologized in his office.\n\nIt was getting harder to keep it up, though. At first, all she'd had to do was park her car in the garage, but now that Molly was getting close to her due date, Gabby had to start parking in the driveway so Molly could nest. Which meant that Gabby thenceforth had to come and go when she was certain Travis wasn't around.\n\nShe'd come down on the fifty-year limit, though; now, she figured a couple of months or maybe half a year would suffice. Whatever amount of time seemed long enough for him to forget, or at least diminish the memory of, the way she'd acted. She knew that time had a funny way of dimming the edges of reality until only something blurry remained, and when that happened, she'd go back to a more normal routine. She'd start small\u2014a wave here or there as she got in the car, maybe a wave from her back deck if they happened to see each other\u2014and they'd go on from there. In time, she figured they'd be fine\u2014maybe they'd even share a laugh someday at the way they'd met\u2014but until then, she preferred to live like a spy.\n\nShe'd had to learn Travis's schedule, of course. It wasn't hard\u2014a quick peek at the clock when he was about to pull out in the morning while she watched from her kitchen. Returning home from work was even easier; he was usually out on the boat or the Jet Ski by the time she arrived, but on the downside, that made the evenings the worst problem of all. Because he was _out there,_ she had to stay _in here,_ no matter how glorious the sunset, and unless she went over to Kevin's, she'd find herself studying the astronomy book, the one she'd purchased in hopes of impressing Kevin while they did some stargazing. Which, unfortunately, hadn't happened yet.\n\nShe supposed she could have been more grown up about the whole thing, but she had the funny feeling that if she came face-to-face with Travis, she'd find herself _remembering_ instead of _listening,_ and the last thing she wanted was to make an even worse impression than she already had. Besides, she had other things on her mind.\n\nKevin, for one. Most evenings, he swung by for a little while, and he'd even stayed over last weekend, after his customary round of golf, of course. Kevin adored golf. They'd also gone out to three dinners and two movies and had spent part of Sunday afternoon at the beach, and a couple of days ago, while sitting on the couch, he'd slipped off her shoes while they were sipping wine.\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"I figured you'd like your feet rubbed. I'll bet they're sore after spending all day standing.\"\n\n\"I should rinse them off first.\"\n\n\"I don't care if they're clean. And besides, I like to look at your toes. You've got cute toes.\"\n\n\"You don't have a secret foot fetish, do you?\"\n\n\"Not at all. Well, I'm crazy about your feet,\" he said, beginning to tickle them, and she tugged her foot away, laughing. A moment later, they were kissing passionately, and when he lay beside her afterward, he told her how much he loved her. By the way he was talking, she kind of got the impression that she should consider moving in with him.\n\nWhich was good. It was the closest he'd come to talking about their future, but...\n\nBut what? That's what it always came down to, wasn't it? Was living together a step toward the future or just a way to continue the present? Did she really need him to propose? She thought about it. Well... _yes._ But not until he was ready. Which led, of course, to questions that had begun to creep into her thoughts whenever they were together: When would he be ready? Would he ever be ready? And, of course, Why wasn't he ready to marry her?\n\nWas it wrong to want to get married instead of simply live with him? Lord knows she wasn't even sure about that anymore. It's like some people grew up knowing they'd be married by a certain age, and it happened just the way they planned; others knew they wouldn't for a while and moved in with the ones they loved, and that worked fine, too. Sometimes, she felt she was the only one without a clear plan; for her, marriage had always been a vague idea, something that would just... happen. And it would. Right?\n\nThinking about this stuff gave her a headache. What she really wanted to do was sit outside on the deck with a glass of wine and forget everything for a while. But Travis Parker was on his back deck, flipping through a magazine, and that just wouldn't do. So she was stuck inside on a Thursday night again.\n\nShe wished Kevin weren't working late so they could do something together. He had a late meeting with a dentist who was opening an office and thus needed all sorts of insurance. That wasn't so bad\u2014she knew he was dedicated to building the business\u2014but he was heading off with his dad to Myrtle Beach for a convention first thing in the morning, and she wouldn't have a chance to see him until next Wednesday, which meant she'd have to spend even more time cooped up like a chicken. Kevin's dad had started one of the largest insurance brokerages in eastern North Carolina, and Kevin was taking on more responsibility with every passing year at their office in Morehead City while his dad edged closer to retirement. Sometimes she wondered what that must have been like\u2014having a career path already charted from the time he could walk\u2014but she supposed there were worse things, especially since the business was successful. Despite the whiff of nepotism, it wasn't as if Kevin didn't earn his way; his dad spent fewer than twenty hours a week in the office these days, which usually left Kevin working closer to sixty. With almost thirty employees, management problems were endless, but Kevin had a knack for dealing with people. At least, that's what a few of them had told her at the company Christmas party both times she'd gone.\n\nYes, she was proud of him, but it still left her stuck inside on nights like this, which seemed like a waste. Maybe she should just head over to Atlantic Beach, where she could drink a glass of wine and watch the sun go down. For a moment, she considered doing just that. Then she decided against it. It was okay to be alone at home, but the thought of drinking at the beach alone made her feel like a loser. People would think she didn't have a single friend in the world, which wasn't true. She had lots of friends. It just happened that none of them was within a hundred miles of here, and the realization didn't make her feel much better.\n\nIf she brought the dog, though... now, that was different. That was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, even healthy. It had taken a few days and most of the painkillers she'd had in her medicine cabinet, but the soreness of the first workout had finally passed. She hadn't returned to the Body Pump class again\u2014people in there were obviously masochists\u2014but she had started to keep a fairly regular routine at the gym. For the last few days, anyway. She'd gone on both Monday and Wednesday, and she was determined to make time to go tomorrow as well.\n\nShe got up from the couch and turned off the television. Molly wasn't around, and guessing she was in the garage, she headed that way. The door to the garage was propped open, and when she walked in and turned on the light, the first thing she noticed was the collection of wiggling, whining furballs surrounding her. Gabby called out to her; a moment later, however, she began to scream.\n\nTravis had just gone into the kitchen to pull a chicken breast from the refrigerator when he heard the sudden, frantic pounding on his door.\n\n\"Dr. Parker?... Travis?... Are you in there?\"\n\nIt took only an instant to recognize the voice as Gabby's. When he opened the door, her face was pale and terrified.\n\n\"You've got to come.\" Gabby gasped. \"Molly's in trouble.\"\n\nTravis reacted on instinct; as Gabby began racing back to her house, he retrieved a medical bag from behind the passenger seat in the truck, the one he used for the occasional livestock call that required him to treat animals on farms. His father had always stressed the importance of keeping it fully stocked with anything he might need, and Travis had taken the message to heart. By then, Gabby was almost at her door, and she left it open, disappearing into the house. Travis followed a moment later and spotted her in the kitchen, near the open door that led to the garage.\n\n\"She's panting and vomiting,\" she said as he hurried to her side. \"And... something's hanging out of her.\" Travis took in the scene instantly, recognizing the prolapsed uterus and hoping he wasn't too late.\n\n\"Let me wash my hands,\" he said quickly. He scrubbed his hands briskly at the kitchen sink, going on as he scrubbed: \"Is there any way you can get some more light in there? Like a lamp or something?\"\n\n\"Aren't you going to bring her into the clinic?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" he said, keeping his voice level. \"But not this instant. I want to try something first. And I do need a light, okay? Can you do that for me?\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah... of course.\" She vanished from the kitchen, returning a moment later with a lamp. \"Is she going to be okay?\"\n\n\"I'll know in a couple of minutes how serious it is.\" Holding up his hands like a surgeon, he nodded toward the bag on the floor. \"Could you bring that in for me, too? Just put the bag over there and find a place to plug in the lamp. As close to Molly as you can get, okay?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said, trying not to panic.\n\nTravis approached the dog carefully as Gabby plugged in the light, noting with some relief that Molly was conscious. He could hear her whimpering, which was normal in a situation like this. Next, he focused on the tubular mass that protruded from her vulva and looked over at the puppies, fairly certain that whelping had occurred within the last half hour, which was good, he thought. Less chance of necrosis...\n\n\"What now?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just hold her and whisper to her. I need you to help keep her calm.\"\n\nWhen Gabby was in place, Travis squatted next to the dog, listening as Gabby murmured and whispered to her, their faces close together. Molly's tongue lapped out, another good sign. He gently checked the uterus, and Molly twitched slightly.\n\n\"What's wrong with her?\"\n\n\"It's a uterine prolapse. It means that part of the uterus has turned inside out, and it's protruding.\" He felt the uterus, turning it gently to see if there were any ruptures or necrotic areas. \"Were there any problems with the whelping?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"I didn't even know it was happening. She's going to be okay, right?\"\n\nFocused on the uterus, he didn't answer. \"Reach into the bag,\" he said. \"There should be some saline. And I'll need the jelly, too.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do?\"\n\n\"I need to clean the uterus, and then I'm just going to manipulate it a bit. I want to try to manually reduce it, and if we're lucky, it'll contract back in on its own. If not, I'll have to bring her in for surgery. I'd rather avoid that if at all possible.\"\n\nGabby found the saline and the jelly and handed them over. Travis rinsed the uterus, then rinsed it two more times before reaching for the lubricating jelly, hoping it would work.\n\nGabby couldn't bear to watch, so she concentrated on Molly, her mouth close to Molly's ear as she whispered over and over what a good dog she was. Travis stayed quiet, his hand moving rhythmically over the uterus.\n\nShe didn't know how long they were in the garage\u2014it could have been ten minutes or it could have been an hour\u2014but finally, she saw Travis lean back, as if trying to relieve the tension in his shoulders. It was then she noticed that his hands were free.\n\n\"Is it over?\" she ventured. \"Is she all right?\"\n\n\"Yes and no,\" he said. \"Her uterus is back in place, and it seemed to contract without any problems, but she needs to go to the clinic. She's going to need to take it easy for a couple of days while she gets her strength back, and she'll need some antibiotics and fluids. I'll have to do an X-ray as well. But if there are no further complications, she should be good as new. What I'm going to do now is back my truck up to the garage. I've got some old blankets she can lie on.\"\n\n\"And it won't... fall back out?\"\n\n\"It shouldn't. Like I said, it contracted normally.\"\n\n\"What about the puppies?\"\n\n\"We'll bring them. They need to be with their mama.\"\n\n\"And that won't hurt her?\"\n\n\"It shouldn't. But that's why she needs fluids. So the puppies can nurse.\"\n\nGabby felt her shoulders relax; she hadn't realized how tense they'd become. For the first time, she smiled. \"I don't know how to thank you,\" she said.\n\n\"You just did.\"\n\nAfter cleaning up, Travis carefully loaded Molly into the truck while Gabby started with the puppies. Once all six were settled, Travis repacked the bag and tossed it onto the front seat. He walked around the truck and opened the driver's-side door.\n\n\"I'll let you know how it goes,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm coming.\"\n\n\"It would be better if she got some rest, and if you're in the room, that might not happen. She needs to recover. Don't worry\u2014I'll take good care of her. I'll be with her all night. You have my word on that.\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"She'll be fine. I promise.\"\n\nShe considered what he'd said, then offered a tremulous smile. \"You know, in my line of work, we're taught never to promise anything. We're told to say that we'll do our best.\"\n\n\"Would you feel better if I didn't promise?\"\n\n\"No. But I still think I should come with you.\"\n\n\"Don't you have to work tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Yes. But so do you.\"\n\n\"True, but this is my job. It's what I do. And besides, I have a cot. If you came, you'd have to sleep on the floor.\"\n\n\"You mean you wouldn't give me the cot?\"\n\nHe climbed into the truck. \"I suppose I could if I had to,\" he said, grinning. \"But I'm concerned about what your boyfriend would think if you and I spent the night together.\"\n\n\"How did you know I have a boyfriend?\"\n\nHe reached for the door. \"I didn't,\" he said, sounding faintly disappointed. Then he smiled, recovering. \"Let me bring her in, okay? And call me tomorrow. I'll let you know how it went.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she relented. \"Okay.\"\n\nTravis closed the door, and she heard the engine rattle to a start. He leaned out the window. \"Don't worry,\" he said again. \"She's going to be fine.\"\n\nHe eased toward the road, then turned left. In the distance, he waved at her out the window. Gabby waved in return, though she knew he couldn't see it, watching the red lights fade as they rounded the corner.\n\nAfter he left, Gabby wandered to the bedroom and stood in front of the bureau. She'd always known she'd never be the type to stop traffic, but for the first time in ages, she found herself staring into the mirror and wondering what someone besides Kevin thought when he saw her.\n\nDespite her exhaustion and unruly hair, she didn't look as bad as she feared. The thought pleased her, though she wasn't sure why. Unaccountably, she recalled the disappointment on Travis's face when she'd told him about her boyfriend, and she flushed. It wasn't as if she felt any differently toward Kevin....\n\nShe'd certainly been wrong about Travis Parker, wrong about everything from the beginning. He'd been so steady during the emergency. It still amazed her, though she shouldn't have been surprised. It was his job, after all, she reminded herself.\n\nWith that, she decided to call Kevin. He was immediately sympathetic, promising to be there within minutes.\n\n\"How're you holding up?\" Kevin asked.\n\nGabby leaned into him. His arm felt good around her. \"Anxious, I guess.\"\n\nHe pulled her closer, and she could smell him, fresh and clean, as if he'd showered right before coming over. His hair, unkempt and windblown, made him look like a college student.\n\n\"I'm glad your neighbor was there,\" he said. \"Travis, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" She looked over. \"Do you know him?\"\n\n\"Not really,\" he said. \"We do the insurance for the clinic, but that's one of the accounts my dad still handles.\"\n\n\"I thought this was a small town and you knew everyone.\"\n\n\"It is. But I grew up in Morehead City, and as a kid, I didn't hang out with anyone from Beaufort. Besides, I think he's a few years older than me. He was probably off to college by the time I started high school.\"\n\nShe nodded. In the silence, her thoughts circled back to Travis, his serious expression as he worked on Molly, the quiet assurance in his voice as he explained what was wrong. In the silence, she felt a vague current of guilt, and she leaned in to nuzzle Kevin's neck. Kevin stroked her shoulder, his touch comforting in its familiarity. \"I'm glad you came over,\" she whispered. \"I really needed you here tonight.\"\n\nHe kissed her hair. \"Where else would I be?\"\n\n\"I know, but you had that meeting, and you're leaving early tomorrow.\"\n\n\"No big deal. It's just a convention. It'll take me ten minutes to pack, tops. I just wish I could have gotten here sooner.\"\n\n\"You probably would have been grossed out.\"\n\n\"Probably. But I still feel bad.\"\n\n\"Don't. There's no reason to.\"\n\nHe stroked her hair. \"Do you want me to postpone my trip? I'm sure my dad would understand if I stay around here tomorrow.\"\n\n\"No, that's okay. I've got to work anyway.\"\n\n\"You sure?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she said. \"But thanks for asking. That means a lot to me.\"\n\n# Six\n\nAfter finding his son crashed on the cot and a dog in the recovery room, Max Parker listened as Travis explained what had happened. Max filled two cups with coffee and brought them both to the table.\n\n\"Not bad for your first time,\" Max said. With his white hair and bushy white eyebrows, he was the picture of a well-liked small-town veterinarian.\n\n\"Have you ever treated a dog for it?\"\n\n\"Never,\" Max admitted. \"Treated a horse once, though. You know how rare it is. Molly seems to be doing fine now. She sat up and wagged her tail when I came in this morning. How late were you up with her?\"\n\nTravis sipped the coffee with gratitude. \"Most of the night. I wanted to make sure it didn't recur.\"\n\n\"It usually doesn't,\" he said. \"It's a good thing you were there. Have you called the owner yet?\"\n\n\"No. But I will.\" He wiped his face. \"Man, I'm exhausted.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go get some sleep? I can handle things here, and I'll keep an eye on Molly.\"\n\n\"I don't want to put you out.\"\n\n\"You're not,\" Max said with a grin. \"Don't you remember? You're not supposed to be here. It's Friday.\"\n\nA few minutes later, after checking in on Molly, Travis pulled into his driveway and got out of the car. He stretched his arms overhead, then headed over to Gabby's place. As he crossed her driveway, he saw the newspaper poking out of the box and, after a brief hesitation, pulled it out. On her porch a moment later, he was just about to knock when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps and the door swung open. Gabby straightened, surprised to see him.\n\n\"Oh, hey...,\" she said, letting go of the door. \"I was just thinking that I should call you.\"\n\nThough barefoot, she was dressed in slacks and an off-white blouse, her hair fastened loosely by an ivory clip. He noted again how attractive she was, but today it struck him that her appeal lay more in an unfeigned openness than conventional good looks.\n\nShe just seemed so... _real._ \"Since I was on my way home, I thought I'd let you know in person. Molly's doing fine.\"\n\n\"You're sure?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I did an X-ray, and I didn't see any indication of internal bleeding. Once she got some fluids in, she seemed to get her strength back. She could probably come home later today, but I'd like to keep her one more night, just to be safe. Actually, my dad will watch her for a while. I was up most of the night, so I'm going to bed, but I'll check on her myself later.\"\n\n\"Can I see her?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" he said. \"You can see her anytime. Just remember that she might still be a little doped up, though, since I had to administer some sedatives so she'd be calm for the X-ray and to help with the pain.\" He paused. \"The puppies are doing well, too, by the way. They're cute as bugs.\"\n\nShe smiled, liking the gentle twang of his accent, surprised that she hadn't noticed it before. \"I just want to thank you again,\" she said. \"I don't know how I can ever repay you.\"\n\nHe waved it off. \"I was glad to help.\" He held out the newspaper. \"Which reminds me, I grabbed this for you, too.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" she said, taking it.\n\nFor an awkward beat, they faced each other silently.\n\n\"Would you like a cup of coffee?\" she offered. \"I just brewed a pot.\"\n\nShe felt a mixture of relief and disappointment when he shook his head.\n\n\"No thanks. I'd rather not be awake when I'm trying to sleep.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Funny.\"\n\n\"I try,\" he said, and for an instant she pictured him leaning against a bar and offering the same response to an attractive woman, which left her with the vague feeling that he was flirting with her.\n\n\"But listen,\" he went on, \"I know you're probably getting ready for work and I'm bushed, so I'm going home to crash for a while.\" He turned to step off the porch.\n\nDespite herself, Gabby crossed the threshold and called to him as he reached the yard. \"Before you go, could you tell me what time you think you'll be at the clinic? To check on Molly, I mean?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how long I sleep.\"\n\n\"Oh... okay,\" she said, feeling foolish and wishing she hadn't asked.\n\n\"But how about this,\" he went on. \"You tell me what time you take lunch, and I'll meet you at the clinic.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean\u2014\"\n\n\"What time?\"\n\nShe swallowed. \"A quarter to one?\"\n\n\"I'll be there,\" he promised. He took a couple of steps backward. \"And by the way, you look fantastic in that outfit,\" he added.\n\n_What on earth just happened?_\n\nThat pretty much summed up Gabby's mental state for the rest of the morning. It didn't matter whether she was doing a well-baby check (twice), diagnosing ear infections (four times), giving a vaccination (once), or recommending an X-ray (once); she felt herself operating on autopilot, only half-present, while another part was still back on the porch, wondering if Travis had actually been flirting with her and whether maybe, just maybe, she'd sort of liked it.\n\nShe wished for the umpteenth time that she had a friend in town to talk to about all this. There was nothing like having a close girlfriend to confide in, and though there were nurses in the office, her status as a physician assistant seemed to set her apart. Frequently, she'd hear the nurses talking and laughing, but they tended to get quiet as soon as she approached. Which left her feeling as isolated as she had been when she'd first moved to town.\n\nAfter finishing with her last patient (the child needed a referral to an ear, nose, and throat specialist for a possible tonsillectomy), Gabby stuffed her stethoscope into the pocket of her lab coat and retreated to her office. It wasn't much; she had the sneaking suspicion that before her arrival it had been used as a storeroom. There was no window, and the desk took up most of the room, but as long as she kept the clutter under control, it was still nice to have a place to call her own. There was a small, nearly empty filing cabinet in the corner, and she retrieved her purse from the bottom drawer. Checking her watch, she saw that she had a few minutes until she had to leave. She pulled up her chair and ran a hand through her undisciplined curls.\n\nShe was definitely making too big a deal about it, she decided. People flirted all the time. It was human nature. Besides, it probably didn't mean anything. After all they'd gone through the night before, he'd become something like a friend....\n\nHer friend. Her first friend in a new town at the start of her new life. She liked the sound of that. What was wrong with having a friend? Nothing at all. She smiled at the thought before it gave way to a frown.\n\nThen again, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Being friendly with a neighbor was one thing, making friends with a flirty guy was something completely different. Especially a good-looking flirty guy. Kevin wasn't normally the jealous type, but she wasn't dumb enough to think he'd be overjoyed at the thought of Gabby and Travis having coffee on the back deck a couple of times a week, either, which was exactly the sort of thing friendly neighbors did. As innocent as the visit to the vet might be\u2014and it was going to be innocent, mind you\u2014it had a vaguely _unfaithful_ feeling about it.\n\nShe hesitated. I'm going crazy, she thought. I really am going crazy.\n\nShe'd done nothing wrong. He hadn't, either. And nothing was going to come of their little flirtation, even if they were neighbors. She and Kevin had been a couple since their senior year at the University of North Carolina\u2014they'd met on a cold, miserable evening when her hat had blown off after she'd left Spanky's with her friends. Kevin had darted onto Franklin Street and threaded between cars to retrieve it, and if sparks hadn't flown at that moment, there might have been an ember, even if she wasn't fully aware of it.\n\nAt the time, the last thing she'd wanted was anything as complicated as a relationship, for it felt as though there were enough complications in her life already. Finals were looming, the rent was due, and she didn't know where she was going to PA school. Though it seemed preposterous now, at the time it seemed like the single most important decision she'd ever faced. She'd been accepted to the programs at both MUSC in Charleston and Eastern Virginia in Norfolk, and her mother was lobbying fiercely for Charleston: \"Your decision is simple, Gabrielle. You'd only be a couple of hours from home, and Charleston is far more cosmopolitan, dear.\" Gabby was leaning toward Charleston as well, although deep down she knew that Charleston was tempting for all the wrong reasons: the nightlife, the excitement of living in a beautiful city, the culture, the lively social circuit. She reminded herself that she really wouldn't have time to enjoy any of those things. With the exception of a few key classes, PA students had the same curriculum as medical school students but had only two and a half years to complete the program, as opposed to four. She'd already heard horror stories of what to expect: that classes were taught and information passed on with all the delicacy of a fire hose opened to maximum velocity. When she'd visited both campuses, she'd actually preferred the program at Eastern Virginia; for whatever reason, it felt more comfortable, a place where she could focus on what she needed to do.\n\nSo which would it be?\n\nShe'd been fretting about the choice that winter evening when her hat blew off and Kevin had retrieved it. After thanking him, she promptly forgot all about him until he spotted her from across the quad a few weeks later. Though she'd forgotten him, he remembered her. His easygoing manner contrasted sharply with that of the many arrogant frat guys she'd met up to that point, most of whom tended to drink inordinate amounts and painted letters on their bare chests whenever the Tarheels played Duke. Conversation led to coffee, coffee led to dinner, and by the time she tossed her cap in the air at graduation, she figured she was in love. By then, she'd made her decision about which school to attend, and with Kevin planning to live in Morehead City, only a few hours to the south of where she'd be for the next few years, the choice seemed almost predestined.\n\nKevin commuted to Norfolk to see her; she drove down to Morehead City to see him. He got to know her family, and she got to know his. They fought and made up, broke up and reunited, and she'd even played a few rounds of golf with him, although she wasn't fond of the game; and through it all, he'd remained the laid-back, easygoing guy he always had been. His nature seemed to reflect his upbringing in a small town, where\u2014let's be honest\u2014things were mighty slow most of the time. Slowness seemed ingrained in his personality. Where she would worry, he would shrug; in her pessimistic moments, he remained unconcerned. That was why, she thought, they got along so well. They balanced each other. They were good for each other. There would be no contest if the choice came down to Kevin or Travis, not even close.\n\nHaving reached clarity on the issue, she decided it didn't matter whether Travis was flirting. He could flirt all he wanted; in the end, she knew exactly what she wanted in her life. She was sure of it.\n\nJust as Travis had promised, Molly was better than Gabby had hoped. Her tail thumped with enthusiasm, and despite the presence of her puppies\u2014most of which were sleeping and resembled furry little balls\u2014she got up without a struggle when Gabby entered and trotted toward her before applying a few sloppy licks. Molly's nose was cold, and she wiggled and whined as she circled Gabby, not with her usual abandon, but enough to let Gabby know she was fine, and then sat beside Gabby.\n\n\"I'm so glad you're better,\" Gabby whispered, stroking her fur.\n\n\"I am, too,\" Travis's voice echoed behind her from the doorway. \"She's a real trouper, and she's got a wonderful disposition.\"\n\nGabby turned around and saw him leaning against the door.\n\n\"I think I was wrong,\" he said, walking toward her, holding a Fuji apple. \"She could probably go home tonight, if you want to pick her up after work. I'm not saying you have to. I'd be happy to keep her here if you'd be more comfortable with it. But Molly's doing even better than I predicted.\" He squatted and lightly snapped his fingers, turning his attention away from Gabby. \"Aren't you a good girl,\" he said, using what can best be described as an \"I love dogs and won't you come to me?\" kind of voice. Surprising her, Molly left Gabby's side to go to him, where he took over the petting and whispering, leaving Gabby feeling like an outsider.\n\n\"And these little guys are doing great, too,\" he went on. \"If you do bring them home, make sure you put together some sort of pen to keep them contained. Otherwise, it can get kind of messy. It doesn't have to be fancy\u2014just prop a few boards against some boxes\u2014and make sure to line it with newspaper.\"\n\nShe barely heard him as, despite herself, she noted again how good-looking he was. It annoyed her that she couldn't get past that every time she saw him. It was as if his appearance constantly set off alarm bells in her, and for the life of her, she didn't know why. He was tall and lean, but she'd seen lots of guys like that. He smiled a lot, but that wasn't unusual. His teeth were almost too white\u2014he was a definite bleacher, she decided\u2014but even if she knew the color wasn't natural, it still had an effect. He was fit, too, but guys like that could be found in every gym in America\u2014guys who worked out religiously, guys who never ate anything but chicken breasts and oatmeal, guys who ran ten miles a day\u2014and none of them had ever had the same effect on her.\n\nSo what was it about him?\n\nIt would have been so much easier had he been ugly. Everything from their initial confrontation to her present discomfort would have been different, simply because she wouldn't have felt so off-kilter. But that was done now, she resolved. She wouldn't be taken in anymore. Nosiree. Not this gal. She'd finish up here, wave to him in a neighborly way in the future, and get back to living her life without distraction.\n\n\"You okay?\" he said, scrutinizing her. \"You seem distracted.\"\n\n\"Just tired,\" she lied. She motioned to Molly. \"I guess she's taken a liking to you.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" he said. \"We've been getting along great. I think it was the jerky treats I gave her this morning. Jerky treats are the way to a dog's heart. That's what I tell all the FedEx and UPS guys when they ask what to do about dogs that dislike them.\"\n\n\"I'll remember that,\" she said, quickly regaining composure.\n\nWhen one of the puppies began to whine, Molly stood up and returned to the open cage, the presence of Travis and Gabby suddenly extraneous. Travis stood and polished the apple on his jeans. \"So what do you think?\" he asked.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"About Molly.\"\n\n\"What about Molly?\"\n\nHe frowned. When he spoke, the words came out slowly. \"Do you want to take her home tonight or not?\"\n\n\"Oh, that,\" she said, flustered as a high school freshman meeting the varsity quarterback. She felt like kicking herself but instead cleared her throat. \"I think I'll take her home. If you're sure it won't hurt her.\"\n\n\"She'll be fine,\" he assured her. \"She's young and healthy. As scary as it was, it could have been a whole lot worse. Molly was a lucky dog.\"\n\nGabby crossed her arms. \"Yes, she was.\"\n\nFor the first time, she noticed that his T-shirt advertised a Key West hangout, something about Dog's Saloon. He took a bite of his apple, then motioned toward her with it. \"You know, I thought you'd be more excited about the fact she's okay.\"\n\n\"I am excited.\"\n\n\"You don't seem excited.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said. He took another bite of his apple. \"Based on the way you showed up at my door, I guess I figured that you'd show a bit more emotion. Not only about Molly, but the fact that I happened to be there to help.\"\n\n\"And I've already told you I appreciate it,\" she said. \"How many times do I have to thank you?\"\n\n\"I don't know. How many do you think?\"\n\n\"I wasn't the one who asked.\"\n\nHe lifted an eyebrow. \"Actually, you were.\"\n\nOh yeah, she thought. \"Well, fine,\" she said, throwing up her hands. \"Thank you again. For all you did.\" She enunciated the words carefully, as if he were hard of hearing.\n\nHe laughed. \"Are you like this with your patients?\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"So serious.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I'm not.\"\n\n\"How about with your friends?\"\n\n\"No...\" She shook her head in confusion. \"What's this got to do with anything?\"\n\nHe took another bite of his apple, letting the question hang. \"I was just curious,\" he finally said.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"About whether it was your personality, or whether you're just serious around me. If it's the latter, I'm flattered.\"\n\nShe could feel the flame rising in her cheeks. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\nHe smirked. \"Okay.\"\n\nShe opened her mouth, wanting to say something witty and unexpected, something to put him in his place, but before anything sprang to mind, he tossed the remains of the apple in the garbage and turned to rinse his hands before going on.\n\n\"Listen. I'm glad you're here for another reason, too,\" he said over his shoulder. \"I'm having a little get-together tomorrow with friends, and I was hoping you'd be able to swing by.\"\n\nShe blinked, unsure if she'd heard him right. \"To your house?\"\n\n\"That's the plan.\"\n\n\"Like a date?\"\n\n\"No, like a get-together. With friends.\" He turned off the faucet and began to dry his hands. \"I'm hooking up the parasail for the first time this year. It should be a blast.\"\n\n\"Are they mainly couples? The people going?\"\n\n\"Except for my sister and me, all of them are married.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I don't think so. I have a boyfriend.\"\n\n\"Great. Bring him along.\"\n\n\"We've been together almost four years.\"\n\n\"Like I said, he's more than welcome to come.\"\n\nShe wondered if she'd heard him right and stared at him, trying to tell if he was serious. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Of course. Why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, well... he can't come anyway. He'll be out of town for a few days.\"\n\n\"Then if you've got nothing else to do, come on over.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure that's a good idea.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I'm in love with him.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"And what?\"\n\n\"And... you can be in love with him at my place. Like I said, it's going to be fun. Temperature is supposed to get close to eighty. Have you ever been parasailing?\"\n\n\"No. But that's not the point.\"\n\n\"You don't think he'd be happy if you came over.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"So he's the kind of guy who wants to keep you pretty much locked up when he's away.\"\n\n\"No, not at all.\"\n\n\"Then he doesn't like you to have fun?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"He doesn't want you to meet new people?\"\n\n\"Of course he does!\"\n\n\"It's settled, then,\" he said. He headed toward the door before pausing. \"People will start showing up around ten or eleven. All you need to bring is a bathing suit. We'll have beer and wine and soda, but if you're particular about what you drink, you might want to bring your own.\"\n\n\"I just don't think...\"\n\nHe held up his hands. \"I'll tell you what. You're welcome to come if you'd like. But no pressure, okay?\" He shrugged. \"I just figured it would give us a chance to get to know each other.\"\n\nShe knew she should have said no. But instead, she swallowed through the sudden dryness in her throat. \"Maybe I will,\" she said.\n\n# Seven\n\nSaturday morning started out well\u2014as the sun came slanting through the blinds, Gabby found her fuzzy pink slippers and shuffled to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee, looking forward to a leisurely morning. It was only afterward that things started to go wrong. Even before she'd taken her first sip, she remembered that she needed to check on Molly and was happy to find that she was nearly back to normal. The puppies seemed healthy, too, not that she had the slightest idea of what, if anything, she was supposed to watch for. Aside from latching themselves onto Molly like fuzzy barnacles, they tottered and toppled and whimpered and cried, all of which seemed like nature's way of making them adorable enough so their mother wouldn't eat them. Not that Gabby was falling for it. Granted, they weren't as ugly as they might have been, but that didn't make them nearly as beautiful as Molly, and she still worried that she might not find homes for them. And she had to find homes for them; that much was certain. The stench in the garage was enough to convince her of that.\n\nIt didn't just smell\u2014the odor assailed her like the Force in a _Star Wars_ movie. As she began to gag, she vaguely remembered that Travis had suggested she build a pen of some sort to keep the puppies contained. Who on God's green earth knew puppies could poop so much? There were piles _everywhere._ The smell seemed to have leached into the walls; even opening the garage door didn't help. She spent the next half hour holding her breath and trying to keep from getting sick as she cleaned up the garage.\n\nBy the time she was finished, she had pretty much convinced herself that they had been part of some sort of evil plan designed to ruin her weekend. Really. It was the only reasonable explanation for the fact that the puppies seemed to favor the long, jagged crack in the garage floor, and their accuracy had been uncanny enough to force her to use a toothbrush to clean it. It was disgusting.\n\nAnd Travis... let's not leave him out of it, either. It was as much his fault as the puppies'. Granted, he had mentioned in passing that she should keep them contained, but he hadn't really made a point of it, had he? He hadn't explained what would happen if she didn't listen to him, did he?\n\nBut he'd known what would happen. She was sure of that. Sneaky.\n\nAnd now that she considered it, she realized that it hadn't been the only thing he'd been sneaky about. The way he'd pressed her to answer the whole \"Do I go out boating with my neighbor who happens to be a flirty hunk?\" She decided she didn't want to go, if only because he'd been so manipulative about getting her to agree. All those ridiculous questions insinuating that Kevin kept her under lock and key. As though she were Kevin's property or something! As if she had no mind of her own! And here she was now, cleaning up a million mounds of poop....\n\nWhat a way to start the weekend. To top it off, her coffee was cold, her newspaper had been soaked by an errant sprinkler, and the water had gone frigid before her shower was finished.\n\nGreat. Just great.\n\nWhere was the fun? she grumbled to herself as she threw on her clothes. Here it was, the weekend, and Kevin was nowhere to be found. Even when he was around, their weekends weren't anything like the ones she'd had when she'd visited him during her school breaks. Back then, it seemed as if every visit were fun, filled with new experiences and people. Now he spent at least part of every weekend at the golf course.\n\nShe poured herself another cup of coffee. Granted, Kevin had always been the quiet type, and she knew he needed to unwind after a hard week at work. But she couldn't deny that since she'd moved here, their relationship had changed. Not that it was completely his fault, of course. She'd played a role, too. She had wanted to move in, settle in, so to speak. Which was exactly what had happened. So what was the problem?\n\n_The problem,_ she heard a little voice answer, _was that it seemed as though there should be... more._ She wasn't exactly sure what that entailed, other than that _spontaneity_ seemed to be an integral part of it.\n\nShe shook her head, thinking she was making too much of it. Their relationship was just going through some growing pains. Moving out onto her back deck, she saw that outside, it was one of those impossibly beautiful mornings. Perfect temperature, light breeze, not a cloud in the sky. In the distance, she watched a heron break from the marsh grass, gliding above sun-drenched water. As she stared in that direction, she caught sight of Travis heading down to the dock, wearing nothing but low-slung plaid Bermudas that stretched almost to his knees. From her vantage point, she could see the muscle striations in his arms and back as he walked, and she took a step backward, toward the sliding glass door, hoping he wouldn't spot her. In the next instant, however, she heard him calling out to her.\n\n\"Hey, Gabby!\" He waved, reminding her of a kid on the first day of summer vacation. \"Can you believe how beautiful the day is already?\"\n\nHe started to jog toward her, and she stepped into the sun just as he pushed through the hedges. She took a deep breath.\n\n\"Hey, Travis.\"\n\n\"It's my favorite time of year.\" He opened his arms wide to take in the sky and trees. \"Not too hot, not too cold, and blue skies that stretch forever.\"\n\nShe smiled, refusing to eye his admittedly sexy hip muscles, which, she always thought, were far and away the sexiest muscles on men.\n\n\"How's Molly doing?\" he chattered. \"I assume she made it through the night okay.\"\n\nGabby cleared her throat. \"She's fine. Thanks.\"\n\n\"And the puppies?\"\n\n\"They seem okay, too. But they made quite a mess.\"\n\n\"They'll do that. That's why it's a good idea to keep them in a smaller area.\"\n\nHe flashed those bleached teeth in a familiar grin, way too familiar, even if he was the hunk-who-saved-her-dog.\n\nShe crossed her arms, reminding herself how sneaky he'd been the day before. \"Yeah, well, I didn't quite get to it yesterday.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nBecause you distracted me, she thought. \"I guess I just forgot.\"\n\n\"Your garage must smell to high heaven.\"\n\nShe shrugged without responding, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.\n\nHe didn't seem to notice her carefully choreographed response. \"Listen, it doesn't have to be complicated. But pooping is all puppies do for the first couple of days. It's like the milk runs right through them. But you've got the pen up now, right?\"\n\nShe tried her best to keep a poker face but obviously failed.\n\n\"You don't?\" he asked.\n\nGabby shifted from one foot to the other. \"Not exactly,\" she admitted.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nBecause you keep distracting me, she thought. \"I'm not sure I need one.\"\n\nTravis scratched at his neck. \"Do you like cleaning up after them?\"\n\n\"It's not so bad,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"You mean you're going to give them the run of your whole garage?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" she said, knowing that the first thing she was going to do after this was to build the tiniest pen she could.\n\nHe stared at her in obvious bafflement. \"Just so you know, as your vet, I'm going to come right out and say that I don't think you've made the right decision.\"\n\n\"Thanks for your opinion,\" she snapped.\n\nHe continued to stare at her. \"All right, then. Suit yourself. You're going to come to my house around ten, right?\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because I don't think it's a good idea.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because.\"\n\n\"I see,\" he said, sounding exactly like her mother.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"Is something bothering you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Have I done something to upset you?\"\n\n_Yes,_ the little voice answered. _You and your damn hip muscles._ \"No.\"\n\n\"Then what's the problem?\" he asked.\n\n\"There's no problem.\"\n\n\"Then what's up with the way you're acting?\"\n\n\"I'm not acting any way.\"\n\nThe teeth-baring smile was gone, as was all the friendliness he'd shown earlier. \"Yeah, you are. I drop a basket off to welcome you to the neighborhood, I save your dog and stay awake all night to make sure she's okay, I invite you over to have some fun on my boat today\u2014all this after you screamed at me for no reason, mind you\u2014and now you're treating me like I have the plague. Since you moved next door, I've tried to be nice, but every time I see you, you seem angry at me. I just want to know why.\"\n\n\"Why?\" she parroted.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said, his voice steady. \"Why.\"\n\n\"Because,\" she repeated, knowing she sounded like a sulky fifth-grader. She just couldn't think of anything else to say.\n\nHe studied her face closely. \"Because why?\"\n\n\"It's none of your business.\"\n\nHe let her answer settle into the silence.\n\n\"Whatever,\" he finally said. He turned on his heels, shaking his head as he walked toward the steps. He was already on the grass when Gabby took a step forward.\n\n\"Wait!\" she called out.\n\nTravis slowed, took another couple of steps, then came to a halt. He turned to face her. \"Yeah?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she offered.\n\n\"Yeah?\" he said again. \"What are you sorry for?\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"I don't know what you mean.\"\n\n\"I didn't expect that you would,\" he grunted. When she sensed him getting ready to turn again\u2014a turn that Gabby knew would signal the end of cordial relations between them\u2014she took a step forward, almost against her will.\n\n\"I'm sorry for all of it.\" To her ears, her own voice sounded strained and tinny. \"For the way I've been treating you. For the way I've made you think I'm not grateful for the things you've done.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\nShe felt herself shrink, something that seemed to happen only in his presence.\n\n\"And,\" she said, her tone softening, \"I've been wrong.\"\n\nHe paused, hand on hip. \"About what?'\n\n_Gee, where should I start?_ the little voice answered. _Maybe I haven't been wrong. Maybe my intuition has been warning me about something I don't quite understand but shouldn't be underestimated...._\n\n\"About you,\" she said, ignoring the little voice. \"And you're right. I haven't been treating you the way I should, but to be honest, I'd rather not go into the reasons why.\" She forced a smile, one that wasn't reciprocated. \"Would it be possible for us to start over?\"\n\nHe seemed to mull this over. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"You heard me,\" he said. \"The last thing I need in my life is a crazy neighbor. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but I learned a long time ago to call 'em like I see 'em.\"\n\n\"That's not fair.\"\n\n\"No?\" He didn't bother to hide his skepticism. \"Actually, I think I'm being more than fair. But I'll tell you what\u2014if you're willing to start over, I'm willing to start over. But only if you're certain you want that.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Okay, then,\" he said. He retraced his steps to the deck. \"Hi,\" he offered, holding out his hand. \"My name is Travis Parker, and I want to welcome you to the neighborhood.\"\n\nShe stared at his hand. After a moment, she took it and said, \"I'm Gabby Holland. It's a pleasure to meet you.\"\n\n\"What do you do?\n\n\"I'm a physician assistant,\" she said, feeling slightly ridiculous. \"How about you?'\n\n\"I'm a veterinarian,\" he said. \"Where are you from?\"\n\n\"Savannah, Georgia,\" she answered. \"And you?\"\n\n\"From here,\" he said. \"Born and raised.\"\n\n\"Do you like it here?\"\n\n\"What's not to like? Beautiful weather, zero traffic.\" He paused. \"And for the most part, nice neighbors, too.\"\n\n\"I've heard that,\" she said. \"In fact, I know the vet here in town might even make an emergency house call now and then. Can't find that in the city.\"\n\n\"No, I don't suppose you would.\" He motioned over his shoulder. \"Hey, by the way, my friends and I are heading out on the boat today. Would you like to join us?\"\n\nShe squinted up at him. \"I would, but I have to build a pen for the puppies my dog, Molly, had two nights ago. I don't want you to have to wait for me.\"\n\n\"Need some help? I've got some extra planks of wood and some crates in the garage. It won't take long.\"\n\nShe hesitated, then looked up with a smile. \"In that case, I'd love to go.\"\n\nTravis was as good as his word. He arrived\u2014still half-naked, to her dismay\u2014carrying four long boards beneath his arms. After dropping those off, he jogged back to his garage. He returned with the crates, along with a hammer and a handful of nails.\n\nThough he pretended not to notice the smell, she noticed that he put the pen together far faster than she would have imagined possible.\n\n\"You should probably line this area with newspapers. Do you have enough?\"\n\nWhen she nodded, he motioned toward his house again. \"I've still got a few things to take care of, so I'll see you in a little while, okay?\"\n\nGabby nodded again, feeling a roiling sensation in her stomach, something akin to nervousness. Which was why, after she'd watched him enter his house and had lined the pen, she found herself standing in the bedroom, evaluating the merits of swimwear. More specifically, whether she should wear her bikini or her one-piece.\n\nThere were pros and cons to each. Normally, she would have worn her bikini. She was, after all, twenty-six and single, and even if she wasn't a supermodel, she was honest enough to admit she liked the way she looked in a bikini. Kevin certainly did\u2014if she even suggested that she wear a one-piece, Kevin would pout until she changed her mind. On the other hand, Kevin wasn't around, she would be hanging out with a neighbor (guy!), and considering the size of her bikini, she might as well be wearing a bra and panties, none of which would make her feel very comfortable and all of which added up to the one-piece.\n\nStill, her one-piece was sort of old and a little faded from chlorine and sun. Her mother had purchased it for her a few years ago, for afternoons spent at the country club (God forbid she expose herself like a harlot!). It wasn't a particularly flattering cut, as far as one-pieces went. Instead of a high cut on her thighs, the suit was cut low on the sides, which made her legs look short and stumpy.\n\nShe didn't want her legs to look short and stumpy. On the other hand, did it really matter? Of course not, she thought, while simultaneously thinking, Of course it did.\n\nThe one-piece, she decided. At the very least, she wouldn't give any of them the wrong impression about her. And there were going to be kids on the boat, too. It was better to err on the conservative side than to be a bit too... exposed. She reached for the one-piece, and all at once she could hear her mother telling her that she'd made the right decision.\n\nTossing it back on the bed, she reached for the bikini.\n\n# Eight\n\nYou invited the new neighbor over, huh?\" Stephanie asked. \"What's her name again?\"\n\n\"Gabby,\" Travis answered, pulling the boat closer to the dock. \"She should be here any minute.\" The rope tightened and then slackened as the boat was maneuvered into place. They'd just lowered it into the water and were tying it up to the dock to load the coolers.\n\n\"She's single, right?\"\n\n\"Technically. But she has a boyfriend.\"\n\n\"So?\" Stephanie grinned. \"When have you ever let that stop you?\"\n\n\"Don't read anything into this. He's out of town and she had nothing to do, so being the good neighbor, I invited her along.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Stephanie nodded. \"Sounds just like you to do something honorable like that.\"\n\n\"I am honorable,\" he protested.\n\n\"That's what I just said.\"\n\nTravis finished tying the boat. \"But you didn't sound like you meant it.\"\n\n\"I didn't? That's strange.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. Keep it up.\"\n\nTravis grabbed the cooler and hopped in the boat.\n\n\"Umm... you think she's attractive, don't you?\"\n\nTravis put the cooler in place. \"I guess.\"\n\n\"You guess?\"\n\n\"What do you want me to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nTravis looked at his sister. \"Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be a long day?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"Do me a favor, okay? Go easy on her.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"You know what I mean. Just... let her get used to everyone before you start in on her.\"\n\nStephanie cackled. \"You do realize who you're talking to, right?\"\n\n\"I'm just saying that she might not understand your humor.\"\n\n\"I promise to be on my best behavior.\"\n\n\"So... you ready to go skinny-dipping?\" Stephanie asked.\n\nGabby blinked, unsure she'd heard her right. \"Excuse me?\"\n\nA minute earlier, Stephanie had walked over wearing a long T-shirt and holding a couple of beers. Handing one to Gabby, she'd introduced herself as Travis's sister and led her to some chairs along the back deck while Travis finished up.\n\n\"Oh, not right now.\" Stephanie waved. \"It usually takes a couple of beers before everyone is loose enough to drop their drawers.\"\n\n\"Skinny-dipping?\"\n\n\"You did know that Travis is a nudist, right?\" She nodded toward the slip-and-slide Travis had set up earlier. \"After that, we generally go slip-and-sliding.\"\n\nThough her head felt as though it were spinning, Gabby nodded almost imperceptibly as she felt things click into place: the fact that Travis usually seemed only half-dressed, his utter lack of discomfort at conversing with his chest bared, an explanation for why he worked out so much.\n\nHer thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Stephanie's laughter.\n\n\"I was kidding!\" she hooted. \"Do you honestly think I'd go skinny-dipping with my brother around? Ewww! That's gross!\"\n\nGabby felt a red-hot flush work its way up from her neck to her face. \"I knew you were kidding.\"\n\nStephanie eyed Gabby over her beer. \"You did think I was serious! Oh, that's a hoot! But I'm sorry. My brother warned me to take it easy on you. For whatever reason, he thinks my humor takes some getting used to.\"\n\n_Gee, I wonder why._ \"Really?\" Gabby said instead.\n\n\"Yeah, but if you ask me, we're two peas in a pod. Where do you think I learned it?\" Stephanie leaned back in her seat as she adjusted her sunglasses. \"Travis tells me you're a physician assistant?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I work at the children's clinic.\"\n\n\"How is it?\"\n\n\"I enjoy it,\" she said, thinking it best not to mention her pervert boss or the occasionally overbearing parent. \"How about you?\"\n\n\"I'm a student,\" she said. She took a sip of beer. \"I'm thinking of making it my career.\"\n\nFor the first time, Gabby laughed and felt herself begin to relax. \"Do you know who else is coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, probably the same old crew. Travis has these three friends he's known forever, and I'm sure they'll be here along with their wives and kids. Travis doesn't bring the parasail boat out too much anymore, which is why he keeps it docked at the marina. Usually he uses the ski boat, because wakeboarding or skiing is a lot easier. Just get in the boat, lower the lift, and go. You can wakeboard or ski or skurf almost anywhere. But parasailing is great. Why do you think I'm here? I should be studying, and I actually ditched some lab work I was supposed to do this weekend. Have you ever been parasailing?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You'll love it. And Travis knows what he's doing. That's how he earned extra spending money while he was in college. Or, at least, that's what he claims. Actually, I'm fairly certain that every thing he earned was used to buy the boat; they're manufactured by CWS exclusively for parasailing, and they're very expensive. And even though Joe, Matt, and Laird are his friends, they still insisted on getting paid when they took the tourists out during their student days. I'm pretty sure Travis never earned a nickel of profit.\"\n\n\"So he's quite the shrewd businessman, huh?\"\n\nStephanie laughed. \"Oh yeah. My brother. A budding Donald Trump, right? Actually, he doesn't much care about money and never has. I mean, sure, he earns a living and pays his own way, but anything left over goes to new boats or Jet Skis or trips here and there. It seems like he's been everywhere. Europe, Central and South America, Australia, Africa, Bali, China, Nepal...\"\n\n\"Really?'\n\n\"You sound surprised.\"\n\n\"I guess I am.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I guess it's because...\"\n\n\"Because he seems like such a goof-off? Like everything's a party?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"You sure about that?\"\n\n\"Well...\" Gabby trailed off, and Stephanie laughed again.\n\n\"He's a goof-off, _and_ a worldly young man... but underneath, he's really just a small-town boy like the rest of them. Otherwise he wouldn't be living here, right?\"\n\n\"Right,\" Gabby said, not sure whether an answer was even needed.\n\n\"Anyway, you'll love it. You're not afraid of heights, are you?\"\n\n\"No. I mean, I'm not thrilled with them, but I'm sure I'll manage.\"\n\n\"It's no big deal. Just remember you have a parachute.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind.\"\n\nIn the distance, a car door slammed, and Stephanie sat up straighter.\n\n\"Here come the Clampetts,\" Stephanie remarked. \"Or, if you prefer, the Brady Bunch. Brace yourself. Our relaxing morning is about to end.\"\n\nGabby turned and spotted a rowdy group rounding the side of the house. Chatter and shouts rang out as the children ran in front of the adults, moving in that wobbly way that made them seem as if they were constantly on the verge of falling.\n\nStephanie leaned closer. \"It's easy to distinguish them, believe it or not. Megan and Joe are the ones with blond hair. Laird and Allison are the tall ones. And Matt and Liz are... less thin than the others.\"\n\nThe corners of Gabby's mouth curled up slightly. \"Less thin?\"\n\n\"I didn't want to call them plump. But I was just trying to make it easy for you. In theory, I'd hate being introduced to a bunch of people and forgetting their names a minute later.\"\n\n\"In theory?\"\n\n\"I don't forget names. It's kind of strange, but I never do.\"\n\n\"What makes you think I'd forget their names?\"\n\nStephanie shrugged. \"You're not me.\"\n\nGabby laughed again, liking her more by the minute. \"How about the kids?\"\n\n\"Tina, Josie, and Ben. Ben's easy to figure out. Just remember that Josie has the pigtails.\"\n\n\"What if she's not in pigtails the next time I see her?\"\n\nStephanie grinned. \"Why? Do you think you'll be coming over regularly? What about your boyfriend?\"\n\nGabby shook her head. \"No, you misunderstood what I meant\u2014\"\n\n\"I was teasing! My, you're touchy.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I can keep them straight.\"\n\n\"All right. Try these memory association tricks. For Tina, think of Tina Louise from _Gilligan's Island_. Ginger? The movie star? She has red hair, too.\"\n\nGabby nodded.\n\n\"Okay, for Josie, think of Josie and the Pussycats. And for Ben\u2014who's kind of big and square for his age, think of Big Ben, the giant clock in England.\"\n\n\"Okaaay...\"\n\n\"I'm serious. This'll really help. Now, for Joe and Megan\u2014the blonds, imagine blond GI Joe fighting a megalodon\u2014you know, one of those giant prehistoric sharks. Really picture it, okay?\"\n\nGabby nodded again.\n\n\"For Laird and Allison, imagine a supertall allosaurus stuck in his lair. And finally, for Matt and Liz...\" Stephanie paused. \"Oh, I know... imagine Elizabeth Taylor lying on a porch mat, eating fried pork rinds. Are you really picturing it?\"\n\nIt took Gabby a minute\u2014and Stephanie had to repeat the descriptions more than once\u2014but when she was ready, she quizzed Gabby on the names. Amazingly, the names stuck, and Gabby couldn't hide her surprise.\n\n\"Neat, huh?\"\n\n\"Very,\" Gabby admitted.\n\n\"It's one of the areas I study at UNC.\"\n\n\"Do you do this with everyone you meet?\"\n\n\"Not specifically. Or rather, not consciously. For me, it comes almost naturally. But now you'll really impress them.\"\n\n\"Do I need to impress them?\"\n\n\"No. But it's fun to impress people anyway.\" Stephanie shrugged. \"Think about what I just did for you. But I've got one more question.\"\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"What's my name?\"\n\n\"I know your name.\"\n\n\"What is it, then?\"\n\n\"It's...\" Gabby's mouth opened soundlessly while her mind froze.\n\n\"Stephanie. Just Stephanie.\"\n\n\"What? No memory tricks?\"\n\n\"No. That one, you'll have to remember.\" She rose from her seat. \"Come on, now that you know their names, let me go ahead and introduce you to them. And pretend you don't already know who they are, so that way you can impress them, too.\"\n\nIntroductions were made to Megan, Allison, and Liz while they watched the kids chasing one another; Joe, Laird, and Matt, meanwhile, had strolled down to the dock, loaded up with towels and coolers to greet Travis.\n\nStephanie hugged each of them, and the conversation turned to her progress at school. Amazingly, the memory tricks continued to work. Gabby wondered whether she should try it with some patients before she remembered she could read their names on the charts beforehand.\n\nWith some of Kevin's co-workers, though...\n\n\"Hey! Y'all ready?\" Travis called out. \"We're good to go, here.\"\n\nGabby trailed a step behind the group, adjusting the T-shirt she'd worn over her bikini. In the end, she'd decided that, depending on what the other women wore, she could either take off her shirt or shorts\u2014or maybe neither\u2014and convince herself she hadn't been listening to her mother.\n\nThe men were already in the boat when they got to the dock. The kids were dressed in life jackets and were handed to Joe; Laird held out his hand to help the women into the boat. Gabby stepped in, concentrating on keeping her balance amid the rocking, surprised at the size of the boat. It was longer than Travis's ski boat by a good five feet, with bench seats that ran along both sides, which was where most of the kids and adults seemed to congregate. Stephanie and Allison (the _supertall allosaurus_ ) had made themselves comfortable at the front of the boat. At the... bow? The stern?... Gabby wondered, then shook her head. Whatever. At the _back_ of the boat was a large platform and crank, along with Travis, who stood behind the wheel. ( _Blond, GI_ ) Joe was untying the line that held the boat in place, while Laird ( _lair_ ) rolled it up. A moment later, Joe moved to a spot near Travis, while Laird approached Josie ( _and the Pussycats_ ).\n\nGabby shook her head, thinking it amazing.\n\n\"Sit by me,\" Stephanie commanded, patting a spot beside her.\n\nGabby sat, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Travis grab a baseball hat he had tucked into a corner compartment. The cap, which she always believed looked goofy on grown men, somehow suited his carefree demeanor.\n\n\"Everyone ready?\" he called.\n\nHe didn't wait for an answer, and the boat rumbled forward, working through the gentle swell. They reached the mouth of the creek and turned south, into the waters of Back Sound. Shackleford Banks loomed ahead, grass threaded along the dunes.\n\nGabby leaned toward Stephanie. \"Where are we going?\"\n\n\"Most likely Cape Lookout. Unless the sound is relatively clear of boats, we'll probably make for the inlet, then out into Onslow Bay. Afterward, we'll either picnic on the boat, on Shackleford Banks, or at Cape Lookout. Kind of depends on where we end up and what everyone's in the mood for. A lot of it depends on the kids. Hold on for a second....\" She turned toward Travis. \"Hey, Trav! Can I drive?\"\n\nHe raised his head. \"Since when do you want to drive?\"\n\n\"Now. It's been a while.\"\n\n\"Later.\"\n\n\"I think I should drive.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nStephanie shook her head, as if marveling at the stupidity of men. She rose from her spot and whipped off her T-shirt without a shred of self-consciousness. \"I'll be back in a little while, okay? I have to talk to my idiot brother.\"\n\nAs Stephanie made her way toward the rear of the boat, Allison nodded toward her.\n\n\"Don't let her scare you. She and Travis always talk to each other that way.\"\n\n\"I take it they're close.\"\n\n\"They're best friends, even if both would deny it. Travis would probably say that Laird was his best friend. Or Joe or Matt. Anyone but Stephanie. But I know better.\"\n\n\"Laird's your husband, right? The one holding Josie?\"\n\nAllison couldn't hide her surprise. \"You remembered? You just met us for a second.\"\n\n\"I'm good with names.\"\n\n\"You must be. You know everyone already?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\" Gabby rattled off each of the passengers' names, feeling smug.\n\n\"Wow. You're just like Stephanie. No wonder you two hit it off.\"\n\n\"She's great.\"\n\n\"Sure, once you get to know her. But she takes a little getting used to.\" She watched Stephanie lecturing Travis, one hand on the boat to steady herself, the other hand gesturing.\n\n\"How did you and Travis meet? Stephanie mentioned you live in the neighborhood.\"\n\n\"We live next door to each other, actually.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"And... well, it's kind of a long story. But to make it short, my dog, Molly, had some trouble when she had her puppies, and Travis was kind enough to come over and treat her. After that, he invited me to come.\"\n\n\"He's got a way with animals. Kids, too.\"\n\n\"How long have you known him?\"\n\n\"A long time. Laird and I met in college, and Laird introduced me to him. They've been friends since they were kids. Actually, he was the best man at our wedding. And speak of the devil... Hey, Travis.\"\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. \"Should be fun today, huh?\" Behind him, Stephanie was perched behind the wheel, pretending not to watch them.\n\n\"Hopefully it won't get too windy.\"\n\nAllison looked around. \"I don't think it will.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Gabby pressed. \"What happens if it's windy?\"\n\n\"Nothing good when you're parasailing,\" Travis answered. \"Basically, the chute could collapse in places, the lines could get tangled, and that's the last thing you want in a parachute.\"\n\nGabby had an image of herself spinning out of control as she rushed toward the water.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Travis reassured her. \"If I even suspect a problem, no one goes up.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" Allison chimed in. \"But I'd like to volunteer Laird to be the first.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he was supposed to paint Josie's room this week\u2014he promised me over and over\u2014but is it painted? Of course not. It'll serve him right.\"\n\n\"He'll have to stand in line. Megan already volunteered Joe to go first. Something about not spending enough time with the family after work.\"\n\nListening to their familiar banter, Gabby felt like a spectator. She wished that Stephanie hadn't left her side; oddly, she realized, Stephanie already felt like the closest thing she had to a friend in Beaufort.\n\n\"Hold on!\" Stephanie shouted, rotating the wheel.\n\nTravis instinctively grabbed the side of the boat as it hit a large wake and the bow rose and fell with a thud. Allison's attention was diverted to the kids, and she rushed toward Josie, who'd fallen and was already beginning to cry. Laird pulled her to her feet with one arm.\n\n\"You were supposed to be holding her!\" Allison reproached him while reaching for Josie. \"Come here, baby. Mommy's got you....\"\n\n\"I was holding her!\" Laird protested. \"Maybe if Dale Earnhardt here was watching where she was going...\"\n\n\"Don't bring me into this,\" Stephanie said, tossing her head. \"I said to hold on, but I guess you didn't listen. It's not like I can control the swells out here.\"\n\n\"But you could go a little slower....\"\n\nTravis shook his head and took a seat beside Gabby.\n\n\"Is it always like this?\" she asked.\n\n\"Pretty much,\" he said. \"At least since the kids have been around. Rest assured that each of the kids will have a few tearful moments today. But that's what keeps it interesting.\" He leaned back, planting his feet wide. \"How'd you like my sister?\"\n\nWith the sun behind him, his features were difficult to discern. \"I like her. She's... unique.\"\n\n\"She seems taken with you, too. If she didn't like you, believe me\u2014she would have let me know. As smart as she is, she doesn't always know when to keep her opinions to herself. If you ask me, I think she was secretly adopted by my parents.\"\n\n\"I don't think so. If you let your hair grow a little longer, you two could pass for sisters.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"You sound like her now.\"\n\n\"I guess she rubbed off on me.\"\n\n\"Did you get a chance to meet everyone else?\"\n\n\"Briefly. I visited with Allison for a bit, but that's all.\"\n\n\"They're the nicest bunch of people you'll ever meet,\" Travis said. \"More like family than friends.\"\n\nShe studied Travis as he pulled the baseball cap from his head, suddenly grasping what had happened. \"Stephanie sent you back here to talk to me, didn't she.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he admitted. \"She reminded me that you were my guest and that I'd be rude if I didn't make sure you were comfortable.\"\n\n\"I'm fine.\" She waved a hand. \"If you want to go drive the boat again, feel free. I'm perfectly happy enjoying the view.\"\n\n\"Have you ever been over to Cape Lookout?\" Travis asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"It's a national park, and there's a cove that's great for little kids because the waves don't break there. And on the far side\u2014the Atlantic side\u2014there's a white-sand beach that's unspoiled, which is almost impossible to find anymore.\"\n\nWhen he was finished, Gabby watched as he turned his attention to Beaufort. The profile of the town was visible; just beyond the marina where the masts of sailboats pointed toward the sky like upraised fingers, she could see the restaurants lining the waterfront. In every direction, there were boats and Jet Skis zipping past, leaving whitewashed curls of water behind them. Despite herself, she was conscious of the gentle way his body leaned against hers as the boat glided through the water.\n\n\"It's a pretty town,\" she finally said.\n\n\"I've always loved it,\" he agreed. \"Growing up, I used to dream about moving to a big city, but in the end, this is home for me.\"\n\nThey turned toward the inlet. Behind them, Beaufort grew smaller; up ahead, the waters of Onslow Bay embraced the Atlantic. A solitary cloud drifted overhead, puffy and full, as if molded from snow. The gentle blue sky spread over water speckled with golden prisms of sunlight. In time, the hectic activity of Back Sound gave way to a sense of isolation, broken only by the sight of an occasional boat pulling into the shallows of Shackleford Banks. The three couples at the front of the boat were as transfixed by the view as she was, and even the kids seemed to have quieted. They sat contentedly on laps, their bodies relaxed, as if they were ready for a nap. Gabby could feel the wind whipping through her hair and the balm of the summer sun.\n\n\"Hey, Trav,\" Stephanie called out, \"is this okay?\"\n\nTravis broke from his reverie and glanced around.\n\n\"Let's go a bit farther. I want to make sure we have enough room. We've got a rookie on board.\"\n\nStephanie nodded, and the boat accelerated again.\n\nGabby leaned toward him. \"How does this work, by the way?\"\n\n\"It's easy,\" he said. \"First, I fill the parachute and get it ready to accept the harnesses by using that bar over there.\" He pointed toward the corner of the boat. \"Then, you and your partner put the harnesses on, I clip those to the long bar, and you take a seat on the platform. I start the crank and you lift off. It takes a couple of minutes to reach the right height, and then... well, you float around. You get a great view of Beaufort and the lighthouse, and\u2014because the weather's been so clear\u2014you might get to see some dolphins, porpoises, rays, sharks, even turtles. I've seen whales on occasion. We might slow the boat, let you dunk your feet, and then go up again. It's a blast.\"\n\n\"Sharks?\"\n\n\"Of course. It's the ocean.\"\n\n\"Do they bite?\"\n\n\"Some do. Bull sharks can be pretty nasty.\"\n\n\"Then I'd rather not be dunked, thank you very much.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to be afraid of. They won't bother you.\"\n\n\"Easy for you to say.\"\n\n\"I've never, in all the years I've done this, heard of anyone getting bitten by a shark while parasailing. You're in the water for maybe two or three seconds at the most. And usually sharks feed at dusk.\"\n\n\"I don't know...\"\n\n\"How about if I'm with you? Then would you try it? You shouldn't miss it.\"\n\nShe hesitated, then gave a quick nod. \"I'll think about it,\" she offered. \"I'm not promising anything.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\n\"Of course, you're assuming that you and I will go up together.\"\n\nHe winked as he flashed that smile of his. \"Of course.\"\n\nGabby tried to ignore the leaping sensation in her stomach. Instead, she reached for her bag and pulled out some lotion. After dabbing a bit on her hand, she began nervously to apply some to her face, trying to regain some distance.\n\n\"Stephanie tells me you're a world traveler.\"\n\n\"I've traveled a bit.\"\n\n\"She made it sound like more than that. Like you've pretty much been everywhere.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I wish. Believe me, there are lots of places I haven't seen.\"\n\n\"What's been your favorite place?\"\n\nHe took a while to answer, a wistful expression on his face. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well... where would you suggest I go?\"\n\n\"It's not like that,\" he said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Traveling has less to do with seeing things than experiencing them....\" He surveyed the water, gathering his thoughts. \"Let me put it this way. When I graduated from college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so I just decided to take a year to see the world. I had a bit of money saved\u2014not as much as I thought I needed\u2014but I packed some gear and my bike and caught a flight to Europe. I spent the first three months there just... doing whatever I felt like, and it rarely had anything to do with what I was supposed to see. I didn't even have a planned itinerary. Don't get me wrong\u2014I saw a lot. But when I think back on those months, I mostly remember the friends I made along the way and the good times we spent together. Like in Italy, I saw the Colosseum in Rome and the canals in Venice, but what I really remember was a weekend I spent in Bari\u2014this out-of-the-way city in the southern part of the country that you've probably never heard of\u2014with some Italian students I happened to meet. They took me to this little bar where a local band was playing, and even though most of them didn't speak a word of English and my Italian was limited to menu items, we ended up laughing all night long. After that, they showed me around Lecce and Matera, and little by little, we became good friends. Same type of thing in France and Norway and Germany. I stayed in hostels when I had to, but most of the time I'd just show up in a city and somehow meet someone who would offer to let me stay with them for a little while. I'd find odd jobs to pick up extra spending money, and when I was ready for someplace new, I'd just take off. At first, I thought it was easy because Europe and America are a lot alike. But the same thing happened when I went to Syria and Ethiopia and South Africa and Japan and China. At times, it almost felt like I was destined to take the trip, like all the people I met had somehow been waiting for me. But...\"\n\nHe paused, looking directly at her.\n\n\"But I'm different now than I was then. Just like I was different at the end of the trip than I'd been at the beginning. And I'll be different tomorrow than I am today. And what that means is that I can never replicate that trip. Even if I went to the same places and met the same people, it wouldn't be the same. My _experience_ wouldn't be the same. To me, that's what traveling should be about. Meeting people, learning to not only appreciate a different culture, but really enjoy it like a local, following whatever impulse strikes you. So how could I recommend a trip to someone else, if I don't even know what to expect? My advice would be to make a list of places on some index cards, shuffle them, and pick any five at random. Then just... go and see what happens. If you have the right mind-set, it doesn't matter where you end up or how much money you brought. It'll be something you'll remember forever.\"\n\nGabby was silent as she digested this. \"Wow,\" she finally said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You make it sound so... romantic.\"\n\nIn the ensuing quiet, Stephanie began to slow the boat and Travis sat up straighter. When his sister glanced at him, he nodded and stood up. Stephanie lowered the throttle, allowing the boat to slow even further.\n\n\"We're ready,\" he said, and moved to a storage box. Pulling out the parachute, he asked, \"Are you up for a new experience?\"\n\nGabby swallowed. \"I can't wait.\"\n\n# Nine\n\nOnce the parachute was filled and harnesses strapped on, Joe and Megan lifted off first, followed by Allison and Laird, then Matt and Liz. One by one, the couples sat on the platform and were lifted into the air, the tow rope unwinding until they were a hundred feet up. From Gabby's spot on the boat, they looked small and inconsequential as they drifted over the water. Travis, who'd taken the wheel from Stephanie, kept the boat at a steady speed, making large, wide turns, then finally brought the boat to a gradual halt, allowing the riders to drift toward the sea. Just as their feet grazed the water, he'd gun the throttle, and the chute would rush skyward like a kite being pulled by a boy running in the park.\n\nEveryone was chattering as they reached the platform, talking about the fish or dolphins they'd seen, but Gabby nonetheless felt herself growing nervous as her turn approached. Stephanie, splayed out in her bikini, was working on her tan and nursing a beer in the front of the boat. She raised the beer in salute.\n\n\"Here's getting to know you, kid.\"\n\nTravis tossed aside his baseball cap. \"C'mon,\" he said to Gabby, \"I'll help you with your harness.\"\n\nAfter stepping off the platform, Liz handed over the life preserver.\n\n\"It's so much fun,\" she said. \"You're going to love it.\"\n\nTravis led Gabby to the platform. After hopping up, he bent over, offering a hand. She could feel the warmth in it as he helped her up. The harness lay crumpled, and he pointed toward two open loops.\n\n\"Step in those and pull it up. I'll tighten it for you.\"\n\nShe held her body steady against the tugs of the canvas straps. \"That's it?\"\n\n\"Almost. When you sit on the platform, keep the wide strap under your thighs. You don't want it under your... backside, because that doesn't support your weight as well. And you might want to take off your shirt, unless you don't mind getting it wet.\"\n\nShe slipped off her shirt, trying not to feel nervous.\n\nIf Travis noticed her self-consciousness, he gave no sign. Instead, he hooked up the straps of her harness to the bar, then his own, then motioned for her to sit.\n\n\"It's under your thighs, right?\" Travis asked. When she nodded, he smiled. \"Just relax and enjoy, okay?\"\n\nA second later, Joe pushed the throttle, the chute filled, and Gabby and Travis were lifted from the deck. In the boat, she felt everyone's eyes on them as they rose diagonally toward the sky. Gabby gripped the canvas straps so hard that her knuckles turned white while the boat grew smaller. In time, the tow rope to the boat captured her attention like a hypnotic decoy. It quickly felt as if she were a whole lot higher than anyone else had been, and she was about to say something when she felt Travis touch her shoulder.\n\n\"Look over there!\" he said, pointing. \"There's a ray! Can you see it?\"\n\nShe saw it, black and sleek, moving beneath the surface like a slow-motion butterfly.\n\n\"And a pod of dolphins! Over there! Near the banks!\"\n\nAs she marveled at the sight, her nervousness started to subside. Instead, she began to soak in the view of everything below\u2014the town, the families sprawled on the beaches, the boats, the water. As she relaxed, she found herself thinking that she could probably spend an hour up here without ever growing tired of it. It was extraordinary to drift along at this elevation, coasting effortlessly on a wind current, as if she were a bird. Despite the heat, the breeze kept her cool, and as she rocked her feet back and forth, she felt the harness sway.\n\n\"Are you willing to be dipped?\" he asked. \"I promise it'll be fun.\"\n\n\"Let's do it,\" she agreed. To her ears, her voice sounded strangely confident.\n\nTravis engaged Joe in a quick series of hand signals, and beneath her, the whine of the boat suddenly diminished. The parachute began to descend. Staring at the rapidly approaching water, she scanned the surface to make sure nothing was lurking below.\n\nThe parachute dipped lower and lower, and though she lifted her legs, she felt cold water splash on her lower body. Just when she thought she was going to have to start treading water, the boat accelerated and they shot skyward again. Gabby felt adrenaline surge through her body and didn't bother trying to hide her grin.\n\nTravis nudged her. \"See? It wasn't bad at all.\"\n\n\"Can we do that again?\" she asked.\n\nTravis and Gabby rode for another quarter hour, dipping two or three more times; once they were brought back to the boat, each couple rode once more. By then, the sun was high in the sky and the kids were getting fussy. Travis steered the boat toward the cove at Cape Lookout. The water grew shallow, and Travis stopped the boat; Joe tossed the anchor overboard, removed his shirt, and followed the anchor into the water. The water was waist-deep, and with practiced ease, Matt handed him a cooler. Matt took off his shirt and jumped in; Joe handed him a cooler, then followed him into the water while Travis took his place. When Travis jumped in, he carried a small, portable grill and bag of charcoal briquettes. Simultaneously, the mothers hopped in the water and took hold of the kids. In minutes, only Stephanie and Gabby remained on board. Gabby stood in the back of the boat, thinking she should have helped, while Stephanie, seemingly oblivious to the commotion, lay sprawled on the seats at the front of the boat, continuing to collect the sun.\n\n\"I'm on vacation, so I feel no need to volunteer my services,\" Stephanie announced, her body as still as the boat itself. \"And they're so good at it, I feel no guilt about being a slacker.\"\n\n\"You're not a slacker.\"\n\n\"Of course I am. Everyone should be a slacker now and then. As Confucius once said, 'He who does nothing is the one who does nothing.'\"\n\nGabby pondered the words, then furrowed her brow. \"Did Confucius really say that?\"\n\nSunglasses in place, Stephanie managed the tiniest of shrugs. \"No, but who cares? The point is, they had it handled, and most likely they found some sort of self-satisfaction in their industriousness. Who am I to deprive them of that?\"\n\nGabby put her hands on her hips. \"Or maybe you just wanted to be lazy.\"\n\nStephanie grinned. \"Like Jesus said, 'Blessed are the lazy who lie in boats, for they shall inherit a suntan.'\"\n\n\"Jesus didn't say that.\"\n\n\"True,\" Stephanie agreed, sitting up. She removed her glasses, stared through them, then wiped them on a towel. \"But again, who cares?\" She squinted up at Gabby. \"Did you really want to carry coolers or tents all the way to the beach? Trust me, the experience is overrated.\" After adjusting her top, she rose from her spot. \"Okay, the coast is clear. We're good to go.\" She slung her beach bag over her shoulder. \"You gotta know when to be lazy. Done correctly, it's an art form that benefits everyone.\"\n\nGabby hesitated. \"I don't know why, but I think I like the way you think.\"\n\nStephanie laughed. \"Of course you do,\" she said. \"It's human nature to be lazy. But it's good to know I'm not the only one who understands that essential truth.\"\n\nAs soon as Gabby started to deny it, Stephanie jumped overboard, the splash rising to the lip of the boat. \"C'mon,\" she said, not letting Gabby finish, \"I'm just kidding. And by the way, don't think twice about anything you did or didn't do. Like I said, these people draw meaning from doing these little things. It makes them feel manly and motherly, which is just the way the world _should_ work. As single women, all we have to do is make sure to enjoy it.\"\n\nSetting up the camp\u2014like getting off and unloading the boat\u2014was informally ritualized, with everyone apparently knowing exactly what to do. A pop-up tent was set in place, blankets spread, and the charcoal lit. In keeping with her inactivity on the boat, Stephanie simply grabbed a beer and a towel, picked a spot, and resumed sunbathing. Gabby, unsure of what else to do, spread her towel and did exactly the same thing. She felt the effects of the sun almost immediately and lay there trying to ignore the fact that everyone else\u2014aside from Stephanie\u2014seemed to be doing something.\n\n\"You need lotion,\" Stephanie instructed her. Without raising her head, she pointed to the bag she'd carried with her. \"Grab the tube with fifty SPF. With that pale skin of yours, you'll be a lobster in half an hour if you don't. It's got zinc in it.\"\n\nGabby reached for Stephanie's bag. She took a few moments to spread the lotion; the sun did have a terrible way of punishing her if she missed a spot. Unlike her sisters or her mother, she'd taken after her Irish-skinned father. It was one of the middling curses of her life.\n\nWhen she was ready, she lay down on her towel, still feeling guilty about the fact that she wasn't doing anything to help set up or get the lunch ready to go.\n\n\"How was it with Travis?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Gabby said.\n\n\"Just to remind you, he's my brother, you know.\"\n\nGabby turned her head to shoot Stephanie a questioning look.\n\n\"Hey,\" said Stephanie, \"I was only reminding you so that you'd realize how well I know him.\"\n\n\"What does that matter?\"\n\n\"I think he likes you.\"\n\n\"And I think you believe we're still in seventh grade.\"\n\n\"What? You don't care?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Because you have a boyfriend?\"\n\n\"Among other reasons.\"\n\nStephanie laughed. \"Oh, that's good. If I didn't know you, I might have even believed you.\"\n\n\"You don't know me!\"\n\n\"Oh... I know you. Believe it or not, I know exactly who you are.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah? Where am I from?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Tell me about my family.\"\n\n\"I can't.\"\n\n\"Then you really don't know me, do you?\"\n\nAfter a moment, Stephanie rolled over to face her. \"Yes,\" she said, \"I do.\" She couldn't hide the challenge in her tone. \"Okay, how about this? You're a good girl and always have been, but deep down, you think there's more to life than always following the rules, and there's a part of you that craves the unknown. If you're honest with yourself, Travis is part of that. You're selective when it comes to sex, but once you commit to someone, the standards you would normally hold yourself to go out the window. You think you'll marry your boyfriend, but can't help but wonder why you don't have a ring on your finger yet. You love your family, but you wanted to make your own decisions about who you become, which is why you live here. Even so, you worry your choices will earn your family's disapproval. How am I doing so far?\"\n\nAs she'd spoken, Gabby had grown pale. Interpreting a direct hit, Stephanie propped herself on an elbow. \"You want me to go on?\"\n\n\"No,\" Gabby said.\n\n\"I was right, wasn't I?\"\n\nGabby exhaled sharply. \"Not about everything.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Where was I wrong?\"\n\nInstead of answering, Gabby shook her head and rolled back onto her towel. \"I don't want to talk about it.\"\n\nGabby expected Stephanie to persist, but instead, Stephanie simply shrugged and lay back on her towel, as if she'd never said anything at all.\n\nGabby could hear the sounds of children frolicking in the surf and distant, indistinguishable strains of conversation. Her head spun at Stephanie's assessment; it was as if the woman had known her all her life and were privy to her darkest secrets.\n\n\"By the way, in case you're freaking out, I should probably let you know I'm psychic,\" Stephanie remarked. \"Weird, but true. Came from my grandmother, as far as I could tell. The woman was famous for predicting the weather.\"\n\nGabby sat up as a wave of relief washed over her, even though she knew the concept was preposterous. \"Really?\"\n\nStephanie laughed again. \"No, of course not! My grandmother watched _Let's Make a Deal_ for years and never once beat the contestants. But be honest. I was right on the money, wasn't I?\"\n\nGabby's thoughts went full circle once more, leaving her almost dizzy. \"But how...?\"\n\n\"Easy,\" Stephanie said, lying back down. \"I just inserted your 'amazingly personal experiences' into pretty much every woman who ever lived. Well, except for the part about Travis. I guessed about that. But it's pretty amazing, huh? I study that, too, by the way. I've been part of half a dozen studies, and it always amazes me that once you cut through the clutter, people are pretty much the same. Especially through adolescence and early adulthood. For the most part, people go through the same experiences and think the same things, but somehow no one ever escapes the belief that his experience is unique in every conceivable way.\"\n\nGabby lay back on her towel, deciding it might be best if she simply ignored Stephanie for a while. As much as she liked her, the woman made her head spin way too frequently.\n\n\"Oh, in case you were curious,\" Stephanie remarked, \"Travis isn't seeing anyone. He's not only single, but he's eligible.\"\n\n\"I wasn't curious.\"\n\n\"Since you have a boyfriend, right?\"\n\n\"Right. But even if I didn't have a boyfriend, I wouldn't have been curious.\"\n\nStephanie laughed. \"Yes, of course. How could I have been so wrong? I guess I must have been fooled by the way you keep staring at him.\"\n\n\"I haven't been staring.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be so touchy. After all, he's been staring at you, too.\"\n\n# Ten\n\nFrom her spot on her towel, Gabby inhaled the scent of charcoal, hot dogs, burgers, and chicken wafting on a gentle breeze. Despite the breeze\u2014and the lotion\u2014Gabby's skin felt as if it were beginning to sizzle. It sometimes struck her as ironic that her ancestors from Scotland and Ireland had bypassed northern climates with similar cloudy weather to move to a place where prolonged exposure to the sun practically guaranteed melanoma in people like them\u2014or, at the very least, wrinkles, which was the reason her mother wore hats even if her time outside was limited to walking to and from the car. The fact that Gabby was subjecting herself to sun damage was something she didn't want to think about, because the truth was she liked having a tan, and getting a tan felt sort of good. Besides, in just a little while she'd put on her shirt again and force herself to sit in the shade.\n\nStephanie had been uncharacteristically quiet since her last comment. In some people, that would have struck Gabby as discomfort or shyness; in Stephanie, it came across as the kind of confidence Gabby had always secretly coveted. Because Stephanie was so comfortable with herself, she made Gabby feel comfortable around her, which, she had to admit, was a feeling she had been missing lately. For a long time, she hadn't been comfortable at home; she still wasn't comfortable at work; and she was less than confident about where things were going with Kevin.\n\nAs for Travis\u2014the man definitely made her uncomfortable. Well, when he wasn't wearing his shirt, anyway. Sneaking a peek, she spotted him sitting in the sand near the water's edge, building drip castles with the three toddlers. When their attention seemed to waver, he rose from his spot and chased them into the shallow surf, the sound of their joyous screams echoing through the air. Travis seemed to be having as much fun as they were, and the sight of him made her want to smile. She forced herself not to, on the off chance he might see it and get the wrong idea.\n\nThe aroma finally forced Gabby to sit up. She couldn't shake the feeling of being on some exotic island vacation instead of only minutes from Beaufort. The gentle waves lapped in steady rhythm, and the few vacant beach houses behind them looked as if they'd been dropped from the sky. Over her shoulder, a path cut through the dunes, angling toward the black-and-white lighthouse that had weathered thousands of rainstorms.\n\nSurprisingly, no one else had joined them at the cove, which only added to its appeal. Off to the side, she saw Laird standing over the portable grill, wielding a pair of tongs. Megan was lining up bags of potato chips and buns and opening Tupperware containers on a small fold-up table, while Liz was setting out condiments along with paper plates and plastic utensils. Joe and Matt were behind them, tossing a football back and forth. She couldn't remember a weekend from her childhood where a group of families got together to enjoy one another's company in a gorgeous spot simply because it was... Saturday. She wondered if this was the way most people lived, or whether it had more do with life in a small town, or whether it was simply a habit that these friends had formed long ago. Whatever it was, she suspected she could get used to it.\n\n\"Food's ready!\" Laird shouted.\n\nGabby slipped on her shirt and wandered toward the food, surprised by how hungry she was until she remembered that she hadn't had a chance to eat breakfast. Over her shoulder, she saw Travis doing his best to herd the kids forward, scurrying around them like a cattle dog. The three of them rushed toward the grill, where Megan stood guard.\n\n\"Line up on the blanket,\" she ordered, and the toddlers\u2014obviously out of well-trained habit\u2014did exactly as they were told.\n\n\"Megan has magic powers with kids,\" Travis observed over her shoulder. He was breathing heavily, his hands on his hips. \"I wish they listened to me like that. I have to resort to chasing them until I'm about to pass out.\"\n\n\"But you seem like such a natural.\"\n\n\"I love playing with them, not herding.\" He leaned toward her conspiratorially. \"But between you and me? This is what I've learned about parents: The more you play with their kids, the more they love you. When they watch someone who adores their kids\u2014genuinely delighting in them the same way they do\u2014well, he just becomes the cat's meow in the parents' eyes.\"\n\n\"Cat's meow?\"\n\n\"I'm a vet. I like animal clich\u00e9s.\"\n\nShe couldn't suppress a smile. \"You're probably right about playing with the kids. My favorite relative was an aunt who would climb trees with me and my sisters while all the other grown-ups sat in the living room talking.\"\n\n\"And yet...,\" he said, motioning toward Stephanie, \"there you were, just lounging on the towel with my sister, instead of taking the chance to show these people that you find their kids irresistible.\"\n\n\"I...\"\n\n\"I was kidding.\" He winked. \"The fact is, I wanted to spend time with them. And in a little while, they'll start getting cranky. That's when I finally collapse in a beach chair, wipe my brow, and let their parents take over.\"\n\n\"In other words, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.\"\n\n\"I think... that when the time comes, I just might volunteer your services.\"\n\n\"Gee, thanks.\"\n\n\"No problem. Hey\u2014you hungry?\"\n\n\"Starved.\"\n\nBy the time they reached the food, the kids were seated on the blanket with hot dogs, potato salad, and some diced fruit. Liz, Megan, and Allison sat near enough to monitor, but far enough away to converse. All three, Gabby noticed, ate chicken, along with various side dishes. Joe, Matt, and Laird had taken seats on the coolers and sat with their plates on their knees, bottles of beer propped up in the sand.\n\n\"Burgers or chicken?\" Gabby inquired.\n\n\"I like chicken. But the burgers are supposed to be terrific. I just never really acquired the taste for red meat.\"\n\n\"I thought all men ate burgers.\"\n\n\"Then I guess I'm not a man.\" He straightened up. \"Which, I must say, is really going to surprise and disappoint my parents. Being that they gave me a masculine name and all.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Well...\" She nodded toward the grill. \"They clearly saved the last piece of chicken for you.\"\n\n\"That's only because we got here before Stephanie. She would have taken it, even though she'd rather have a burger, just because she knows I'd end up not eating.\"\n\n\"I knew there was a reason I liked her.\"\n\nThey reached for some plates as they eyed the appetizing variety of side dishes spread out on the table\u2014beans, casseroles, potato, cucumber, and fruit salads\u2014all of which smelled delicious. Gabby grabbed a bun, added some ketchup, mustard, and pickles, and held out her plate. Travis dropped the chicken onto his plate, then lifted a burger from the side of the grill and added it to her bun.\n\nHe scooped some fruit salad onto his plate; Gabby added a taste of pretty much everything. When she was finished, she looked at both their plates with an almost guilty expression, which Travis thankfully didn't seem to notice.\n\n\"Would you like a beer?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sounds great.\"\n\nHe reached into the cooler and fished out a Coors Light, then grabbed a bottle of water for himself.\n\n\"Gotta drive the boat,\" he explained. He lifted his plate in the direction of the dunes. \"How about over there?\"\n\n\"Don't you want to eat near your friends?\"\n\n\"They'll be all right,\" he said.\n\n\"Lead the way.\"\n\nThey trudged toward the low dune, a spot shaded by a sickly, salt-poisoned tree, with branches all pointing in the same direction, bent by years of ocean breezes. Gabby could feel the sand slipping beneath her feet. Travis took a seat near the dune, lowering himself to the sand Indian style in a single movement. Gabby sat next to him with considerably less grace, making sure to leave enough distance between them so they wouldn't accidentally touch. Even in the shade, the sand and water beyond were so bright that she had to squint.\n\nTravis began to cut his piece of chicken, the plastic utensils bending under the pressure.\n\n\"Coming out here reminds me of high school,\" he remarked. \"I can't tell you how many weekends we spent here back then.\" He shrugged. \"Different girls and no kids, of course.\"\n\n\"I'll bet that was fun.\"\n\n\"It was,\" he said. \"I remember one night, Joe and Matt and Laird and I were out here with a few girls we were trying to impress. We were sitting around a bonfire, drinking beer, telling jokes, and laughing... and I remember thinking that life couldn't get any better.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a Budweiser commercial. Aside from the fact that you were underage and the whole thing was illegal.\"\n\n\"And you never did anything like that, right?\"\n\n\"Actually, no,\" she said. \"I didn't.\"\n\n\"Really? Never?\"\n\n\"Why do you look so surprised?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I guess... I just don't see you as someone who grew up following all the rules.\" When he saw her expression, he backtracked. \"Don't get me wrong. I didn't mean it in a bad way. I just meant that you strike me as independent and someone who's always up for new adventures.\"\n\n\"You don't know anything about me.\"\n\nAs soon as she said it, she remembered saying the same thing to Stephanie. She braced herself for what might come next.\n\nHe absently moved his fruit with his fork. \"I know that you moved away from your home, that you bought your own house, that you're making it on your own. To me, that means independence. And as for adventurous\u2014you're here with a bunch of strangers, aren't you? You went parasailing and even overcame the thought of sharks to get dipped in the water. Those were new challenges. I think that's admirable.\"\n\nShe blushed, liking Travis's answer much better than his sister's. \"Maybe,\" she conceded. \"But it's not like traveling around the world without an itinerary.\"\n\n\"Don't let that fool you. You think I wasn't nervous when I left? I was terrified. I mean, it's one thing to tell your friends what you're going to do, and it's another thing entirely to actually get on the plane and land in a country where barely anyone speaks English. Have you traveled?\"\n\n\"Not much. Aside from a spring break I spent in the Bahamas, I've never been out of the country. And if you get right down to it, if you stay close to the resort like I did\u2014surrounded by American college kids\u2014it could have passed for Florida.\" She paused. \"Where are you going next? Your next big adventure?\"\n\n\"Nothing too far-flung this time. I'm going to the Grand Tetons. Do some camping, hiking, canoeing, the works. I've heard it's breathtaking, and I've never been there.\"\n\n\"Are you going alone?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I'm going with my dad. I can't wait.\"\n\nGabby made a face. \"I can't imagine going off on a trip with either one of my parents.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"My parents? You'd have to know them to understand.\"\n\nHe waited. In the silence, she set aside her plate and brushed off her hands.\n\n\"All right,\" she said with a sigh. \"First off, my mom is the kind of lady who believes that staying in anything less than a five-star hotel is roughing it. And my dad? I suppose I could imagine him doing something more exciting, except for the fact that he's never shown interest in anything other than fishing. And besides, he wouldn't go anywhere without Mom, and since she has her standards, that means the only time spent outdoors is patio dining. With a fancy wine list and waiters in black and white, of course.\"\n\n\"Sounds like they really love each other.\"\n\n\"You inferred _that_ from what I was saying?\"\n\n\"That, and the idea that your mom isn't a fan of the great outdoors.\" That elicited a laugh. \"They must be very proud of you,\" he added.\n\n\"What makes you say that?\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't they be?\"\n\nWhy indeed, she wondered. Let me count the ways. \"Let's just say that I'm pretty sure my mom prefers my sisters. And trust me\u2014my sisters are nothing like Stephanie.\"\n\n\"You mean they always say appropriate things?\"\n\n\"No. I mean they're just like my mom.\"\n\n\"And that means she can't be proud of you?\"\n\nShe took a bite of her burger, taking her time before responding. \"It's complicated,\" she demurred.\n\n\"How so?\" he persisted.\n\n\"For one thing, I have red hair. My sisters are all blond, like Mom.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"And I'm twenty-six and still single.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"I want a career.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"None of that fits the image of the daughter my mother wants. She has definite ideas about the role of women, especially southern women of proper social standing.\"\n\n\"I'm getting the sense that you and your mother don't get along.\"\n\n\"Ya think?\"\n\nJust over his shoulder, Gabby saw Allison and Laird strolling down the path toward the lighthouse, hand in hand.\n\n\"Maybe she's jealous,\" he said. \"Here you are, making your own life with your own goals and dreams, dreams independent of the world you grew up in, the world she expected you to inhabit\u2014simply because she did. It takes courage to do something different, and maybe what you think is disappointment in you is actually, on some deeper level, disappointment in herself.\"\n\nHe took a bite of chicken and waited for her reaction. Gabby was flummoxed. It was something she'd never considered.\n\n\"That's not it,\" she finally forced out.\n\n\"Maybe not. Have you ever asked her?\"\n\n\"Whether she felt disappointed in herself? I don't think so. And don't tell me that you'd confront your parents that way, either. Because...\"\n\n\"I wouldn't,\" he said, shaking his head. \"Not a chance. But I have a feeling that both of them are probably extremely proud of you, even if they don't know how to show it.\"\n\nHis comment was unexpected and strangely affecting. She leaned toward him slightly. \"I don't know whether you're right, but thanks anyway. And I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I mean, we talk on the phone every week and we're civil. It's just that I sometimes wish things were different. I'd love to have the kind of relationship where we really enjoyed spending time together.\"\n\nTravis said nothing in response, and Gabby found herself relieved that he didn't try to offer a solution or advice. When she'd related similar feelings to Kevin, his first instinct had been to come up with a game plan to change things. Pulling up her legs, she wrapped her arms around her knees. \"Tell me\u2014what's the best thing about being a vet?\"\n\n\"The animals,\" he said. \"And the people. But that's probably what you expected me to say, right?\"\n\nShe thought about Eva Bronson. \"The animals I can understand....\"\n\nHe held up his hands. \"Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that some of the people I deal with are a lot like some of the people you have to deal with.\"\n\n\"You mean pushy? Neurotic? With tendencies toward hypochondria? In other words, crazy?\"\n\n\"Of course. People are people, and a lot of them consider their pets members of the family. Which, of course, means that if they even suspect anything is wrong with their pet, they demand a full exam\u2014which means they bring them in at least once a week, sometimes more. Almost always it's nothing, but my dad and I have a system in place to deal with it.\"\n\n\"What do you do?\"\n\n\"We put a yellow sticker on the inside flap of the pet's file. So if Mrs. Worried comes in with Pokie or Whiskers, we see the sticker, do a cursory exam, and tell them that we don't currently see anything wrong, but we'd like to see the dog or cat in a week just to make sure. Since they were going to bring their pet in anyway, it helps get them in and out of the office quickly. And everyone is happy. We're the caring veterinarians, and the owners are assured that their pets are okay, but that they'd been right to worry, since we wanted to see them again.\"\n\n\"I wonder how the doctors in my office would react if I started putting yellow stickers on a few files.\"\n\n\"That bad?\"\n\n\"Sometimes. Every time there's a new issue of _Reader's_ _Digest_ , or some news show that identifies a rare disease with specific symptoms, the waiting room fills up with kids who naturally have exactly those symptoms.\"\n\n\"I'd probably be the same way with my kid.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I doubt that. You strike me more as the walk-it-off or sleep-it-off kind of guy. And as a parent, I don't think you'll be any different.\"\n\n\"Maybe you're right,\" he admitted.\n\n\"Oh, I'm right.\"\n\n\"Because you know me?\"\n\n\"Hey,\" she said, \"you and your sister started it.\"\n\nFor the next half hour, they sat together, talking in a way that felt remarkably familiar. She talked more about her mother and father and their polar personalities; she told him a bit about her sisters and what it was like to grow up with so much pressure to conform. She filled him in on college and PA school and shared some of her memories of the evenings she'd spent in Beaufort before moving to town. She mentioned Kevin only in passing, which surprised her until she realized that even though he was a major part of her life now, that hadn't always been the case. Somehow, talking to Travis reminded her that she'd become the woman she was going to be long before meeting Kevin.\n\nAs the conversation wound down, she found herself confessing to her occasional frustration at work, the words sometimes spilling out in a way she didn't quite intend. Though she didn't mention Dr. Melton, she did relate stories about some of the parents she'd met in her practice. She didn't give any names, but occasionally Travis would smile in a way that suggested he knew exactly whom she was talking about.\n\nBy then, Megan and Liz had packed most of the food back inside the coolers. Laird and Allison had gone for a walk. Matt, on the other hand, had half his body buried in sand by the toddlers, who didn't quite possess the coordination to prevent their shovels from raining sand into his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.\n\nJust then, a Frisbee landed near Gabby's feet, and she saw Joe approaching.\n\n\"I think it's time we rescued Matt,\" he called out. He pointed toward the Frisbee. \"You up for it?\"\n\n\"Are you saying they need some entertainment?\"\n\nJoe grinned. \"I don't think we have a choice.\"\n\nTravis looked at her. \"Do you mind?\"\n\n\"No, go ahead.\"\n\n\"I have to warn you\u2014it's not going to be pretty.\" He stood up and shouted in the toddlers' direction, \"Hey, kids? Are you guys ready to see the World Champion Frisbee expert in action?\"\n\n\"Yay!!!\" came the chorus. They dropped their shovels and dashed toward the water.\n\n\"Gotta go,\" Travis said. \"My audience awaits.\"\n\nAs he jogged down to the waterline and sloshed in, Gabby found herself following his movements and feeling something oddly like affection.\n\nSpending time with Travis wasn't at all the way she'd imagined it would be. There was no pretension, few attempts to impress, and he seemed to have an intuitive feel for when to stay silent or when to respond. It was that feeling of engagement, she realized, that led her to embark on a relationship with Kevin in the first place. It wasn't only the physical excitement she felt on the nights they spent together; more than that, she craved the comfort she experienced during those quiet moments they spent talking or when he gently took her hand as they walked through a parking lot on the way to dinner. Those were the moments in which it was easy to think he was the one she was meant to spend her life with, moments that lately had been fewer and farther between.\n\nGabby reflected on this as she watched Travis dive for the Frisbee. He bungled the catch, allowing the Frisbee to hit him in the chest, and landed in the surf with a dramatic cascade of water. The toddlers squealed with delight, as if it were the funniest thing they'd ever seen. When they shouted, \"Do it again, Uncle Travis!\" he jumped to his feet with equal flamboyance. He took three long, slow-motion strides and sent the Frisbee flying back to Joe. Putting on his game face, he assumed the exaggerated crouch of a baseball player, readying for the next catch in the infield. With a wink toward the kids, he promised, \"The next time, I won't even get wet!\" and followed his comment with a splashing, seizurelike miss that elicited even more squeals of delight. He seemed genuinely to enjoy performing for the kids, which only increased her feelings of warmth toward him. She was still trying to make sense of her reaction to Travis when he finally emerged from the ocean and started toward her, shaking the water from his hair. A moment later, he plopped down on the sand beside her, and when they accidentally touched, Gabby had the briefest flash of them sitting together just like this on a hundred different weekends in the future.\n\n# Eleven\n\nThe rest of the afternoon seemed to replay the events of the morning in reverse. They spent another hour at the beach before reloading the boat; on their way back, each couple rode once more in the parasail, though on her second trip Gabby rode with Stephanie. By late afternoon, the boat was cruising through the inlet, and Travis stopped to buy some shrimp from a local fisherman he obviously knew well. By the time they finally docked back at the house, all three toddlers were sound asleep. The adults were windblown and content, their faces darkened by the hours in the sun.\n\nOnce the boat was unloaded, the couples departed one by one, until only Gabby, Stephanie, and Travis remained. Travis was on the dock with Moby; he'd already spread the parachute on the dock so it could dry and was currently rinsing off the boat with a garden hose.\n\nStephanie stretched her arms overhead. \"I guess I should be on my way, too. Dinner with the folks tonight. They get hurt feelings if I come down here and don't spend enough time with them. You know how it goes. Let me say good-bye to Travis.\"\n\nGabby nodded, watching lethargically as Stephanie leaned over the deck railing.\n\n\"Hey, Trav!\" Stephanie shouted. \"I'm outta here. Thanks for today!\"\n\n\"Glad you could come,\" he shouted with a wave.\n\n\"You might want to toss something on the grill. Gabby just said she's starving!\"\n\nGabby's lethargy vanished immediately, but before she could say anything, she saw Travis give a thumbs-up.\n\n\"I'll be up in a minute to start the grill!\" he shouted. \"Just let me finish up here.\"\n\nStephanie sauntered by Gabby, obviously pleased with her social engineering.\n\n\"Why'd you say that?\" Gabby hissed.\n\n\"Because I'm going to be with my parents. I don't want my poor brother to have to spend the rest of the evening alone. He likes to have people around.\"\n\n\"Well, what if I wanted to go home?\"\n\n\"Then tell him when he gets up here that you've changed your mind. He won't care. All I did was buy you a couple of minutes to think about it, since I guarantee that he would have asked you anyway, and then\u2014if you'd said no\u2014would have asked a second time.\" She slung her bag over her shoulder. \"Hey, it was great getting to know you. I'm glad we had the chance to meet. Do you ever get up to the Raleigh area?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" Gabby said, still thrown by what had just happened and unsure whether to be pleased or angry with Stephanie.\n\n\"Good. We can do lunch. I'd say we could do brunch tomorrow, but I really have to get back.\" She removed her sunglasses and wiped them with her shirt. \"See you again?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Gabby said.\n\nStephanie went to the patio door, slid it open, then vanished inside, cutting through the house on the way to the door. By that point, Travis was already strolling up the dock, Moby trotting happily by his side. For the first time today, he'd put on a short-sleeved shirt, though he left it unbuttoned.\n\n\"Just give me a second to get the coals going. Shrimp kabobs okay?\"\n\nShe debated only an instant before realizing that it was either this or head home to a microwave dinner and some awful show on television, and she couldn't help but remember the feeling she'd had when watching Travis frolic in the surf with the toddlers.\n\n\"Just give me a few minutes to change?\"\n\nWhile Travis got the coals going, Gabby checked on Molly, finding her sleeping soundly along with the puppies.\n\nShe took a quick shower before changing into a light cotton skirt and blouse. After drying her hair, she debated whether to put on makeup, then decided on just a bit of mascara. The sun had given her face some color, and when she stepped back from the mirror, it occurred to her that it had been years since she'd last had dinner with a man other than Kevin.\n\nA case could be made that it was simply a continuation of the day, or that she'd been tricked into dinner by Stephanie, but she knew that neither was completely true.\n\nStill, was her decision to have dinner with Travis something she should feel guilty about, perhaps even conceal from Kevin? Her first impulse was to insist that she'd have no reason _not_ to tell Kevin. The day had been harmless\u2014technically, she'd spent more time with Stephanie than she had with Travis. So what was the big deal?\n\n_You're dining alone tonight, of course,_ a little voice whispered.\n\nBut was that really a problem? Stephanie had been right: She was hungry again, and her neighbor had food. Human Necessity 101. It wasn't as though she were going to sleep with him. She had no intention of even kissing him. They were friends, that's all. And if Kevin were here, she was sure that Travis would have invited him along, too.\n\n_But he's not here,_ the voice insisted. _Will you tell Kevin about your little dinner for two?_\n\n\"Definitely. I'll definitely tell him,\" she muttered, trying to quiet the little voice. There were times when she absolutely hated the little voice. The little voice sounded like her mother.\n\nThus decided, she looked at herself one last time in the mirror and, pleased with what she saw, slipped out the patio door and started across the lawn.\n\nAs Gabby weaved her way between the hedges and appeared at the edge of the lawn, Travis caught the movement from the corner of his eye and found himself staring unabashedly as she approached. When she stepped onto the deck, he felt a strange shift in the atmosphere, catching him off guard.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said simply. \"How long until dinner?\"\n\n\"A couple of minutes,\" he answered. \"Your timing is perfect.\"\n\nShe peeked at the skewered shrimp and brightly colored peppers and onions. As if on cue, her stomach grumbled. \"Wow,\" she murmured, hoping he didn't hear it. \"They look great.\"\n\n\"Do you want anything to drink?\" He gestured toward the opposite end of the deck. \"I think there's some beer and soda left over in the cooler.\"\n\nAs she crossed the deck, Travis tried to ignore the gentle sway of her hips, wondering what had gotten into him. He watched as she flipped open the lid, rummaged through the cooler, and pulled out two beers. When she returned to hand him one, he felt her fingers graze his. He twisted open the cap and took a long pull, looking down the line of the bottle at her. In the silence, she stared at the water. The sun, hovering over the tree line, was still bright, but its heat had diminished and shadows were gradually stretching across the lawn.\n\n\"This is why I bought my place,\" she finally said. \"For views like this.\"\n\n\"It's gorgeous, isn't it?\" He realized that he was watching her as he said it and forced away the subconscious implications. He cleared his throat. \"How's Molly?\"\n\n\"She seems fine. She was sleeping when I checked on her.\" She looked around. \"Where's Moby?\"\n\n\"I think he wandered around the front. He got bored with my cooking once he realized I wasn't about to offer him any scraps.\"\n\n\"He eats shrimp?\"\n\n\"He eats anything.\"\n\n\"Discriminating,\" she said with a wink. \"Is there anything I can do to help?\"\n\n\"Not really. Unless you want to grab some plates from the kitchen.\"\n\n\"Be happy to.\" She nodded. \"Where are they, exactly?\"\n\n\"In the cupboard to the left of the sink. Oh, and the pineapple, too. It's on the counter. And the knife. It should be right there.\"\n\n\"Be back in a minute.\"\n\n\"And would you mind bringing some silverware, too? It's in the drawer near the dishwasher.\"\n\nAs soon as she turned to enter the house, Travis found himself studying her. There was definitely something about Gabby that interested him. It wasn't simply that she was attractive; there were pretty women everywhere. There was something about her straightforward intelligence and unforced humor that suggested a grounded sense of right and wrong. Beauty and earthy common sense were a rare combination, yet he doubted she was even aware she possessed it.\n\nBy the time she emerged, the kabobs were ready. He loaded a couple on each plate along with some slices of pineapple, and they took their seats at the table. Beyond them, the slow-moving creek reflected the sky like a mirror, the stillness broken only by a flock of starlings passing overhead.\n\n\"This is delicious,\" she said.\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nShe took a sip of her beer and motioned to the boat. \"Are you going out again tomorrow?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. Tomorrow I'll probably go riding.\"\n\n\"Horseback riding?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Motorcycle. When I was in college, I bought a beat-up 1983 Honda Shadow with the goal of restoring it and turning it around for a quick profit. Let's just say it wasn't quick, and I doubt I'll ever make a profit. But I can say I did all the work myself.\"\n\n\"That must be rewarding.\"\n\n\" _Pointless_ is probably a better word. It's not very practical, since it has a tendency to break down and genuine parts are almost impossible to find. But isn't that the price of owning a classic?\"\n\nThe beer was going down easy, and she took another drink. \"I have no idea. I don't even change my own oil.\"\n\n\"Have you ever gone riding?\"\n\n\"No. Too dangerous.\"\n\n\"Danger depends more on the rider and the conditions than the bike.\"\n\n\"But yours breaks down.\"\n\n\"True. But I like to live life on the edge.\"\n\n\"I've noticed that about your personality.\"\n\n\"Is that good or bad?\"\n\n\"Neither. But it's definitely unpredictable. Especially when I try to reconcile it with the fact that you're a veterinarian. It's such a stable-sounding profession. When I think of veterinarians, I automatically think family man, complete with an apron-wearing wife and kids visiting the orthodontist.\"\n\n\"In other words, boring. Like the most exciting thing I should do is golf.\"\n\nShe thought of Kevin. \"There are worse things.\"\n\n\"Just to let you know, I am a family man.\" Travis shrugged. \"Except for the family part.\"\n\n\"That's kind of a prerequisite, don't you think?\"\n\n\"I think that being a family man is more about having the proper worldview than the actual condition of having a family.\"\n\n\"Nice try.\" She squinted at him, feeling the effects of the beer. \"I'm not sure I could ever imagine you being married. Somehow, it just doesn't seem to fit you. You seem more like the dating lots of women, perpetual bachelor kind of guy.\"\n\n\"You're not the first person to say that to me. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say you spent too much time listening to my friends today.\"\n\n\"They were very flattering.\"\n\n\"That's why I take them on the boat.\"\n\n\"And Stephanie?\"\n\n\"She's an enigma. But she's also my sister, so what can I do? Like I said, I'm a family-oriented guy.\"\n\n\"Why do I get the feeling you're trying to impress me?\"\n\n\"Maybe I am. Tell me about your boyfriend. Is he a family man, too?\"\n\n\"None of your business,\" she said.\n\n\"Okay, don't tell me. At least not yet. Tell me about growing up in Savannah instead.\"\n\n\"I already told you about my family. What else is there to tell?\"\n\n\"Tell me anything.\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"It was hot in the summer. Very hot. And humid, too.\"\n\n\"Are you always this vague?\"\n\n\"I think a little mystery keeps things interesting.\"\n\n\"Does your boyfriend think that, too?\"\n\n\"My boyfriend knows me.\"\n\n\"Is he tall?\"\n\n\"What does that matter?\"\n\n\"It doesn't. I'm just making conversation.\"\n\n\"Then let's talk about something else.\"\n\n\"All right. Have you ever been surfing?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Scuba diving?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Bummer.\"\n\n\"Why? Because I don't know what I'm missing?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Because now that my friends are married with children, I need to find someone who's up for things like that on a regular basis.\"\n\n\"As far as I can tell, you seem to find ways to keep yourself entertained. You're wakeboarding or Jet Skiing as soon as you get off work.\"\n\n\"There's more to life than just those two things. Like parasailing.\"\n\nShe laughed and he joined in, and she realized she liked the sound of it.\n\n\"I have a question about vet school,\" she said apropos of nothing, but no longer caring about the direction of their conversation. It felt good just to relax, to bask in the pleasure of Travis's company. It made her feel at ease. \"I know it's dumb, but I've always wondered how much anatomy you had to study. As in, how many different kinds of animals?\"\n\n\"Just the major ones,\" he said. \"Cow, horse, pig, dog, cat, and chicken.\"\n\n\"And you had to know pretty much everything about each one?\"\n\n\"As far as anatomy goes, yes.\"\n\nShe considered that. \"Wow. I thought it was hard just doing people.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but remember: Most people won't sue me if their chicken dies. Your responsibility is much greater, especially since you're dealing with kids.\" He paused. \"And I'll bet you're great with them.\"\n\n\"Why would you say that?\"\n\n\"You have an aura of kindness and patience.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. I think you got too much sun today.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" he said. He motioned to her bottle as he stood. \"Want another?\"\n\nShe hadn't even realized she'd finished. \"I'd better not.\"\n\n\"I won't tell anyone.\"\n\n\"That's not the point. I don't want to give you the wrong impression about me.\"\n\n\"I doubt that's possible.\"\n\n\"I don't think my boyfriend would appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Then it's a good thing he's not here, isn't it? Besides, we're just getting to know each other. What harm is there in that?\"\n\n\"Fine.\" She sighed. \"Last one, though.\"\n\nHe brought two more over and opened hers. As soon as she took a drink and felt the corresponding buzz as it went down, she heard a voice inside her whisper, _You shouldn't be doing this_.\n\n\"You'd like him,\" she said, trying to reestablish some boundaries between them. \"He's a great guy.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he is.\"\n\n\"And yes, to answer your earlier question, he's tall.\"\n\n\"I thought you didn't want to talk about him.\"\n\n\"I don't. I just want you to know I love him.\"\n\n\"Love is a wonderful thing. It makes life worthwhile. I love being in love.\"\n\n\"Spoken like a man with plenty of experience. But keep in mind that true love lasts forever.\"\n\n\"Poets would say that true love always ends in tragedy.\"\n\n\"And you're a poet?\"\n\n\"No. I'm just telling you what they say. I'm not saying I agree. Like you, I'm more of a happy-ending romantic. My parents have been married forever, and that's what I want to have one day, too.\"\n\nGabby couldn't help thinking that he was very good at this sort of flirty banter\u2014and then reminded herself that it was because he'd had a lot of practice. Still, she had to admit there was something flattering about his attention, even if she knew Kevin wouldn't approve.\n\n\"Did you know that I almost bought your house?\" he asked.\n\nShe shook her head, surprised.\n\n\"It was for sale at the same time this one was. I liked the floor plan better than this one, but this one already had the deck and the boathouse and a lift. It was a tough choice.\"\n\n\"And now you've even got a hot tub.\"\n\n\"You like that?\" He cocked an eyebrow. \"We could get in later, once the sun goes down.\"\n\n\"I don't have my suit.\"\n\n\"Bathing suits are optional, of course.\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes, pointedly ignoring the shiver that had gone through her. \"I don't think so.\"\n\nHe stretched, looking pleased with himself. \"How about just our feet, then.\"\n\n\"I could probably handle that.\"\n\n\"It's a start.\"\n\n\"And a finish.\"\n\n\"That goes without saying.\"\n\nOn the other side of the creek, the setting sun was changing the sky to a golden palette of colors that stretched across the horizon. Travis pulled another chair closer and propped his feet on it. Gabby stared across the water, feeling a sense of well-being she hadn't experienced in a long time.\n\n\"Tell me about Africa,\" she said. \"Is it as otherworldly as it seems?\"\n\n\"It was for me,\" he said. \"I kept wanting to go back. Like something in my genes recognized it as home, even though there was so little there that I saw that reminded me of the world I came from.\"\n\n\"Did you see any lions or elephants?\"\n\n\"Many.\"\n\n\"Was that amazing?\"\n\n\"It's something I'll never forget.\"\n\nShe was quiet for a moment. \"I'm envious.\"\n\n\"Then go. And if you do, make sure you visit Victoria Falls. It's the most amazing place I've ever seen. The rainbows, the mist, the incredible roar\u2014it's like you're standing on the very edge of the world.\"\n\nShe smiled dreamily. \"How long were you there?\"\n\n\"Which time?\"\n\n\"How many times have you been there?\"\n\n\"Three.\"\n\nShe tried to imagine living a life so free but somehow failed. \"Tell me about all of them.\"\n\nThey talked quietly for a long time, dusk giving way to darkness. His colorful descriptions of people and places were vivid and detailed, making her feel as if she'd been alongside him, and she found herself wondering how many times, and with how many other women, he'd shared these stories. Halfway through, he rose from the table and brought back two bottles of water, respecting her earlier comment, and the appreciation she felt added to her growing sense of affection for Travis. Though she knew it was wrong, she was somehow unable to stop it.\n\nBy the time they got up to bring the dishes into the house, stars were twinkling overhead. While Travis rinsed the dishes, Gabby toured Travis's living room, thinking it was less like a bachelor pad than she'd imagined it would be. The furniture was comfortable and stylish, brown leather couches, walnut end tables, and brass lamps, and while the room was clean, it wasn't obsessively so. Magazines were stacked haphazardly on the television, and she could see a thin layer of dust on the stereo, which somehow seemed just right. Instead of artwork lining the walls, there were movie posters that reflected Travis's eclectic taste: _Casablanca_ on one wall, _Die Hard_ on another, with _HomeAlone_ right next to that. Behind her, she heard the faucet stop, and a moment later, Travis stepped into the room.\n\nShe smiled. \"You ready to go soak our feet?\"\n\n\"As long as you don't show too much skin.\"\n\nThey wandered back outside to the hot tub. Travis flipped open the cover and set it aside while Gabby removed her sandals; a moment later, they were sitting beside each other, their feet swishing back and forth. Gabby stared upward, tracing images in the skies above her.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" Travis asked.\n\n\"The stars,\" she said. \"I bought an astronomy book, and I'm trying to see if I remember anything.\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\n\"Just the big ones. The obvious ones.\" She pointed toward the house. \"Go straight up from the chimney about two fists and you'll see Orion's belt. Betelgeuse is on Orion's left shoulder, and Rigel is the name of his foot. He has two hunting dogs. The bright star over there is Sirius, and that's part of Canis Major, and Procyon is part of Canis Minor.\"\n\nTravis spotted Orion's belt, and though he tried to follow her direction, he couldn't make out the others. \"I'm not sure I see the other two.\"\n\n\"I can't, either. I just know they're there.\"\n\nHe pointed over her shoulder. \"I can see the Big Dipper. Right over there. That's the only one I can always find.\"\n\n\"It's also known as the Big Bear, or Ursa Major. Did you know that a bear figure has been associated with that constellation since the ice age?\"\n\n\"I can't say that I did.\"\n\n\"I just love the names, even if I can't make out all the constellations yet. Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, the Pleiades, Antin ous, Cassiopeia... their names sound like music.\"\n\n\"I take it this is a new hobby of yours.\"\n\n\"It's more like good intentions buried in the detritus of daily life. But for a couple of days there, I was really into it.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"At least you're honest.\"\n\n\"I know my limitations. Still, I wish I knew more. When I was in seventh grade, I had a teacher who loved astronomy. He had this way of talking about stars that made you remember them forever.\"\n\n\"What did he say?'\n\n\"That staring at the stars was like staring backward in time, since some stars are so far away that their light takes millions of years just to reach us. That we see stars not as they look now, but as they were when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole concept just struck me as... amazing somehow.\"\n\n\"He sounds like a great teacher.\"\n\n\"He was. And we learned a lot, although I've forgotten most of it, as you can tell. But the feeling of wonder is still there. When I stare at the sky, I just know that someone was doing the exact same thing thousands of years ago.\"\n\nTravis watched her, entranced by the sound of her voice in the darkness.\n\n\"And what's strange,\" she went on, \"is that even though we know so much more about the universe, ordinary people today know less about the daily sky than our ancestors. Even without telescopes or mathematics or even the knowledge that the world was round, they used stars to navigate, they scanned the sky for specific constellations to know when to plant their crops, they used stars when constructing buildings, they learned to predict eclipses... it just makes me wonder what it was like to live so faithfully by the stars.\" Lost in thought, she was quiet for a long moment. \"Sorry. I'm probably boring you.\"\n\n\"Not at all. In fact, I'll never think of stars in the same way again.\"\n\n\"You're teasing me.\"\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" he said seriously.\n\nHis gaze held hers. She had the sudden sense that he was about to kiss her, and she quickly turned away. In that moment, she was acutely aware of the sound of frogs calling from the marsh grass and crickets singing in the trees. The moon had reached its apex, casting a shimmery glow around them. Gabby moved her feet nervously in the water, knowing she should leave.\n\n\"I think my feet are getting wrinkled,\" she said.\n\n\"Do you want me to get a towel?\"\n\n\"No, that's okay. But I should probably be going. It's getting late.\"\n\nHe stood and offered a hand. When she took it, she felt the warmth and strength in it. \"I'll walk you back.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I can find my way.\"\n\n\"Just to the bushes, then.\"\n\nAt the table, she picked up her sandals and spotted Moby heading their way. He trotted up to them just as they stepped onto the grass, his tongue flapping happily. Moby circled them before charging toward the water, as if making sure nothing was hiding. He came to a stop with front paws slapping, then charged off in another direction.\n\n\"Moby is a dog with boundless curiosity and enthusiasm,\" Travis observed.\n\n\"Kind of like you.\"\n\n\"Kind of. Except I don't roll in fish guts.\"\n\nShe smiled. The grass was soft underfoot, and they reached the hedge a moment later. \"I had a wonderful time today,\" she said. \"And tonight, too.\"\n\n\"So did I. And thanks for the astronomy lesson.\"\n\n\"I'll do better next time. I'll impress you with my stellar knowledge.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Nice pun. Did you just think of that?\"\n\n\"No, that was my teacher again. That's what he used to say when class was ending.\"\n\nTravis shuffled his feet, then looked up at Gabby again. \"What are you doing tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Nothing really. I know I have to go to the grocery store. Why?\"\n\n\"Do you want to come with me?\"\n\n\"On your motorcycle?\"\n\n\"I want to show you something. And it'll be fun\u2014I promise. I'll even bring lunch.\"\n\nShe hesitated. It was a simple question, and she knew what the answer should be, especially if she wanted to keep her life from getting complicated. \"I don't think that's a good idea\" was all she had to say, and it would be over.\n\nShe thought about Kevin and the guilt she'd felt minutes earlier, about the choice she'd made by moving here in the first place. Yet despite those things, or maybe even because of them, she found herself beginning to smile.\n\n\"Sure,\" she said. \"What time?'\n\nIf he seemed surprised by her answer, he didn't show it. \"How about eleven? I'll give you a chance to sleep in.\"\n\nShe raised a hand to her hair. \"Well, listen, thanks again....\"\n\n\"Yeah, you too. See you tomorrow.\"\n\nFor an instant, she thought she'd simply turn and leave. But again their eyes met and held for just a beat too long, and before she realized what was happening, Travis placed a hand on her hip and pulled her toward him. He kissed her, his lips neither soft nor hard against hers. It took an instant for her brain to register what was happening, and then she pushed him back.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she gasped.\n\n\"I couldn't help it.\" He shrugged, seeming not the least bit apologetic. \"It just seemed like the right thing to do.\"\n\n\"You know I have a boyfriend,\" she repeated, knowing that deep down she hadn't minded the kiss at all and hating herself for it.\n\n\"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable,\" he said.\n\n\"It's fine,\" she said, holding up her hands, keeping him at a distance. \"Just forget about it. But it's not going to happen again, okay?\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Right,\" she repeated, suddenly wanting to go home. She shouldn't have put herself in this position. She'd known what was going to happen, she'd even warned herself about it, and sure enough, she'd been right.\n\nShe turned and started through the hedge, breathing fast. He'd kissed her! She still couldn't believe it. Though she intended to march straight to her door, making sure he realized how adamant she'd been about not wanting it to happen again, she snuck a peek over her shoulder and was mortified to realize he'd seen her. He raised a hand in a relaxed wave.\n\n\"See you tomorrow,\" he called out.\n\nShe didn't bother to respond, since there was really no reason to. The thought of what might happen tomorrow left her with a sense of dread. Why did he have to ruin things? Why couldn't they just be neighbors and friends? Why had it ended like this?\n\nShe pulled the slider closed behind her and marched to her bedroom, doing her best to work up the anger she felt the situation merited. It should have worked, but for the shaky legs and hammering heart, and the lingering realization that Travis Parker found her desirable enough to want to kiss her.\n\n# Twelve\n\nAfter Gabby had left, Travis emptied the cooler. Wanting to spend some time with Moby, he grabbed the tennis ball, but even as he began their familiar game of fetch, his thoughts kept returning to Gabby. As Moby bounded through the yard, he couldn't shake the memory of the way Gabby's eyes crinkled when she smiled or the awe in her voice as she'd named the stars. He found himself wondering about her relationship with her boyfriend. Curiously, she hadn't said much about him\u2014whatever her reasons, it struck him as an effective way to keep him guessing.\n\nNo question, he was definitely interested in her. It was odd, though. If history was any guide, she really wasn't his type. She didn't strike him as particularly delicate or touchy, a hothouse flower\u2014he seemed to attract those types of women in droves. When he teased her, she teased him right back; when he pushed the boundaries, she had no qualms about putting him in his place. He liked her spirited nature, her self-control and confidence, and he especially liked the fact that she didn't seem conscious of possessing those qualities. The whole day struck him as a tantalizing dance, in which each of them had taken turns leading, one pushing, the other pulling, and vice versa. He wondered if a dance like that could go on forever.\n\nThat had been one of the downfalls of his past relationships. Even in the early stages, they had always been one-sided. Usually he'd ended up making most of the decisions about what to do or where to eat or whose house to go to or what movie to see. That part didn't bother him; what bothered him was that over time, the one-sidedness began to define everything about the relationship, which inevitably left him feeling as if he were dating an employee instead of a partner. Frankly, it bored him.\n\nIt was strange, he hadn't really thought of his previous relationships in this light. He usually didn't think about them at all. Somehow, spending time with Gabby made him think about what he'd been missing. He replayed their conversations in his head, realizing that he wanted more of them, more of her. He shouldn't have kissed her, he thought with a burst of uncharacteristic anxiety\u2014he had gone too far. But now, all he could do was wait and see, and hope she didn't change her mind about coming with him tomorrow. What could he do? Nothing, he realized. Nothing at all.\n\n\"How'd it go?\" Stephanie asked.\n\nFeeling foggy the following morning, Travis could barely open his eyes. \"What time is it?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It's early, though.\"\n\n\"Why are you calling me?\"\n\n\"Because I want to know how dinner went with Gabby.\"\n\n\"Is the sun even up?\"\n\n\"Don't change the subject. Spill it.\"\n\n\"You're being awfully nosy about this.\"\n\n\"I'm a nosy gal. But don't worry. You already told me the answer.\"\n\n\"I didn't say anything.\"\n\n\"Exactly. I assume you're seeing her today, too?\"\n\nTravis pulled the phone away and stared at it, wondering how his sister always seemed to know everything.\n\n\"Steph\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell her I said hey. But listen, I gotta go. Thanks for keeping me informed.\"\n\nShe hung up before he had a chance to respond.\n\nGabby's first thought upon waking the next morning was that she liked to think of herself as a good person. Growing up, she'd always tried to follow the rules. She kept her room clean, studied for exams, did her best to mind her manners around her parents.\n\nIt wasn't last night's kiss that had her doubting her integrity. She hadn't had anything to do with that\u2014that was all Travis. And the day had been innocent enough\u2014she'd be perfectly happy telling Kevin all about it. No, her guilt had more to do with the fact that she'd willingly returned for dinner with Travis. If she had been honest with herself, she could have anticipated Travis's agenda and headed off the situation. Especially at the end. What had she been thinking?\n\nAs for Kevin... talking to him hadn't done much to erase the memory.\n\nShe'd called him last night after she'd gotten back to her house. As his cell phone rang, she'd prayed he wouldn't detect the guilt in her tone. No problem there, she'd quickly realized; they could barely hear each other at all, since he'd answered the phone while in a nightclub.\n\n\"Hey, sweetie,\" she said, \"I just wanted to call\u2014\"\n\n\"Hey, Gabby!\" he interrupted. \"It's really loud in here, so speak up.\"\n\nHe shouted so loudly that she had to hold the phone away from her ear. \"I can tell.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I said it sounds noisy!\" she shouted back. \"I take it you're having a good time?\"\n\n\"I can barely hear you! What did you say?\"\n\nIn the background, she heard a woman's voice asking if he wanted another vodka tonic; Kevin's answer was lost in the cacophony.\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure of the name. Just some club!\"\n\n\"What kind of club?\"\n\n\"Just someplace these other guys wanted to go! No big deal!\"\n\n\"I'm glad you're having a good time.\"\n\n\"Speak up!\"\n\nShe brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose and squeezed. \"I just wanted to talk. I miss you.\"\n\n\"Yeah, miss you, too, but I'll be home in a few days! Listen, though...\"\n\n\"I know, I know\u2014you've got to go.\"\n\n\"Let me call you back tomorrow, okay?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Love you!\"\n\n\"Love you, too.\"\n\nGabby hung up, annoyed. She'd just wanted to talk to him, but she supposed she should have known better. Conventions had a way of turning grown men back into adolescents\u2014she'd witnessed that firsthand at a medical convention she'd attended in Birmingham a few months ago. By day, meetings were packed with earnest, serious-minded doctors; at night, she'd watched from her hotel window as they'd traveled in packs, drunk too much, and generally made fools of themselves. No harm in that. She didn't believe for a moment that he had gotten himself into trouble or done anything he'd regret.\n\n_Like kiss someone else?_\n\nShe threw back the covers, really wishing she could stop thinking about that. She didn't want to think about the weight of Travis's hand on her hip as he'd pulled her toward him, and she definitely didn't want to think about the way his lips felt against hers or the electric spark she'd felt because of it. Still, as she headed for the shower, something else was bugging her, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Turning on the water, she found herself wondering if\u2014in the brief instant it had happened\u2014she'd also kissed him back.\n\nUnable to go back to sleep after Stephanie's call, Travis went jogging. Afterward, he'd tossed his surfboard in the back of his truck and driven across the bridge to Bogue Banks. After parking in the Sheraton Hotel lot, he hefted his board and made for the water. He wasn't alone; there were a dozen others who'd had the same idea, and he waved at a few he recognized. Like Travis, most wouldn't stay long; the best waves came early and would be gone as soon as the tide shifted. But it was still the perfect way to start the day.\n\nThe water was brisk\u2014in another month, it would be nearly perfect\u2014and he paddled over the swells, trying to get into rhythm. He wasn't a great surfer\u2014in Bali, he'd studied some of the monster waves and shook his head, knowing that if he even attempted to ride them, he'd probably be killed\u2014but he was good enough to enjoy himself.\n\nHe was used to being alone. Laird was the other surfer in his group of friends, but he hadn't gone with Travis in years. Ashley and Melinda, two former girlfriends, had gone surfing with him a few times in the past\u2014but neither ever seemed able to meet him on the spur of the moment, and typically, by the time they arrived, he was just finishing up, which threw the morning out of whack. And as usual, it had been up to him to suggest the activity in the first place.\n\nHe was, he realized, a little disappointed in himself for choosing the same type of woman over and over. No wonder Allison and Megan liked to give him such a hard time. It must have been like watching the same play with different actors, the outcome always the same. As he lay on the surfboard, watching the swells approach, he realized that the same thing that made women initially attractive to him\u2014their need to be taken care of\u2014was the very thing that eventually signaled the end of the relationship. How did that old saying go? If you've been divorced once, you might be right in thinking your ex was the problem. If you've been divorced three times? Well, folks, the problem is most definitely you. Granted, he hadn't been divorced, but the point was well taken.\n\nIt amazed him that all this soul-searching seemed prompted by his day with Gabby. Gabby, the woman who'd falsely accused him, consistently avoided him, overtly antagonized him, and then made a point of repeatedly mentioning that she was in love with someone else. Go figure.\n\nBehind him a swell seemed promising, and Travis began to paddle hard, maneuvering himself into the best possible position. Despite the glory of the day and the pleasures of the ocean, he couldn't escape the truth: What he really wanted to do was to spend as much time as possible with Gabby, for as long as he possibly could.\n\n\"Good morning,\" Kevin said into the phone, just as Gabby was getting ready to leave. Gabby moved the receiver to her other shoulder.\n\n\"Oh, hey,\" she answered. \"How are you?\"\n\n\"Good. Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about the call last night. I wanted to call you when I got back to the room to apologize, but by then it was pretty late.\"\n\n\"It's okay. You sounded like you were having fun.\"\n\n\"It was less thrilling than you probably think. The music was so loud that my ears are still ringing. I don't know why I went with those guys in the first place. I should have known I was in trouble when they started doing shots right after dinner, but someone had to keep an eye on them.\"\n\n\"And I'm sure you were the model of sobriety.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" he said. \"You know I don't drink much. Which means, of course, that I'll probably crush them in the golf tournament today. They'll be too hung over to even hit the ball.\"\n\n\"Who were they?\"\n\n\"Just some other brokers from Charlotte and Columbia. By the way they were acting, you'd have thought they hadn't been out in years.\"\n\n\"Maybe they haven't.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well...\" She could hear him rustling and assumed he was getting dressed. \"How about you? What did you end up doing?\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"Not too much.\"\n\n\"I wish you could have come down. It would have been a lot more fun if you'd been here.\"\n\n\"You know I couldn't get off work.\"\n\n\"I know. But I wanted to say it anyway. I'll try to give you a call later, okay?\"\n\n\"Sure. I might be out and about.\"\n\n\"Oh, how's Molly doing?\"\n\n\"She's doing well.\"\n\n\"I think I might want one of those puppies. They were cute.\"\n\n\"You're just trying to get on my good side.\"\n\n\"That's the only side to be on. Hey, I was thinking, though. Maybe you and I could head down to Miami this fall for a long weekend. One of the guys I was talking to just got back from South Beach, and he said there were a couple of great golf courses nearby.\"\n\nShe paused. \"Have you ever thought about going to Africa?\"\n\n\"Africa?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Just taking off for a while, going on safari, seeing Victoria Falls? Or if not Africa, someplace in Europe? Like Greece?\"\n\n\"Not really. And even if I wanted to, it's not like I could get the time off. What made you think of that?\"\n\n\"No reason,\" she said.\n\nWhile Gabby was on the phone, Travis walked up onto Gabby's porch and knocked. A moment later, she appeared in the doorway, the phone to her ear. Motioning to the phone, she waved him inside. He stepped into the living room, expecting her to make some excuse on the phone, but instead she pointed to the couch and vanished into the kitchen, the swinging doors swaying behind her.\n\nHe took a seat and waited. And waited. And waited. He felt ridiculous, as if she were treating him like a child. He could hear her speaking in hushed tones and had no idea whom she was talking to, and he contemplated getting up and walking out the door. Still, he remained on the couch, wondering why she seemed to have such a hold over him.\n\nFinally, with the doors swinging behind her again, she stepped into the living room.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I know I'm a little late, but the phone's been ringing off the hook all morning.\"\n\nTravis stood, thinking that Gabby had grown even prettier overnight, which made no sense at all. \"No big deal,\" he answered.\n\nThe call with Kevin left her wondering again what she was doing, and she willed herself to stop thinking about it. \"Let me just get my things, and we'll be good to go.\" She took a step toward the door. \"Oh, and I want to check on Molly\u2014she was fine this morning, but I want to make sure she has plenty of water.\"\n\nA moment later, with her bag flung over her shoulder, they moved into the garage and filled the water bowl to the brim.\n\n\"Where are we going, by the way?\" she asked on their way back out. \"Not to some biker bar out in the sticks, I hope?\"\n\n\"What's wrong with biker bars?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't fit in. Not enough tattoos.\"\n\n\"You're generalizing, don't you think?\"\n\n\"Probably. But you still haven't answered my question.\"\n\n\"Just a ride,\" he said. \"Over the bridge, all the way down Bogue Banks to Emerald Isle, back over the bridge, and then we'll wind our way back to this place I want to show you.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"It's a surprise.\"\n\n\"Is it a fancy place?\"\n\n\"Hardly.\"\n\n\"Can we eat there?\"\n\nHe thought about it. \"Sort of.\"\n\n\"Is it inside or outside?\"\n\n\"It's a surprise,\" he said. \"I don't want to ruin it for you.\"\n\n\"It sounds exciting.\"\n\n\"Don't build it up too much. It's just this place I like to go\u2014nothing spectacular.\"\n\nBy that time, they'd reached the drive. Travis motioned toward the bike. \"This is it.\"\n\nThe chrome on the bike made Gabby squint, and she put on a pair of sunglasses.\n\n\"Your pride and joy?\"\n\n\"Frustration and angst.\"\n\n\"You're not going to start whining about how hard it is to get parts again, are you?\"\n\nHe made a face, then chuckled. \"I'll try to keep it to myself.\"\n\nShe motioned toward the basket he'd attached to the back of the bike with bungee cords. \"What's for lunch?\"\n\n\"The usual.\"\n\n\"Filet mignon, baked Alaska, roast lamb, Dover sole?\"\n\n\"Not quite.\"\n\n\"Pop-Tarts?\"\n\nHe ignored her gibe. \"If you're ready, we can go. I'm pretty sure the helmet will fit you, but if it doesn't, I've got more in the garage.\"\n\nShe raised a sardonic eyebrow. \"What about this special place? Have you taken a lot of different women there?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Actually, you'll be the first.\"\n\nShe waited to see if he would add anything else, but for once he seemed serious. She nodded slightly and walked to the motorcycle. She put on her helmet, fastened it beneath her chin, and threw her leg over the back of the seat. \"Where do I put my feet?\"\n\nTravis unfolded the rear pegs. \"There's one on each side. And try not to touch the exhaust with your leg. It gets very hot and you could get a nasty burn.\"\n\n\"Good to know. What about my hands?\"\n\n\"They'll be around me, of course.\"\n\n\"Such a ladies' man,\" she said. \"Why, if you were any smoother, I probably wouldn't even be able to hold on, would I?\"\n\nHe put on his helmet and in a single, smooth motion climbed on and started the bike, allowing it to idle. It was quieter than some motorcycles, but she could feel the slight vibration through her seat. She felt a distinct anticipatory thrill, as if she were seated on a roller coaster as it was about to start, only this time without a seat belt.\n\nTravis eased the motorcycle forward, out of the drive, and onto the street. Gabby reached for his hips, but as soon as she touched him, she thought about his hip flexors, which made her stomach do a flip-flop. It was either that or wrap her arms around him, and she didn't feel ready for _that_. As the motorcycle began to accelerate, she told herself not to squeeze, not to move her hands at all, just to keep her hands steady, like a statue.\n\n\"What's that?\" Travis asked, craning his neck.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You said something about hands and a statue?\"\n\nUnaware she'd spoken aloud, she squeezed his hips, telling herself that she was doing it only to provide cover. \"I said keep your hands steady, like a statue. I don't want to crash.\"\n\n\"We're not going to crash. I don't like crashing.\"\n\n\"Have you ever crashed before?\"\n\nContinuing to crane his neck and making her nervous by doing so, he nodded. \"A couple of times. Spent two nights in the hospital once.\"\n\n\"And you didn't think this was important to mention before you invited me?\"\n\n\"I didn't want you to get scared.\"\n\n\"Just keep your eyes on the road, okay? And don't do anything fancy.\"\n\n\"You want me to do something fancy?\"\n\n_\"No!\"_\n\n\"Good, because I'd rather just enjoy the ride.\" He craned his neck again; despite the helmet, she could swear she saw him wink. \"The most important thing is to keep you safe, so just keep your hands steady like a statue, okay?\"\n\nOn the back of the seat, Gabby felt herself shrink, just as she had in his office, aghast that she'd said those words aloud. And that despite the wind in their faces and the roar of the engine, Travis had actually heard them. There were moments when it honestly seemed as if the world were conspiring against her.\n\nThat he didn't bring it up again over the next few minutes made her feel slightly better. With the motorcycle zipping along, they left the quiet confines of their neighborhood. Gabby slowly got the hang of leaning when Travis leaned, and a few turns later, they were making their way through Beaufort and over the small bridge that separated them from the Morehead City limits. The road widened to two lanes and was clogged with weekend beach traffic. Gabby tried to ignore the feeling of vulnerability as they rode alongside a gigantic dump truck.\n\nThey veered toward the bridge that crossed the Intracoastal Waterway, and the traffic slowed to a crawl. When they reached the highway that bisected Bogue Banks, the traffic headed for Atlantic Beach evaporated and Travis gradually began to pick up speed. Sandwiched between two minivans, one in front and the other behind them, Gabby felt herself relaxing. As they sped past condominiums and houses hidden amid the Maritime Forest, she could feel the heat of the sun beginning to soak through her clothing.\n\nShe held Travis to keep herself steady, intensely conscious of the outline of his back muscles through the thin fabric of his shirt. Despite her best intentions, she was beginning to accept the reality of the attraction she felt for him. He was so different from her, yet in his presence she felt the possibility of another kind of life, a life she had never imagined could be hers. A life without the rigid limitations others had always set for her.\n\nThey drifted in an almost dreamlike silence past one town, then another: Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, and Salter Path. On her left, largely hidden from view by oaks bent by the never-ending wind, lay some of the most desirable oceanfront property in the state. A few minutes earlier, they'd bypassed the Iron Steamer Pier. Though warped from years of storms, today it was home to scores of people fishing.\n\nAt Emerald Isle, the most westerly town on the island, Travis applied the brakes to slow for a turning car, and Gabby felt herself lean into him. Her hands inadvertently slid from his hips to his stomach, and she wondered if he noticed the way their bodies were pressed together. Though she willed herself to pull away, she didn't.\n\nThere was something happening here, something she didn't quite understand. She loved Kevin and wanted to marry him; in the past couple of days, that feeling hadn't changed at all. And yet... she couldn't deny that spending time with Travis seemed... right, somehow. Natural and easy, the way things were supposed to be. It seemed an impossible contradiction, and as they crossed the bridge at the far end of the island, heading toward home, she gave up trying to resolve it.\n\nSurprising her, Travis slowed the bike before turning onto a partially hidden one-lane road perpendicular to the highway that stretched into the forest. When he brought the bike to a halt, Gabby turned from side to side, puzzled.\n\n\"Why are we stopping?\" she asked. \"Is this the place you wanted to show me?\"\n\nTravis got off the bike and removed his helmet. He shook his head.\n\n\"No, that's back in Beaufort,\" he said. \"I wanted to see if you'd like to try driving for a bit.\"\n\n\"I've never driven a motorcycle.\" Gabby crossed her arms, remaining on the bike.\n\n\"I know. That's why I asked.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" she said, pushing up the helmet visor.\n\n\"C'mon, it'll be fun. I'll be right behind you on the bike, and I'm not going to let you crash. I'll have my hands right next to yours, I'll do all the shifting. All you'll have to do is steer until you get used to it.\"\n\n\"But it's illegal.\"\n\n\"A technicality. And besides, this is a private road. It leads to my uncle's place\u2014a little way up, it turns into a dirt road, and he's the only one who lives that way. It's where I learned to ride.\"\n\nShe hesitated, torn between excitement and terror, amazed that she was actually considering it.\n\nTravis raised his hands. \"Trust me\u2014there aren't any cars on the road, no one's going to stop us, and I'll be right there with you.\"\n\n\"Is it hard?\"\n\n\"No, but it takes a little getting used to.\"\n\n\"Like riding a bike?\"\n\n\"As far as the balance goes. But don't worry. I'll be right there, so nothing can go wrong.\" He smiled. \"You up for this?\"\n\n\"Not really. But\u2014\"\n\n\"Great!\" he said. \"First things first. Slide forward, okay? On your right handlebar is the throttle and the front brake. On the left is the clutch. The throttle governs your speed. Got it?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Your right foot controls the back brake. You use your left foot to shift the gears.\"\n\n\"Easy.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"No. Just making you feel better about your teaching skills.\"\n\nShe was beginning to sound like Stephanie, he thought. \"After that, the shifting is kind of like driving a manual car. You let off the throttle, engage the clutch, shift, and then throttle up again. But I'm going to show you, okay? But to do that, we're kind of going to be sandwiched together. My arms and legs aren't long enough to reach from the backseat.\"\n\n\"A convenient excuse,\" she said.\n\n\"Which just happens to be true. You ready for this?\"\n\n\"I'm scared out of my wits.\"\n\n\"I'll take that as a yes. Now, scoot up a bit.\"\n\nShe slid forward, and Travis got on. After putting on his helmet, he wedged up against her, reaching for the handlebars, and despite his warning, she felt something jump inside, a light shock that started in her stomach and radiated outward.\n\n\"Now just put your hands on top of mine,\" he instructed. \"And do the same with your feet. I just want you to feel what's happening. It's kind of a rhythm thing, but once you get the hang of it, you'll never forget.\"\n\n\"Is this how you learned?\"\n\n\"No. My friend stood off to the side, yelling instructions. My first time out, I squeezed the clutch instead of the brake and ended up crashing into a tree. Which is why I want to be right here your first time out.\" He lifted the kickstand, engaged the clutch, and started the engine; as soon as it began to idle, she felt the same fluttery nerves she'd felt the moment before the parasail lifted her from the boat. She put her hands on his, relishing the feel of him against her.\n\n\"You ready?\"\n\n\"As I'll ever be.\"\n\n\"Keep your hands light, okay?\"\n\nTravis turned the throttle and slowly eased out the clutch; in the instant the motorcycle began to move, he lifted his foot from the ground. Gabby allowed her foot to settle lightly on his.\n\nThey went slowly at first, Travis accelerating gradually, then easing off, accelerating again, and finally shifting to another gear before slowing again and coming to a stop. Then they started over again, Travis carefully explaining what he was doing\u2014using the brake or getting ready to shift and reminding her never to squeeze the front brake in panic or she'd go flying over the handlebars. Little by little, as the process continued, Gabby got the hang of it. The choreographed movement of his hands and feet struck her as something akin to playing the piano, and after a few minutes, she could almost anticipate what he was going to do. Even so, he continued to guide her until the movements felt almost second nature.\n\nWith that, he had them switch places; her hands and feet were now on the controls, with his atop hers, and they repeated the process from the beginning. It wasn't as easy as he'd made it seem. At times the motorcycle jerked or she squeezed the hand brake too hard, but he was patient and encouraging. He never raised his voice, and she found herself recalling the way he'd been with the toddlers at the beach the day before. There was, she admitted, more to Travis than she had initially realized.\n\nOver the next fifteen minutes, as she continued to practice driving, his touch became even lighter, until finally he let go entirely. Though she wasn't entirely comfortable, she began to accelerate faster and more smoothly, and braking came just as naturally. For the first time, she felt the power and freedom the motorcycle offered.\n\n\"You're doing fantastic,\" Travis said.\n\n\"This is great!\" she cried, feeling almost giddy.\n\n\"Are you ready to try riding solo?\"\n\n\"You're kidding.\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\nShe debated only an instant. \"Yeah,\" she said enthusiastically. \"I think I am.\"\n\nShe brought the bike to a stop, and Travis hopped off. After watching him step back, she took a deep breath, ignored the pounding in her chest, and got the motorcycle going. A moment later, she was zipping along. On her own, she stopped and started a dozen times, gradually reducing the distances. Surprising Travis, she turned the bike around in a slow, wide arc and came racing back toward him. For a moment, he thought she was out of control, but she brought the bike to an elegant stop only steps from him. Unable to stop grinning, she ran her words together with kinetic energy.\n\n\"I can't believe I just did that!\"\n\n\"You did great!\"\n\n\"Did you see me turn around? I know I was going too slow, but I made it.\"\n\n\"I saw that.\"\n\n\"This is great! I can see why you love riding. It's a blast.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you enjoyed it.\"\n\n\"Can I try it again?\"\n\nHe motioned to the road. \"Feel free.\"\n\nShe rode back and forth along the road for a long while, Travis watching her confidence grow with every stop and start. Her turns were executed with greater ease as well\u2014she even began driving in a circle\u2014and by the time she stopped in front of him, her face was flushed. When she took off her helmet, Travis was sure he'd never seen anyone more alive and beautiful.\n\n\"I'm done,\" she announced. \"You can drive now.\"\n\n\"You sure?\"\n\n\"I learned a long time ago to quit while I'm ahead. I'd hate to crash and ruin this feeling.\"\n\nGabby scooted back and Travis got on the bike, only to feel her wrap her arms around him. As he wound his way back to the highway, Travis felt charged, as if his senses had been put on overdrive, and he was acutely aware of the curves of her body against his. They made their way up the highway, turned, and cut through Morehead City, passing by the Atlantic Beach bridge and completing the loop on their way back to Beaufort.\n\nMinutes later, they were passing through the historic district, cruising past restaurants and the marina on their way down Front Street. Travis finally slowed the motorcycle, pulling onto a large grassy lot near the end of the block. The empty lot bordered a weathered Georgian that was at least a hundred years old on one side and an equally aged Victorian on the other. He turned off the engine and removed his helmet.\n\n\"Here we are,\" he said, ushering her off the bike. \"This is what I wanted to show you.\"\n\nThere was something in his voice that kept her from making light of what seemed to be nothing more than a vacant lot, and for a moment, she simply watched Travis as he walked a few steps in silence. He was staring across the road, toward Shackleford Banks, his hands in his pockets. Removing her helmet and running a hand through her matted hair, Gabby walked toward him. Reaching his side, she sensed he would tell her what this was all about when he was ready.\n\n\"In my opinion, this place has one of the most beautiful views anywhere along the coast,\" he finally said. \"It's not like an ocean view, where all you see is waves and water stretching to the horizon. That's great, but after a while it gets boring, because the view is always pretty much the same. But here, there's always something to see. There are always sailboats and yachts streaming toward the marina; if you come out here at night, you can see the crowds along the waterfront and listen to the music. I've seen porpoises and rays passing through the channel, and I especially love to see the wild horses over on the island. I don't care how many times I've seen them, I'm always amazed.\"\n\n\"You come out here a lot?\"\n\n\"Twice a week, maybe. This is where I come to think.\"\n\n\"I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled about that.\"\n\n\"It's not like they can do anything about it. I own it.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Why do you sound so surprised when you say that?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I guess it just sounds so... domestic.\"\n\n\"I do own a house already....\"\n\n\"And I hear your neighbor is terrific.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah...\"\n\n\"I just meant that buying a lot makes it sound like you're the kind of guy who has long-term plans.\"\n\n\"And you don't see me like that?\"\n\n\"Well...\"\n\n\"If you're trying to flatter me, you're not doing a very good job.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"How about this, then: You continually surprise me.\"\n\n\"In a good way?\"\n\n\"Every time.\"\n\n\"Like when you brought Molly to the clinic and realized I was a veterinarian?\"\n\n\"I'd rather not talk about that.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Then let's eat.\"\n\nShe followed him back to the motorcycle, where he unpacked the basket and a blanket. After leading her up a small incline toward the rear of the property, he spread the blanket and motioned for her to sit. Once they were both comfortable, he started removing Tupperware containers.\n\n\"Tupperware?\"\n\nHe winked. \"My friends call me Mr. Domestic.\"\n\nHe pulled out two chilled cans of strawberry-flavored iced tea. After opening hers, he handed it to her.\n\n\"What's on the menu?\" she asked.\n\nHe pointed to various containers as he spoke. \"I've got three different kinds of cheese, crackers, Kalamata olives, and grapes\u2014it's more a snack than a lunch.\"\n\n\"Sounds perfect.\" She reached for the crackers and then sliced herself some cheese. \"There used to be a house here, right?\" When she saw his surprise, she waved toward the houses on either side of the lot. \"I can't imagine that this particular spot has been vacant for a hundred fifty years.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" he said. \"It burned down when I was a kid. I know you think Beaufort is small now, but when I grew up here, it wasn't more than a blip on the map. Most of these historic homes had fallen into disrepair, and the one that had been here had been abandoned for years. It was a great big rambling kind of place with big holes in the roof, and it was rumored to be haunted, which made it that much more attractive to us when we were kids. We used to sneak over here at night. It was like our fort, and we'd play hide-and-seek for hours in the rooms. There were tons of great hiding places.\" He pulled absently at some grass, as if reaching for the memories. \"Anyway, one winter night, I guess a couple of vagrants lit a fire inside to stay warm. The place went up in minutes, and the next day it was just this smoldering pile. But the thing was, no one knew how to contact the man who owned it. The original owner had died and left it to his son. The son died, and he'd left it to someone else, and so on, so that pile of rubble sat there for about a year until the town came in and bulldozed it away. The lot kind of got forgotten after that, until I finally tracked down the owner in New Mexico and made a lowball offer on it. He accepted it immediately. I doubt if he'd ever been here, and he didn't know what he was giving up.\"\n\n\"And you're going to build a house here?\"\n\n\"That's part of my long-term plan, anyway, being that I'm so domestic and all.\" Travis grabbed an olive and popped it into his mouth. \"You ready to tell me about your boyfriend yet?\"\n\nHer mind flashed to the conversation she'd had with Kevin earlier. \"What's your interest?\"\n\n\"I'm just making conversation.\"\n\nGabby reached for an olive as well. \"Then let's talk about one of your previous girlfriends instead.\"\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"Any of them.\"\n\n\"All right. One of them gave me some movie posters.\"\n\n\"Was she pretty?\"\n\nHe considered his answer. \"Most people would say she was.\"\n\n\"And what would you say?\"\n\n\"I would say... that you're right. Maybe we shouldn't talk about this.\"\n\nShe laughed, then pointed to the olives. \"These are great, by the way. Everything you brought is perfect.\"\n\nHe added cheese to another cracker. \"When does your boyfriend get back to town?\"\n\n\"Are we back to this again?\"\n\n\"I'm just thinking of you. I don't want to get you in trouble.\"\n\n\"I appreciate your concern, but I'm a big girl. And not that it matters, but he'll be coming home on Wednesday. Why?\"\n\n\"Because I've enjoyed getting to know you these last couple of days.\"\n\n\"And I've enjoyed getting to know you.\"\n\n\"But are you bummed it's coming to an end?\"\n\n\"It doesn't have to come to an end. We'll still be neighbors.\"\n\n\"And I'm sure your boyfriend wouldn't mind if I took you out for another motorcycle ride, or went for a picnic with you, or if you sat in the hot tub with me, right?\"\n\nThe answer was obvious, and her expression became more serious. \"He probably wouldn't be too happy about it.\"\n\n\"So it'll be ending.\"\n\n\"We can still be friends.\"\n\nHe stared at her for a moment, then suddenly grabbed at his chest as if he'd been shot. \"You really know how to hurt a guy.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"There's no such thing as being friends. Not with single men and women our age. It just doesn't work like that, unless you're talking about someone you've known for a very long time. Certainly not when it comes to strangers.\"\n\nGabby opened her mouth to respond, but there was really nothing to say.\n\n\"And besides,\" he went on, \"I'm not sure I want to be friends.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because most likely I'd find myself wanting more than that.\"\n\nAgain, she said nothing. Travis watched her, unable to read her expression. Finally he shrugged.\n\n\"I don't think you'd want to be friends with me, either. It wouldn't be good for your relationship, since there's no doubt you'd probably end up falling for me, too, and in the end, you'd do something you'd regret. After that, you'd blame me for it, and then after a while, you'd probably end up moving, since the whole thing would be so uncomfortable for you.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\"\n\n\"It's one of the curses of my life to be as charming as I am.\"\n\n\"It sounds like you've got the whole thing figured out.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Except for the part about me falling for you.\"\n\n\"You can't see that happening?\"\n\n\"I have a boyfriend.\"\n\n\"And you're going to marry him?\"\n\n\"As soon as he asks. That's why I moved here.\"\n\n\"Why hasn't he asked you yet?\"\n\n\"That's none of your business.\"\n\n\"Do I know him?\"\n\n\"Why are you so curious?\"\n\n\"Because,\" he said, his eyes steady on hers, \"if I was him, and you moved up here to be with me, I would've already asked you.\"\n\nShe heard something in his tone that made her realize he was telling the truth, and she looked away. When she spoke, her voice was soft. \"Don't ruin this for me, okay?\"\n\n\"Ruin what?\"\n\n\"This. Today. Yesterday. Last night. All of it. Don't ruin it.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean.\"\n\nShe took a deep breath. \"This weekend has meant a lot to me, if only because I finally felt I'd made a friend. A couple of them, actually. I didn't realize how much I'd missed having friends in my life. Spending time with you and your sister reminded me of how much I left behind when I moved here. I mean, I knew what I was doing, and I'm not sorry I made the decision I did. Believe it or not, I do love Kevin.\" She paused, struggling to order her thoughts. \"But it's hard sometimes. Weekends like this most likely won't happen again, and I'm partly reconciled to that, because of Kevin. But there's a part of me that doesn't want to accept that it's a onetime thing, even though we both know it is.\" She hesitated. \"When you say things like you just said, and I know you don't mean them, it just trivializes everything I'm going through.\"\n\nTravis listened intently, recognizing an intensity in her voice she hadn't allowed him to hear before. And though he knew he should have simply nodded and apologized, he couldn't stop himself from responding.\n\n\"What makes you think I didn't mean what I said?\" he countered. \"I meant every word. But I understand that you don't want to hear it. Let me just say that I hope your boyfriend realizes how lucky he is to have someone like you in his life. He's a fool if he doesn't. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, and I won't say it again.\" He grinned. \"But I had to say it once.\"\n\nShe looked away, liking what he had said despite herself. Travis turned toward the water, allowing her the silence she needed; unlike Kevin, he always seemed to know how to respond.\n\n\"We should probably be heading back, don't you think?\" He motioned toward the bike. \"And you should probably check on Molly.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" she agreed. \"That's probably a good idea.\"\n\nThey packed up the remains of the food and placed the containers back into the basket, then folded up the blanket and retraced their steps to the motorcycle. Over her shoulder, Gabby saw people beginning to crowd the restaurants for a late lunch, and she found herself envying the simplicity of their choices.\n\nTravis refastened the blanket and basket, then put on his helmet. Gabby did the same, and they pulled out of the lot a moment later. Gabby clung to Travis's hips, trying and failing to convince herself that he'd said similar things to dozens of different women in the past.\n\nThey pulled into her drive, and Travis brought the motorcycle to a halt. Gabby let go of him and dismounted, removing her helmet. Standing before him, she felt an awkwardness she hadn't experienced since high school, a notion that seemed ridiculous, and she had the feeling he was about to kiss her again.\n\n\"Thanks for today,\" she said, wanting to preserve a little distance between them. \"And thanks for the riding lesson, too.\"\n\n\"My pleasure. You're a natural. You should consider getting your own bike.\"\n\n\"Maybe one day.\"\n\nIn the silence, Gabby could hear the engine ticking in the heat. She handed Travis the helmet, watching as he placed it on the seat.\n\n\"Okay, then,\" he said. \"I guess I'll see you around?\"\n\n\"Hard not to, us being neighbors and all.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to check on Molly for you?\"\n\n\"No, that's okay. I'm sure she's doing fine.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Hey, listen, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. It wasn't my place to pry like I did, or make you feel uncomfortable.\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" she said. \"It didn't bother me at all.\"\n\n\"Sure it didn't.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Well, since you were lying, I figured I'd lie.\"\n\nDespite the tension, he laughed. \"Do me a favor? If this whole boyfriend thing doesn't work out, give me a call.\"\n\n\"I might just do that.\"\n\n\"And on that note, I think I'll take my leave.\" He turned the handlebars and started walking the motorcycle backward, getting into position to leave her drive. He was about to start the engine when he looked at her again. \"Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"I can't believe you just asked me that.\"\n\n\"A man's got to seize the moment. It's kind of my motto.\"\n\n\"So I've learned.\"\n\n\"Is that a yes or a no?\"\n\nShe took a step backward, but in spite of her reservations, she found herself smiling at his persistence. \"How about if I make you dinner tonight instead? At my place. Seven o'clock.\"\n\n\"Sounds great,\" he said, and a moment later she was standing in the drive, wondering if she had taken temporary leave of her senses.\n\n# Thirteen\n\nWith the sun beating down mercilessly and the water from the hose icy cold, Travis had a hard time keeping Moby in one place. The short leash didn't seem to help much; Moby hated baths, which struck Travis as ironic, considering how much the dog loved to chase after tennis balls thrown into the ocean. On those occasions, Moby would bound through the waves, dog-paddling with fury, and showed no hesitation about shoving his head underwater for a better grip if the tennis ball bobbed away from him. But if he noticed Travis opening the drawer where his leash was kept, Moby would seize the opportunity to explore the neighborhood for hours, usually returning long after dark.\n\nTravis had grown used to Moby's tricks, which was why he'd kept the leash out of sight until the last instant, then hooked it to Moby's collar before he could react. Moby, as usual, had given him his best \"how could you do this to me?\" expression as he was being walked around back, but Travis had shaken his head.\n\n\"Don't blame me. I didn't tell you to roll in dead fish, did I?\"\n\nMoby loved to roll in dead fish, the more foul-smelling the better, and while Travis was parking his motorcycle in the garage, Moby had trotted up happily with his tongue hanging out, acting proud of himself. Travis had smiled for only an instant before the stench hit and he noticed the disgusting chunks embedded in Moby's fur. After giving Moby a tentative pat on the head, he had sneaked inside to change into shorts, tucking the leash in his back pocket.\n\nNow out back, with the leash secured to the deck railing, Moby danced from side to side, trying and failing to avoid getting even more wet than he already was.\n\n\"It's only water, you big baby,\" Travis scolded, although truthfully, he'd been spraying Moby for almost five minutes. As much as he loved animals, he didn't want to start shampooing until all the... _debris_ had been rinsed away. Dead fish parts were disgusting.\n\nMoby whined and continued to dance, tugging backward on the leash. When he was finally ready, Travis set aside the hose and poured a third of the bottle of shampoo on Moby's back. He scrubbed for a few minutes and rinsed, then sniffed the dog and winced. They went through the process two more times, at which point Moby was despondent. He fixed his eyes on Travis with a mournful expression that seemed to say, _Don't you realize I rolled in fish guts as my personal gift to you?_\n\nOnce Travis was satisfied, he brought Moby to another part of the deck and secured him again. He'd learned that if allowed to roam immediately after a bath, Moby would return to the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. His only hope was to keep him secured so long that he forgot about it. Moby shook away the excess water and\u2014realizing he was stuck\u2014finally lay down on the deck with a grunt.\n\nAfterward, Travis mowed the lawn. Unlike most of his neighbors, who rode their lawn mowers, Travis still used a push mower. It took a little longer, but it was not only decent exercise, he found the repetitive back-and-forth nature of the activity relaxing. As he mowed, he kept glancing reflexively toward Gabby's house.\n\nA few minutes earlier, he'd seen her leaving the garage and hop in her car. If she'd noticed him, she hadn't shown it. Instead, she'd simply backed out, then headed down the road toward town. He'd never met anyone quite like her. And now she'd invited him to dinner.\n\nHe didn't know what to make of that, and he'd been trying to figure it out ever since dropping her off. Most likely he'd simply worn her down. Lord knows he'd been oiling that wheel ever since they'd met, but as he mowed, he found himself wishing that he'd been a bit more subtle about the whole thing. It would have made him feel better about her dinner invitation, knowing that it hadn't been coerced somehow.\n\nWondering about all of this was new to him. But then again, he couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed himself so thoroughly with a woman. He'd laughed more with Gabby than he had with Monica or Joelyn or Sarah or anyone else he'd dated in the past. Finding a woman with a sense of humor had been the one piece of advice his father had given him when he'd first begun to get serious about dating, and he finally understood why his dad had considered it important. If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.\n\nAfter finishing the lawn, he dragged the mower back to the garage, noting that Gabby still hadn't returned. She'd left the garage door cracked open, and Molly wandered out into the yard, then turned around and headed back inside.\n\nBack in his kitchen, Travis downed a glass of iced tea in one long gulp. Knowing better but not caring, he let his thoughts drift to Gabby's boyfriend. He wondered if Kevin was someone he knew. He found it odd that she'd said so little about him and that it had taken her so long simply to tell him his name. It would be easy to attribute it to something like guilt, except for the fact that she had shied away from the topic from the be ginning. He didn't know what to make of it, and he wondered what the guy was like or what he had done to make Gabby fall in love with him. In his mind's eye, images floated past\u2014athletic, bookish, somewhere in between\u2014but none of them seemed exactly right.\n\nNoting the time, he figured that he could get the parasail boat back to the marina before showering and getting ready. He retrieved the boat key and headed out the back slider, untied Moby, and watched as Moby raced past him down the steps. Stopping at the edge of the dock, Travis motioned to the boat.\n\n\"Yeah, go ahead. Get in.\"\n\nMoby jumped into the boat, his tail darting to and fro. Travis followed him in. Minutes later they were cruising down the creek, the wake leaving a trail that pointed them in the right direction. Passing Gabby's house, he stole a look at her windows, thinking again about their upcoming dinner and wondering what would happen. He was, he realized for the first time in his dating life, nervous that he might do something wrong.\n\nGabby made the short drive to the grocery store and pulled into the crowded lot. It was always packed on Sundays, and she ended up parking in the far corner, making her wonder why she'd driven the car in the first place.\n\nSlinging her purse over her shoulder, she got out of the car, located a cart, and entered the store.\n\nShe'd spotted Travis mowing the lawn earlier, but she'd ignored him, needing somehow to feel more in control than she actually was. The nice, orderly little world she'd created had been thrown out of whack, and she desperately needed some time to regain her composure.\n\nInside, Gabby made her way to the produce section, where she collected some fresh green beans and the makings for a salad. Moving quickly, she located a box of pasta and some croutons, then headed toward the rear of the store.\n\nKnowing that Travis liked chicken, she put a packet of breasts in the cart, thinking that a bottle of Chardonnay would go well with them. She wasn't sure whether Travis liked wine\u2014she somehow doubted it\u2014but it sounded good to her, and she scanned the limited selection for a winery that she recognized. There were two offerings from Napa Valley, but she chose something from Australia, thinking it sounded a little more exotic.\n\nThe checkout lines were long and moving slowly, but at last she made it back to her car. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she caught an image of herself and paused for a moment, staring at herself as if through someone else's eyes.\n\nHow long had it been since someone besides Kevin had kissed her? As much as she'd tried to forget that little incident, she'd found herself returning to it over and over, like a forbidden secret.\n\nShe was drawn to Travis; she couldn't deny that. It wasn't just that he was handsome and that he made her feel desirable. It had something to do with his natural exuberance and the way he'd made her feel a part of it; it was the fact that he had lived a life that seemed so different from hers, yet they still spoke the same language, a familiarity that belied the short period they had known each other. She'd never met someone like him before. Most people she'd known, and certainly everyone in her PA class, seemed to live their lives as if marking off goals on a score sheet. Study hard, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids\u2014and until this weekend, she realized she'd been no different. Somehow, compared with the choices he'd made and the places he'd traveled, her life seemed so... banal.\n\nBut would she do it differently if she could? She doubted it. Her experiences growing up had formed her into the woman that she'd become, just as his experiences had formed him, and she didn't regret them. And yet, as she turned the key and started the engine, she knew that wasn't the question that mattered. As the car idled, she realized the choice before her was this: Where do I go from here?\n\n_It is never too late to change things_. The thought frightened her even as it excited her. A few minutes later, she was heading toward Morehead City, feeling as if somehow she'd been given the chance to start over.\n\nThe sun had drifted across the sky by the time Gabby got home, and she spotted Molly lying in the marsh grass, her ears perked up and tail thumping. She trotted toward Gabby as she opened the rear door, greeting her with a couple of sloppy licks.\n\n\"You seem almost back to normal,\" Gabby said. \"Your babies doing okay?\"\n\nAs if on cue, Molly began wandering that way.\n\nGabby reached for the bags and brought them inside, setting the groceries on the counter. It had taken her longer than she'd anticipated, but she still had enough time to get things started. She set a pot of water on the stove and set the burner on high for the pasta. While it was heating, she chopped the tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad. She cut up the lettuce and mixed the ingredients together with a bit of cheese and the olives Travis had introduced her to the day before.\n\nShe added the pasta to the water with a dash of salt, unwrapped the chicken, and began to saut\u00e9 it in olive oil, wishing she could have done something a bit fancier. She added a bit of pepper and other seasonings, but by the end, it looked almost as boring as it had before she started. Never mind, it would have to do. She set the oven to warm, added some broth to the bowl along with the chicken, and set it inside, hoping that would be enough to keep it from drying out. She drained the pasta and put it in a bowl in the fridge, planning to add a little flavoring to it later.\n\nIn her bedroom, she laid out some clothes and headed into the shower. The warm water was luxurious. She shaved her legs, forcing herself not to rush so she wouldn't nick herself, washed and conditioned her hair, and finally stepped out and dried off.\n\nOn the bed were a new pair of jeans and a beaded, lowcut shirt. She'd chosen her outfit carefully, not wanting to dress too formally or casually, and these seemed just right. She dressed and then slipped on a new pair of sandals and a dangly pair of earrings. Stepping in front of the floor mirror, she turned from side to side, pleased with the way she looked.\n\nWith time running out, she set out some candles throughout the house and was adding the last of them to the table when she heard Travis knocking. She stood straight, trying to compose herself, then made her way to the door.\n\nMolly had wandered up to Travis, and he was scratching her behind the ears when the door opened. He found himself unable to turn away. Nor could he find his voice. Instead, he stared wordlessly at Gabby, trying to sort through the jumble of emotions that began to crowd his heart.\n\nGabby smiled at his obvious discomfiture. \"Come in,\" she said. \"I've just about got everything ready.\"\n\nTravis followed her inside, trying not to stare as she walked ahead of him.\n\n\"I was just about to open a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nIn the kitchen, she reached for the bottle and opener as Travis stepped forward.\n\n\"I can get that for you.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you said that. I have a tendency to shred the cork, and I hate having pieces floating in my glass.\"\n\nAs he opened the bottle, Travis watched her retrieve two glasses from the cupboard. She set them on the counter, and Travis noted the label, feigning more interest than he felt, trying to steady his nerves.\n\n\"I've never had this kind before. Is it any good?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"Then I guess it'll be new for the both of us.\" He poured and handed one glass to her, trying to read her expression.\n\n\"I wasn't sure what you wanted for dinner,\" she chatted on, \"but I knew that you liked chicken. I have to warn you, though. I've never been the chef in my family.\"\n\n\"I'm sure whatever you made will be fine. I'm not that picky.\"\n\n\"As long as it's plain, right?\"\n\n\"That goes without saying.\"\n\n\"Are you hungry?\" She smiled. \"It'll only take a few minutes to heat this up....\"\n\nHe debated for a moment before leaning against the counter. \"Actually, could we wait for a little while? I'd like to enjoy my glass of wine first.\"\n\nShe nodded, and in the silence she stood before him, wondering what she was supposed to do next.\n\n\"Would you like to go sit outside?\"\n\n\"Love to.\"\n\nThey took a seat in the rockers she'd placed near the door. Gabby took a sip of her wine, glad for something to take the edge off her nerves.\n\n\"I like your view,\" Travis said gamely, rocking back and forth with energy. \"It reminds me of mine.\"\n\nGabby laughed, feeling a little burst of relief. \"Unfortunately, I haven't learned to enjoy it the way you do.\"\n\n\"Very few people do. It's kind of a lost art these days, even in the South. Watching the creek flow by is a little like smelling the roses.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's a small-town thing,\" she speculated.\n\nTravis eyed her with interest. \"Tell me honestly, are you enjoying life in Beaufort?\" he asked.\n\n\"It has its good points.\"\n\n\"I hear the neighbors are terrific.\"\n\n\"I've only met one.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"He has a tendency to ask loaded questions.\"\n\nTravis grinned. He loved her sense of play.\n\n\"But to answer your question,\" she went on, \"yes, I do like it here. I like the fact that it takes only a few minutes to get anywhere, it's beautiful, and for the most part, I think I'm learning to love the slower pace of life.\"\n\n\"You make it sound like Savannah is as cosmopolitan as New York or Paris.\"\n\n\"It isn't.\" She looked over her glass at him. \"But I will say that Savannah is definitely closer to New York than Beaufort. Have you ever been there?\"\n\n\"I spent a week there one night.\"\n\n\"Ha-ha. You know, if you're going to make a joke, you could try coming up with something original.\"\n\n\"That's too much work.\"\n\n\"And you're averse to work, right?\"\n\n\"Can't you tell?\" He leaned back in his rocker, the picture of ease. \"Tell me the truth, though. Do you think you'll ever move back?\"\n\nShe took a swallow of wine before answering. \"I don't think so,\" she said. \"Don't get me wrong. I think it's a great place, and it's one of the most beautiful cities in the South. I love the way the city was laid out. It has the most beautiful squares\u2014these lovely parks scattered every few blocks\u2014and some of the houses that front them are stunning. When I was a little girl, I used to imagine myself living in one of them. For a long time, it was a dream of mine.\"\n\nTravis stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. Gabby shrugged. \"But as I grew older, I began to realize that it was more my mom's dream than my own. She always wanted to live in one of those homes, and I remember the way she used to badger my dad to put in an offer whenever one was for sale. My dad did well, don't get me wrong, but I could tell it always bothered him that he couldn't afford one of the really grand houses, and after a while, it just rubbed me the wrong way.\" She paused. \"Anyway, I guess I wanted something different. Which led, of course, to college and PA school and Kevin. And here I am.\"\n\nFrom a distance, they heard Moby begin barking frantically, the sound followed by the faint rustling of claws on bark. Glancing at the large oak tree near the hedges, Travis watched as a squirrel raced up the trunk. Though he couldn't see him, he knew that Moby was still circling the oak, thinking that somehow the critter would lose its grip. Noticing that Gabby had turned at the sound, Travis raised his glass in that direction.\n\n\"My dog is crazy about chasing squirrels. He seems to regard it as his life's purpose.\"\n\n\"Most dogs do.\"\n\n\"Does Molly?\"\n\n\"No. Her owner has a bit more control over her, and she nipped that little problem in the bud before it got out of hand.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Travis said with mock seriousness.\n\nOver the water, the first brilliant act of the sun's descent was beginning. In another hour the creek would turn golden, but for now there was something dark and mysterious about its brackish color. Beyond the cypress trees lining the bank, Travis could see an osprey floating on updrafts and watched as a small motorboat loaded with fishing gear puttered past. It was captained by someone old enough to be Travis's grandfather, and the gentleman waved. Travis returned the greeting, then took another drink.\n\n\"With all you said, I'm curious as to whether you can imagine yourself staying in Beaufort.\"\n\nShe thought about her answer, sensing there was more to the question than it appeared.\n\n\"I suppose that depends,\" she finally hedged. \"It's not exactly exciting, but on the other hand, it's not a bad place to raise a family.\"\n\n\"And that's important?\"\n\nShe turned toward him with a faint air of challenge. \"Is there anything more important?\"\n\n\"No,\" he agreed evenly, \"there isn't. I'm evidence of that belief because I lived it. Beaufort is the kind of place where Little League baseball generates more conversation than the Super Bowl, and I like thinking that I can raise my kids where the little world they live in is all they know. Growing up, I used to think that this was the most boring place in the world, but when I think back, I realize that the corollary to that was that anything exciting meant that much more to me. I never grew jaded, the way so many city kids do.\" He paused. \"I remember going fishing with my dad every Saturday morning, and even though my dad was just about the worst fisherman who ever baited a hook, I found it thrilling. Now I understand that for my dad, at least, it was all about spending time with me, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for that. I like thinking that I can give my kids the same kinds of experiences someday.\"\n\n\"It's nice to hear you say something like that,\" Gabby said. \"A lot of people don't think that way.\"\n\n\"I love this town.\"\n\n\"Not that,\" she said, smiling. \"I was talking about the way you wanted to raise your kids. It seems like you've given it a lot of thought.\"\n\n\"I have,\" he conceded.\n\n\"You always have a way of surprising me, don't you.\"\n\n\"I don't know. Do I?\"\n\n\"A little. The more I've gotten to know you, the more you've come to strike me as impossibly well-adjusted.\"\n\n\"I could say the same about you,\" he responded. \"Maybe that's why we get along so well.\"\n\nShe stared at him, feeling the crackle of tension between them. \"You ready for dinner yet?\"\n\nHe swallowed, hoping she couldn't sense his feelings for her. \"That sounds great,\" he forced out.\n\nTaking their wineglasses, they returned to the kitchen. Gabby motioned for Travis to sit at the table while she got things ready, and as he watched her move around the kitchen, he felt a sense of contentment settle upon him.\n\nAt dinner, he ate two pieces of chicken, enjoyed the green beans and the pasta, and complimented Gabby extravagantly on her cooking, until she giggled, begging him to stop. He asked her repeatedly about her childhood in Savannah, and she finally relented, regaling him with a couple of girlhood stories that made them both chuckle. In time, the sky turned gray and blue and finally black. The candles burned lower, and they poured the last of the wine into their glasses, both aware that they were sitting across from a person who just might change the course of their lives forever if they weren't careful.\n\nAfter dinner was over and Travis helped Gabby clean up, they retreated to the couch, nursing their wine and sharing stories from their pasts. Gabby tried to imagine Travis as a young boy, wondering also what she would have thought about him had they met during her high school or college years.\n\nAs the evening wore on, Travis inched closer, casually slipping his arm around her. Gabby leaned into him, feeling snug against him, content to watch the play of silver moonlight as it filtered through the clouds.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" Travis asked at one point, breaking a particularly long yet comfortable silence.\n\n\"I was thinking how natural this whole weekend has seemed.\" Gabby looked at him. \"Like we've known each other forever.\"\n\n\"I guess that means a couple of my stories were boring, huh?\"\n\n\"Don't underestimate yourself,\" she teased. \"Lots of your stories were boring.\"\n\nHe laughed, pulling her tighter. \"The more I get to know you, the more you surprise me. I like that.\"\n\n\"What are neighbors for?\"\n\n\"Is that still all I am to you? Just a neighbor?\"\n\nShe glanced away without responding, and Travis went on. \"I know it makes you uncomfortable, but I can't leave tonight without telling you that just being neighbors isn't enough for me.\"\n\n\"Travis...\"\n\n\"Let me finish, okay?\" he said. \"Earlier today, when we talked, you told me how much you'd missed having friends around, and I've been thinking about that ever since, but not in the way that you probably imagine. It made me realize that even though I have friends, I've been missing something that all my friends do have. Laird and Allison, Joe and Megan, Matt and Liz, all have each other. I don't have that in my life, and until you came along, I wasn't sure I even wanted it. But now...\"\n\nShe picked at the beadwork on her shirt, resisting his words and yet welcoming them, too.\n\n\"I don't want to lose you, Gabby. I can't imagine seeing you walk to your car in the morning and pretending that none of this ever happened. I can't imagine not sitting here with you on the couch, like we're doing now.\" He swallowed. \"And right now, I can't imagine being in love with any other woman.\"\n\nGabby wasn't sure she'd heard him right, but when she saw the way he was staring at her, she knew he meant it. And with that, she felt the last of her defenses falling away and knew she had fallen in love with him as well.\n\nThe grandfather clock chimed in the background. Candlelight flickered on the walls, casting shadows around the room. Travis could sense the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, and they continued to stare at each other, neither one of them able to speak.\n\nThe phone rang, shattering her thoughts, and Travis turned away. Gabby leaned forward and reached for the portable phone. She answered, her voice betraying nothing.\n\n\"Oh, hey, how are you?... Not much... Uh-huh... I was running some errands.... What's been going on there?\"\n\nAs she listened to Kevin's voice, a rush of guilt washed over her. Yet she found herself reaching over and placing a hand on Travis's leg. He hadn't moved or made a sound, and she could feel the muscles tense beneath his jeans as she ran her hand along his thigh.\n\n\"Oh, that's great. Congratulations. I'm glad you won... sounds like you had fun.... Oh, me? Nothing too exciting.\"\n\nHearing Kevin's voice while being so close to Travis was pulling her in two directions. She tried to concentrate and listen to Kevin, while sorting through what had just happened with Travis. The situation was too surreal to absorb.\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear that.... I know, I get sunburned, too.... Uh-huh... uh-huh... Yes, I've thought about the trip to Miami, but I don't get any vacation days until the end of the year.... Maybe, I don't know....\"\n\nShe released Travis's leg and leaned back against the couch, trying to keep her voice steady, wishing she hadn't answered, wishing he hadn't called. Knowing she was only becoming more confused. \"We'll see, okay? We'll talk about it when you get back.... No, nothing's wrong. I'm just tired, I guess.... No, nothing to worry about. It's been a long weekend....\"\n\nIt wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth, either, and she knew it, which made her feel even worse. Travis was staring downward, listening but pretending not to.\n\n\"I will,\" she went on. \"Yeah, you, too... Uh-huh... yeah, I should be around.... Okay... I do, too. And have fun tomorrow. Bye.\"\n\nHanging up the phone, she seemed preoccupied for a moment before leaning forward and putting the handset on the table. Travis knew enough not to say anything.\n\n\"That was Kevin,\" she finally said.\n\n\"I figured,\" Travis said, unable to read her expression.\n\n\"He won the best ball tournament today.\"\n\n\"Good for him.\"\n\nAgain, a silence descended between them.\n\n\"I think I need some fresh air,\" she finally said, rising from the couch. She made her way to the sliding glass door and stepped outside.\n\nTravis watched her go, wondering if he should join her or whether she needed to be alone. From his spot on the couch, her image against the railing was shadowed. He could imagine heading out to join her, only to hear her suggest that it might be best if he left, and though the thought frightened him, he needed to be with her, now more than ever.\n\nHe made his way out the door and joined her against the rail. In the moonlight, her skin was pearly, her eyes darkly luminous.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said.\n\n\"Don't be. There's nothing for you to be sorry for.\" She forced a smile. \"It's my fault, not yours. I knew what I was getting into.\"\n\nGabby could sense that he wanted to touch her, but she was torn about whether she wanted him to. She knew she should end this, that she shouldn't let the evening progress any further, but she couldn't break the spell that Travis's declaration had cast over her. It didn't make sense. It took time to fall in love, more time than a single weekend, yet somehow, despite her feelings for Kevin, it had happened. She sensed Travis's nervousness as he stood beside her, and she watched him fortify himself with a last sip of wine.\n\n\"Did you mean what you said earlier?\" she asked. \"About wanting a family?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did.\"\n\n\"I'm glad,\" she said. \"Because I think you'd be a great father. I didn't tell you before, but that's what I thought when I saw you with the kids yesterday. You seemed so natural with them.\"\n\n\"I've had a lot of experience with puppies.\"\n\nDespite the tension, she laughed. She took a small step closer to him, and when he turned to face her, she slipped her arms around his neck. She could hear the little voice inside warning her to stop, telling her that it still wasn't too late to end this. But another urge had taken hold of her, and she knew it was pointless to deny it.\n\n\"Maybe so, but I thought it was sexy,\" she whispered.\n\nTravis pulled her tight against him, noticing how her body seemed to fit against his. He could smell a trace of jasmine perfume on her, and as they stood holding each other, his senses seemed to come alive. He felt as if he'd reached the end of a long journey, unaware until this moment that Gabby had been his destination all along. When he whispered, \"I love you, Gabby Holland,\" against her ear, he'd never felt more sure about anything.\n\nGabby sank into him.\n\n\"I love you, too, Travis Parker,\" she whispered, and as they stood in each other's arms, Gabby couldn't imagine wanting anything more than what was happening now, all regrets and reservations swept aside.\n\nHe kissed her, then kissed her again and again, leisurely exploring her neck and collarbone before rising to meet her lips once more. She ran her hands over his chest and shoulders, feeling the strength in the arms that held her, and when he buried his fingers in her hair, she shivered, knowing that this was what the weekend had been building toward all along.\n\nThey kissed on the deck for a long time. Finally she pulled back, and took his hand to lead him inside, past the living room and toward the bedroom. She motioned toward the bed, and as Travis lay down, she pulled a lighter from the drawer and proceeded to light the candles she'd set out earlier. Her bedroom, dark at first, gave way to a flickering glow that bathed her in liquid gold.\n\nWith shadows accentuating her every movement, Travis watched as Gabby crossed her arms, reaching for the hem of her shirt. With a single movement, she pulled the shirt over her head. Her breasts pressed against the satin outline of her bra, and her hands drifted slowly downward to the snap on her jeans. A moment later, she stepped out of the crumpled pile at her feet.\n\nTravis was mesmerized as she moved toward the bed and playfully pushed him onto his back. She began to undo the buttons on his shirt and pulled it over his shoulders. As he wiggled his arms free, she undid the snap on his jeans, and a moment later, he felt the heat from her belly as it slid against his own.\n\nHis mouth met hers with controlled passion. Her body felt right against his, more right than anything she'd ever known, like missing pieces in a puzzle finally coming together.\n\nAfterward, he lay beside her and said the words that had been echoing inside his head all night.\n\n\"I love you, Gabby,\" he whispered. \"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me.\"\n\nHe felt her reach out for him.\n\n\"I love you, too, Travis,\" she whispered, and upon hearing her words, he knew that the solitary journey he'd been on for years had somehow reached its end.\n\nWith the moon still high in the sky and the silver light illuminating the bedroom, Travis rolled over, knowing instantly that Gabby was gone. It was almost four in the morning, and after noting that she wasn't in the bathroom, he got up and slipped on his jeans. He walked down the hall and peeked into the guest bedroom before poking his head into the kitchen. All the lights were off, and he hesitated for a moment before noticing that the sliding glass door was cracked open.\n\nHe stepped out onto the small deck, catching sight of a shadowed figure leaning against the deck railing off to the side of the house. He took a hesitant step toward her, unsure if she wanted to be alone.\n\n\"Hey,\" he heard a voice call out in the darkness. Travis saw she was wearing the bathrobe that had been hanging in the bathroom.\n\n\"Hey there,\" he answered quietly. \"You okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine. I woke up and tossed and turned for a while, but I didn't want to wake you.\"\n\nStopping just short of her, he leaned against the rail as well, neither of them speaking. Instead, they simply watched the sky. Nothing seemed to be stirring; even the crickets and frogs were silent.\n\n\"It's so lovely out here,\" she finally said.\n\n\"Yes, it is,\" he answered.\n\n\"I love nights like this.\"\n\nWhen she said nothing else, he moved closer and reached for her hand. \"Are you upset by what happened?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" she said, her voice clear. \"I don't regret any of it.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"What are you thinking about?\"\n\n\"I was thinking about my dad,\" she mused, leaning into him. \"In a lot of ways, he reminds me of you. You'd like him.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I would,\" he said, uncertain where the conversation was going.\n\n\"I was thinking about the way he must have felt when he met my mom for the first time. What was going through his mind when he saw her, whether he was nervous, what he said when he approached her.\"\n\nTravis stared at her. \"And?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\nWhen he laughed, she looped her arm through his. \"Is the hot tub at your place still warm?\" she asked.\n\n\"Should be. I haven't checked it, but I'm sure it's okay.\"\n\n\"Do you want to go for a dip?\"\n\n\"I'd have to get my suit, but that sounds great.\"\n\nShe squeezed him tight against her, then leaned toward his ear. \"Who said you needed a suit?\"\n\nTravis said nothing as they crossed the yard to his hot tub. As he lifted off the cover, he saw her bathrobe slip from her shoulders and glimpsed her naked body, knowing how much he loved her and that these last couple of days were somehow going to mark his life forever.\n\n# Fourteen\n\nThough they both returned to work on Monday, over the next two days Travis and Gabby spent every free moment together. They made love on Monday morning before work, had lunch together at a small, family-owned caf\u00e9 in Morehead City, and that evening, with Molly feeling better, they took both dogs for a walk on the beach near Fort Macon. As they walked, holding hands, Moby and Molly wandered the beach ahead like two old friends who'd grown used to their differences. When Moby chased terns and charged toward flocks of seagulls, Molly would hold her course, acting as if she wanted no part of it. After a while, Moby would realize that Molly was no longer alongside him and would bound back to her, and the two would trot happily together until Moby went nuts again and the whole thing repeated itself.\n\n\"That's kind of like the way we are, huh?\" Gabby remarked as she squeezed Travis's hand. \"One always chasing excitement, the other holding back?\"\n\n\"Which one am I?\"\n\nShe laughed and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Stopping, he took her in his arms, amazed and terrified by the strength of his feelings. But when she lifted her face to kiss him, he felt his fears begin to melt away, replaced by a growing sense of completion. He wondered whether love felt like this for everyone.\n\nAfterward, they stopped at the grocery store. Neither of them was very hungry, so Travis picked up the makings for a chicken Caesar salad. In the kitchen, he grilled the chicken and watched Gabby rinse the lettuce leaves at the sink. Curled up on the couch after dinner, Gabby told Travis more about her family, arousing a mixture of sympathy for Gabby and anger at her mother for failing to recognize what an incredible woman Gabby had become. That night, they lay intertwined in each other's arms until long after midnight.\n\nOn Tuesday morning, Travis was at her side just as she was beginning to stir. She cracked open an eye.\n\n\"Is it time to get up?\"\n\n\"I guess so,\" he mumbled.\n\nThey lay facing each other without moving before Travis went on. \"You know what sounds good? Fresh coffee and a cinnamon roll.\"\n\n\"Yum,\" she said. \"Too bad we don't have time. I've got to be at the office at eight. You shouldn't have kept me awake so long last night.\"\n\n\"Just close your eyes and wish real hard, and maybe your wish will come true.\"\n\nToo tired to do anything else, she did what he suggested, longing for just another couple of minutes in bed.\n\n\"And there it is!\" she heard him say.\n\n\"What?\" she mumbled.\n\n\"Your coffee. And a cinnamon roll.\"\n\n\"Don't tease me. I'm starved.\"\n\n\"It's right there. Roll over and see for yourself.\"\n\nShe struggled to sit up and saw two steaming cups of coffee and a mouthwatering cinnamon roll on a plate on the nightstand.\n\n\"When did you... I mean, why did you...?\"\n\n\"A few minutes ago.\" He grinned. \"I was awake anyway, so I raced downtown.\"\n\nShe reached for both the coffees and handed one to him, smiling. \"I'd kiss you right now, but this smells great and I'm starved. I'll kiss you later.\"\n\n\"In the shower, maybe?\"\n\n\"There's always a catch with you, isn't there?\"\n\n\"Be nice. I just brought you breakfast in bed.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said with a wink. She reached for her roll. \"And I'm going to enjoy it.\"\n\nOn Tuesday evening, Travis took Gabby out on the boat, where they watched the sun go down from the waters off Beaufort. Gabby had been quiet ever since she'd returned home from work, which was why he'd suggested it; it was his way of trying to put off the conversation he knew was coming.\n\nAn hour later, seated on Travis's deck with Molly and Moby lying at their feet, Travis finally gave in to the inevitable.\n\n\"What's going to happen next?\" he asked.\n\nGabby rotated the water glass in her hands. \"I'm not sure,\" she said in a low voice.\n\n\"Do you want me to talk to him?\"\n\n\"It's not that simple.\" She shook her head. \"I've been trying all day to figure it out, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, or even what I'm going to say to him.\"\n\n\"You're going to tell him about us, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"I really don't.\" She turned to Travis, her eyes filled with tears. \"Don't get mad at me. Please don't. Believe me when I say that I know how this makes you feel, because it makes me feel the same way. In the last few days, you've made me feel... alive. You make me feel beautiful and intelligent and wanted, and no matter how hard I try, I'll never be able to tell you how much that's meant to me. But as intense as all this has been, as much as I care about you, we're not the same people, and you're not facing the same kind of decision that I am. For you, it's easy\u2014we love each other, so we should be together. But Kevin is important to me, too.\"\n\n\"What about all those things you said?\" Travis asked, trying not to sound as scared as he felt.\n\n\"He's not perfect, Travis. I know that. And no, things aren't great between us right now. But I can't help thinking that it's partly my fault. Can't you see that? With him, I have all these expectations, but with you... I don't have any. And if you reversed the equation, would any of this have even happened? What if I had expected you to marry me, but with him, I just allowed myself to enjoy being in the moment? You wouldn't have given me the time of day, and most likely I wouldn't have wanted you to.\"\n\n\"Don't say that.\"\n\n\"But it's true, isn't it?\" Her smile was pained. \"That's what I was thinking about today, even though it hurts me to say it. I love you, Travis, I really do. If I thought of this as a weekend fling, I'd put it behind me now and then go back to imagining a future with Kevin. But it's not going to be that easy. I have to make a choice between the two of you. With Kevin, I know what to expect. Or at least until you came along, I thought I did. But now...\"\n\nShe paused, and Travis could see her hair moving slightly in the breeze. She hugged her arms tightly to her body.\n\n\"We've only known each other for a few days, and while we were on the boat, I found myself wondering how many other women you'd taken out like that. Not because I was jealous, but because I kept asking myself what brought those relationships to an end. And then I started wondering whether you would feel the same way about me in the future as you do right now, or whether this will just end up like all your previous relationships. As much as we think we know each other, we don't. Or at least, I don't. All I know is that I fell in love with you, and I've never been more frightened about anything in my entire life.\"\n\nShe stopped. Travis stayed silent, letting her words penetrate before saying anything.\n\n\"You're right,\" he admitted. \"Your choice is different from mine. But you're wrong if you think this was just a fling for me. I might have started out thinking along those lines, but...\" He reached for her hand. \"That's not how it ended up. Spending time with you showed me what I've been missing in my life. The more time we spent together, the more I could imagine it lasting in the future. That's never happened to me before, and I'm not sure it'll ever happen again. I've never been in love with anyone before you came along\u2014not real love, anyway. Not like this, and I'd be a fool if I let you slip away without a fight.\"\n\nHe ran a hand through his hair, drained.\n\n\"I don't know what else I can tell you, other than that I can imagine spending the rest of my life with you. I know that sounds crazy. I know we're just getting to know each other, and even admitting what I just did might make you think I'm nuts, but I've never been more sure about anything. And if you give me a chance\u2014if you give _us_ a chance\u2014I'm going to live the rest of my life proving to you that you made the right decision. I love you, Gabby. And not just for the person you are, but for the way you make me think that _we_ can be.\"\n\nFor a long moment, neither of them said anything. In the darkness, Gabby could hear the crickets calling from the foliage. Her mind was whirling\u2014she wanted to run away, and she wanted to stay here forever, her warring instincts a reflection of the impossible bind she'd gotten herself into.\n\n\"I like you, Travis,\" she said earnestly. Then, realizing how it sounded, she struggled on. \"And I love you, too, of course, but hopefully you already know that. I was just trying to tell you that I like the way you talk to me. I like the fact that when you say something, I know that you really mean it. I like the fact that I can tell when you're teasing or telling the truth and when you're not. It's one of your more endearing qualities.\" She patted his knee. \"Now will you do something for me?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" he said.\n\n\"No matter what I ask?\"\n\nHe hesitated. \"Yeah... I guess.\"\n\n\"Will you make love to me? And not think it might be the last time it ever happens?\"\n\n\"That's two things.\"\n\nShe didn't dignify his answer with a response. Instead, she held out her hand to him. As they moved toward the bedroom, she broke into the tiniest of smiles, finally knowing what she had to do.\n\n# PART TWO\n\n# Fifteen\n\n_February 2007_\n\nTravis tried to shake free of those memories from nearly eleven years ago, wondering why they'd resurfaced with such clarity. Was it because he was now old enough to realize how unusual it was to fall in love so quickly? Or simply because he missed the intimacy of those days? He didn't know.\n\nLately, it seemed he didn't know a lot of things. There were people who claimed to have all the answers, or at least the answers to the big questions of life, but Travis had never believed them. There was something about the assurance with which they spoke or wrote that seemed self-justifying. But if there were one person who could answer any question, Travis's question would be this: How far should a person go in the name of true love?\n\nHe could pose the question to a hundred people and get a hundred different answers. Most were obvious: A person should sacrifice, or accept, or forgive, or even fight if need be... the list went on and on. Still, even though he knew that all these answers were valid, none would help him now. Some things were beyond understanding. Thinking back, he recalled events he wished he could change, tears he wished had never been shed, time that could have been better spent, and frustrations he should have shrugged off. Life, it seemed, was full of regret, and he yearned to turn back the clock so he could live parts of his life over again. One thing was certain: He should have been a better husband. And as he considered the question of how far a person should go in the name of love, he knew what his answer would be. Sometimes it meant a person should lie.\n\nAnd soon, he had to make his choice as to whether he would.\n\nThe fluorescent lights and white tile underscored the sterility of the hospital. Travis moved slowly down the corridor, certain that even though he'd spotted Gabby earlier, she hadn't seen him. He hesitated, steeling himself to head over and talk to her. It was the reason he'd come, after all, but the vivid parade of memories earlier had drained him. He stopped, knowing a few more minutes to collect his thoughts wouldn't make any difference.\n\nHe ducked into a small reception room and took a seat. Watching the steady, rhythmic movement in the corridor, he realized that despite the never-ending emergencies, the staff had a routine here, much as he had his own routines at home. It was inevitable for people to try to create a sense of normalcy in a place where nothing was normal. It helped one get through the day, to add predictability to a life that was inherently unpredictable. His mornings were a case in point, for every one was the same. Six-fifteen alarm; a minute to get out of bed and nine minutes in the shower, another four minutes to shave and brush his teeth, and seven minutes to get dressed. A stranger could set a watch by following his shadowed movements through his windows. After that, he'd hurry downstairs to pour cereal; he'd check backpacks for homework and make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for lunches while his sleepy daughters ate their breakfast. At exactly quarter past seven, they'd troop out the door and he'd wait with them at the end of the driveway for the school bus to arrive, driven by a man whose Scottish accent reminded him of _Shrek._ After his daughters got on and settled into their seats, he'd smile and wave, just as he was supposed to. Lisa and Christine were six and eight, a bit young for first and third grade, and as he watched them venture out to start another day, he often felt his heart clench with worry. Perhaps that was common\u2014people always said that parenting and worrying were synonymous\u2014but recently his worries had grown more pronounced. He dwelled on things he never had before. Little things. Ridiculous things. Was Lisa laughing at cartoons as much as she used to? Was Christine more subdued than normal? Sometimes, as the bus would pull away, he would find himself replaying the morning over and over, searching for clues to their well-being. Yesterday he had spent half the day wondering whether Lisa had been testing him by making him tie her shoes or whether she had just been feeling lazy. Even though he knew he was bordering on obsession, when he'd crept to their rooms last night to adjust their strewn-about blankets, he couldn't stop himself from wondering whether the nighttime restlessness was new or something he'd just never noticed before.\n\nIt shouldn't have been like this. Gabby should have been with him; Gabby should have been the one tying shoes and adjusting the blankets. She was good at things like that, as he'd known she would be from the very beginning. He remembered that in the days that followed their first weekend together, he would find himself studying Gabby, knowing on some deep level that even if he spent the rest of his life looking, he'd never find a better mother or more perfect complement to him. The realization often hit in the strangest of places\u2014while pushing the cart in the fruit aisle of the grocery store or standing in line to buy movie tickets\u2014but whenever it happened, it made something as simple as taking her hand an exquisite pleasure, something both momentous and gratifying.\n\nTheir courtship hadn't been quite as uncomplicated for her. She was the one torn between two men vying for her love. \"A minor inconvenience,\" was the way he described it at parties, but he often wondered when exactly her feelings for him finally overwhelmed those she'd had for Kevin. Was it when they sat beside each other, gazing at the nighttime sky, and she quietly began naming the constellations she recognized? Or was it the following day, when she held him tight as they rode on the motorcycle before their picnic? Or was it later that evening, when he took her in his arms?\n\nHe wasn't sure; capturing a specific instant like that was no more possible than locating a specific drop of water in the ocean. But the fact remained that it left Gabby to explain the situation to Kevin. Travis could remember her pained expression on the morning she knew Kevin would be arriving back in town. Gone was the certainty that had guided them the previous days; in its place was the reality of what lay ahead for her. She barely touched her breakfast; when he kissed her good-bye, she responded with only the flicker of a smile. The hours had crawled by without word, and Travis busied himself at work and made calls to find homes for the puppies, knowing it was important to her. Eventually, after work, Travis went to check on Molly. As if sensing she'd be needed later, she didn't return to the garage after he let her out. Instead, she lay in the tall marsh grass that fronted Gabby's property, staring toward the street as the sun sank lower in the sky.\n\nIt was well after dark when Gabby turned in the drive. He remembered the steady way she looked at him as she stepped out of the car. Without a word, she took a seat beside him on the steps. Molly wandered up and began to nuzzle her. Gabby ran her hand rhythmically through her fur.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, breaking the silence.\n\n\"Hey.\" Her voice sounded drained of emotion.\n\n\"I think I found homes for all of the puppies,\" he offered.\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\nHe nodded, and the two of them sat together without speaking, like two people who'd run out of things to talk about.\n\n\"I'm always going to love you,\" he said, searching and failing to find adequate words to comfort her.\n\n\"I believe you,\" she whispered. She looped her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder. \"That's why I'm here.\"\n\nTravis had never liked hospitals. Unlike the veterinary clinic, which closed its doors around dinnertime, Carteret General Hospital struck him as the endless turning of a Ferris wheel, with patients and employees hopping on and off every minute of every day. From where he was sitting, he could see nurses bustling in and out of rooms or clustering around the station at the end of the hall. Some were frazzled while others seemed bored; the doctors were no different. On other floors, Travis knew that mothers were giving birth and the elderly were passing away, a microcosm of the world. As oppressive as he found it, Gabby had thrived working here, energized by the steady buzz of activity.\n\nThere'd been a letter in the mailbox months earlier, something from the administrator's office announcing that the hospital planned to honor Gabby's tenth year working at the hospital. The letter didn't allude to anything specific that Gabby had accomplished; it was nothing more than a form letter, something no doubt sent out to a dozen other people who'd started working around the same time she had. A small plaque, the letter promised, would be hung in Gabby's honor in one of the corridors, along with other recipients', though as yet it hadn't happened.\n\nHe doubted that she cared. Gabby had taken the job at the hospital not because she might one day receive a plaque, but because she'd felt she hadn't much choice. Though she had alluded to some problems at the pediatrician's office during their first weekend together, she hadn't been specific. He'd let the comment pass without pressing her, but he knew even then that the problem wasn't simply going to go away.\n\nEventually, she told him about it. It was the end of a long day. He'd been called out the previous night to the equestrian center, where he found an Arabian sweating and pawing the ground, its stomach tender to the touch. Classic signs of equine colic, though with a bit of luck, he didn't think it would require surgery. Still, with the owners in their seventies, Travis wasn't comfortable asking them to walk the horse for fifteen minutes every hour, in case the horse became more agitated or took a turn for the worse. Instead, he decided to stay with the horse himself, and though the horse gradually improved as the day rolled on into the next evening, he was exhausted by the time he left.\n\nHe arrived home, sweaty and filthy, to find Gabby crying at her kitchen table. It took a few minutes before she was able to tell him the story\u2014how she'd had to stay late with a patient who was waiting for an ambulance for what she was fairly certain was appendicitis; by the time she was able to leave, most of the staff had gone home. The attending physician, Adrian Melton, had not. They left together, and Gabby didn't realize that Melton was walking with her toward her car until it was too late. There, he laid a hand on her shoulder and told her that he was heading to the hospital and would update her on the patient's condition. When she forced a smile, however, he leaned in to kiss her.\n\nIt was a clumsy effort, reminiscent of high school, and she recoiled before he could finish. He stared at her, seemingly put out. \"I thought this was what you wanted,\" he'd said.\n\nAt the table, Gabby shuddered. \"He made it sound like it was my fault.\"\n\n\"Has it happened before?\"\n\n\"No, not like this. But...\"\n\nWhen she trailed off, Travis reached over and took her hand. \"Come on,\" he said. \"It's me. Talk to me.\"\n\nHer gaze remained focused on the surface of the table, but her voice was steady as she recounted the history of Melton's behavior. By the time she finished, his face was tight with barely suppressed rage.\n\n\"I'll fix this,\" he said without waiting for a response.\n\nIt took two phone calls to find out where Adrian Melton lived. Within minutes, his car screeched to a stop in front of Melton's house. His insistent finger on the doorbell brought the doctor to the front door. Melton barely registered his puzzlement before Travis's fist crashed into his jaw. A woman Travis assumed was Melton's wife materialized the same instant Melton hit the floor, and her screams echoed in the hallway.\n\nWhen the police arrived at the house, Travis was arrested for the first and only time in his life. He was brought to the station, where most of the officers treated him with amused respect. Every one of them had brought their pets to the clinic and were clearly skeptical of Mrs. Melton's claim that \"some psycho has assaulted my husband!\"\n\nWhen Travis called his sister, Stephanie showed up looking less worried than amused. She found Travis sitting in a single cell, deep in discussion with the sheriff; as she approached, he realized they were talking about the sheriff's cat, who seemed to have developed a rash of some sort and couldn't stop scratching.\n\n\"Bummer,\" she said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"And here I thought I was going to find you wearing an orange jumper.\"\n\n\"Sorry to disappoint you.\"\n\n\"Maybe there's still time. What do you think, Sheriff?\"\n\nThe sheriff didn't know what to think, and a moment later, he left them alone.\n\n\"Thanks for that,\" Travis said once the sheriff was gone. \"He's probably considering your suggestion.\"\n\n\"Don't blame me. I'm not the one attacking doctors on doorsteps.\"\n\n\"He deserved it.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he did.\"\n\nTravis smiled. \"Thanks for coming.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have missed it, Rocky. Or would you prefer I call you Apollo Creed?\"\n\n\"How about you work on getting me out of here instead of trying to come up with nicknames?\"\n\n\"Coming up with nicknames is more fun.\"\n\n\"Maybe I should have called Dad.\"\n\n\"But you didn't. You got me. And trust me, you made the right choice. Now let me go talk to the sheriff, okay?\"\n\nLater, while Stephanie was talking to the sheriff, Adrian Melton visited Travis. He'd never met the local veterinarian and demanded to know the reason for Travis's assault. Though he never told Gabby what he said, Adrian Melton promptly dropped the charges, despite protests from Mrs. Melton. Within a few days, Travis heard through the small-town grapevine that Dr. and Mrs. Melton were in counseling. Nonetheless, the workplace remained tense for Gabby, and a few weeks later, Dr. Furman called Gabby into the office and suggested that she consider trying to find another place to work.\n\n\"I know it's not fair,\" he said. \"And if you stay, we'll somehow make it work. But I'm sixty-four, and I'm planning to retire next year. Dr. Melton has agreed to buy me out, and I doubt that he'll want to keep you on anyway, or that you'd want to work for him. I think it would be easier and better for you if you take the time to find a place where you're comfortable and simply put this awful thing behind you.\" He shrugged. \"I'm not saying that his behavior wasn't reprehensible; it was. But even if he's a jerk, he's the best pediatrician I interviewed and the only one who was willing to practice in a small town like this. If you leave voluntarily, I'll write the finest recommendation you can imagine. You'll be able to get a job anywhere. I'll make sure of it.\"\n\nShe recognized the manipulation for what it was, and while her emotions cried out for retribution on her behalf and that of sexually harassed women everywhere, her pragmatic side asserted itself. In the end, she took a job in the emergency room at the hospital.\n\nThere had been only one problem: When Gabby found out what Travis had done, she'd been furious. It was the first argument they had as a couple, and Travis could still remember her outrage when she demanded to know whether he believed she was \"grown-up enough to handle her own problems\" and why he acted \"as if she were some silly damsel in distress.\" Travis didn't bother trying to defend himself. In his heart, he knew he'd do the same thing again in an instant, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.\n\nFor all Gabby's outrage, Travis suspected there was part of her that had admired what he'd done. The simple logic of the act\u2014 _He bothered you? Let me at 'im\u2014_ had appealed to her, no matter how angry she'd appeared, for later that night her lovemaking had seemed particularly passionate.\n\nOr at least, that's the way Travis remembered it. Had the evening unfolded exactly like that? He wasn't sure. These days, it seemed that the only thing he was certain about was the knowledge that he wouldn't trade his years with Gabby for anything. Without her, his life had little meaning. He was a small-town husband with a small-town occupation and his cares were no different from anyone else's. He'd been neither a leader nor a follower, nor had he been someone who would be remembered long after he passed away. He was the most ordinary of men with only one exception: He'd fallen in love with a woman named Gabby, his love deepening in the years they'd been married. But fate had conspired to ruin all that, and now he spent long portions of his days wondering whether it was humanly possible to fix things between them.\n\n# Sixteen\n\nHey, Travis,\" said a voice from the doorway. \"I thought I'd find you in here.\"\n\nDr. Stallings was in his thirties and made rounds every morning. Over the years, he and his wife had become good friends of Gabby and Travis's, and last summer the four of them had traveled to Orlando with kids in tow. \"More flowers?\"\n\nTravis nodded, feeling the stiffness in his back.\n\nStallings hesitated on the threshold of the room. \"I take it you haven't seen her yet.\"\n\n\"Kind of. I saw her earlier, but...\"\n\nWhen he trailed off, Stallings finished for him. \"You needed some time alone?\" He entered and took a seat beside Travis. \"I guess that makes you normal.\"\n\n\"I don't feel normal. Nothing about this feels normal at all.\"\n\n\"No, I don't suppose it does.\"\n\nTravis reached for the flowers again, trying to keep his thoughts at bay, knowing there were some things he couldn't talk about.\n\n\"I don't know what to do,\" he finally admitted.\n\nStallings put his hand on Travis's shoulder. \"I wish I knew what to tell you.\"\n\nTravis turned toward him. \"What would you do?\"\n\nStallings remained silent for a long moment. \"If I were in your position?\" He brought his lips together, considering the questions, looking older than his years. \"In all honesty, I don't know.\"\n\nTravis nodded. He hadn't expected Stallings to answer. \"I just want to do the right thing.\"\n\nStallings brought his hands together. \"Don't we all.\"\n\nWhen Stallings left, Travis shifted in his seat, conscious of the papers in his pocket. Where once he'd kept them in his desk, he now found it impossible to go about his daily life without them nearby, even though they portended the end of everything he held dear.\n\nThe elderly attorney who drafted them seemed to find nothing unusual about their request. His small-town family law practice had been located in Morehead City, close enough to the hospital where Gabby worked to be able to see it from the windows of the paneled walls of the conference room. The meeting hadn't lasted long; the lawyer explained the relevant statutes and offered a few anecdotal experiences; later Travis could remember only the loose, almost weak way he had grasped Travis's hand on his way out the door.\n\nIt seemed strange that those papers could signal the official end of his marriage. They were codified words, nothing more, but the power afforded them now seemed almost malevolent. Where, he wondered, was the humanity in those phrases? Where was the emotion governed by these laws? Where was the acknowledgment of the life they'd led together, until everything went wrong? And why in God's name had Gabby wanted them drawn up in the first place?\n\nIt shouldn't end like this, and it was certainly not an outcome he foresaw when he'd proposed to Gabby. He remembered their autumn trip to New York; while Gabby had been at the hotel spa getting a massage and a pedicure, he'd sneaked over to West 47th Street, where he'd purchased the engagement ring. After dining at Tavern on the Green, they'd taken a carriage ride through Central Park. And beneath a cloudy, full-moon sky, he'd asked for her hand in marriage and was overcome by the passionate way she'd wrapped her arms around him while whispering her consent over and over.\n\nAnd then? Life, he supposed. In between her shifts at the hospital, she planned the wedding: Despite his friends' warnings to simply go with the flow, Travis relished being part of the process. He helped her pick out the invitations, the flowers, and the cake; he sat beside her as she flipped through albums in downtown studios, hoping to find the right photographer to memorialize the day. In the end, they invited eighty people to a small, weathered chapel on Cumberland Island in spring 1997; they honeymooned in Canc\u00fan, which ended up being an idyllic choice for both of them. Gabby wanted someplace relaxing, and they spent hours lying in the sun and eating well; he wanted a bit more adventure, so she learned to scuba dive and joined him on a day trip to see the nearby Aztec ruins.\n\nThe give-and-take of the honeymoon set the tone for the marriage. Their dream house was constructed with little stress and was completed by their first anniversary; when Gabby ran her finger over the rim of her glass of champagne and wondered aloud whether they should start a family, the idea struck him as not only reasonable, but something he desperately wanted. She was pregnant within a couple of months, her pregnancy devoid of complications or even much discomfort. After Christine was born, Gabby cut back on her hours and they worked out a schedule that ensured one of them was always home with the baby. When Lisa followed two years later, neither of them noticed much of a change, other than added joy and excitement in the house.\n\nChristmases and birthdays came and went, the kids grew out of one outfit only to be replaced by the next. They vacationed as a family, yet Travis and Gabby also spent time alone, keeping the flame of romance alive between them. Max eventually retired, leaving Travis to take over the clinic; Gabby limited her hours even more and had enough time to volunteer at school. On their fourth anniversary, they went to Italy and Greece; for their sixth, they spent a week on safari in Africa. On their seventh, Travis built Gabby a gazebo in the backyard, where she could sit and read and watch the play of light reflecting on the water. He taught his daughters to wakeboard and ski when each was five years old; he coached their soccer teams in the fall. On the rare occasions when he stopped to reflect on his life, he wondered if anyone in the world felt as blessed as he did.\n\nNot that things were always perfect. Years ago, he and Gabby had gone through a rough patch. The reasons were fuzzy now, lost in the recesses of time, but even then, there had never been a point when he truly believed their marriage to be in jeopardy. Nor, he suspected, had she. Marriage, each of them realized intuitively, was about compromise and forgiveness. It was about balance, where one person complemented the other. He and Gabby had that for years, and he hoped they could have it again. But right now they didn't, and the realization left him wishing there was something, anything, he could do to restore that delicate balance between them.\n\nTravis knew he couldn't postpone seeing her any longer, and he rose from his seat. Holding the flowers, he started down the corridor, feeling almost disembodied. He saw a few nurses glance at him, and though he sometimes wondered what they thought, he never stopped to ask. Instead, he summoned his nerve. His legs were shaky, and he could feel the beginning of a headache, a dull throb at the back of his head. If he allowed himself to close his eyes, he felt sure he would sleep for hours. He was falling apart, a thought that made about as much sense as a square golf ball. He was forty-three, not seventy-two, and though he hadn't been eating much lately, he still forced himself to go to the gym. \"You've got to keep exercising,\" his dad had urged. \"If only for your own sanity.\" He'd lost eighteen pounds in the last twelve weeks, and in the mirror he could see that his cheeks had hollowed out. He reached the door and pushed it open, forcing himself to smile as he saw her.\n\n\"Hi, sweetheart.\"\n\nHe waited for her to stir, waited for any response to let him know that things were somehow returning to normal. But nothing happened, and in the long, empty silence that followed, Travis felt an ache like a physical pain in his heart. It was always like this. Stepping into the room, he continued to stare at Gabby as if trying to memorize her every feature, though he knew it was a pointless exercise. He knew her face better than his own.\n\nAt the window, he opened the blinds, allowing sunlight to spill across the floor. There wasn't much of a view; the room overlooked a small highway that bisected the town. Slow-moving cars drifted past fast-food restaurants, and he could imagine the drivers listening to music on the radio, or chatting on cell phones, or heading to work, or making deliveries, or running errands, or going to visit friends. People going about their daily lives, people lost in their own concerns, all of them oblivious to what was going on in the hospital. He had once been one of them, and he felt the loss of his previous life.\n\nHe set the flowers on the sill, wishing he had remembered to bring a vase. He had chosen a winter bouquet, and the burnt orange and violet colors seemed muted, almost mournful. The florist considered himself an artist of sorts, and in all the years Travis had used him, he'd never been disappointed. The florist was a good man, a kind man, and sometimes Travis wondered how much the florist knew about their marriage. Over the years, Travis had purchased bouquets on anniversaries and birthdays; he'd purchased them as apologies or on the spur of the moment, as a romantic surprise. And each time, he'd dictated to the florist what he wanted written on the card. Sometimes he'd recited a poem he'd either found in a book or written on his own; at other times, he'd come straight to the point and simply said what was on his mind. Gabby had saved these cards in a tiny bundle held together by a rubber band. They were a kind of history of Travis and Gabby's life together, described in tiny snippets.\n\nHe took a seat in the chair by the bed and reached for her hand. Her skin was pale, almost waxy, her body seemed smaller, and he noted the spidery lines that had begun to form at the corners of her eyes. Still, she was as remarkable to him as she had been the first time he'd ever seen her. It amazed him that he'd known her almost eleven years. Not because the length of time was extra ordinary, but because those years seemed to contain more... _life_ than the first thirty-two years without her. It was the reason he'd come to the hospital today; it was the reason he came every day. He had no other choice. Not because it was expected\u2014though it was\u2014but because he couldn't imagine being anywhere else. They spent hours together, but their nights were spent apart. Ironically, there was no choice in that, either, for he couldn't leave his daughters alone. These days, fate made all his decisions for him.\n\nExcept for one.\n\nEighty-four days had passed since the accident, and now he had to make a choice. He still had no idea what to do. Lately he'd been searching for answers in the Bible and in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine. Occasionally he would find a striking passage, but nothing more than that; he would close the cover of the book and find himself staring out the window, his thoughts blank, as if hoping to find the solution somewhere in the sky.\n\nHe seldom drove straight home from the hospital. Instead, he would drive across the bridge and walk the sands of Atlantic Beach. He would slip off his shoes, listening as the waves crashed along the shore. He knew his daughters were as upset as he was, and after his visits to the hospital, he needed time to compose himself. It would be unfair to subject them to his angst. He needed his daughters for the escape they afforded him. When focusing on them, he didn't focus on himself, and their joy still held an unadulterated purity. They still had the ability to lose themselves in play, and the sound of their giggling made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes as he watched them, he was struck by how much they resembled their mother.\n\nAlways they asked about her, but usually he didn't know what to tell them. They were mature enough to understand that Mommy wasn't well and had to stay in the hospital; they understood that when they visited, it would seem as if Mommy were asleep. But he couldn't bring himself to tell them the truth about her condition. Instead, he would cuddle with them on the couch and tell them how excited Gabby had been when she'd been pregnant with each of them or remind them about the time the family played in the sprinklers for an entire afternoon. Mostly, though, they would thumb through the photo albums Gabby had assembled with care. She was old-fashioned that way, and the pictures never ceased to bring a smile to their faces. Travis would tell stories associated with each, and as he stared at Gabby's radiant face in the photos, his throat would tighten at the knowledge that he'd never seen anyone more beautiful.\n\nTo escape the sadness that overtook him in such moments, he would sometimes raise his eyes from the album and focus on the large, framed photograph they'd had taken at the beach last summer. All four of them had worn beige khakis and white button-down oxfords, and they were seated amid the dune grass. It was the kind of family portrait common in Beaufort, yet it somehow struck him as entirely unique. Not because it was his family, but because he was certain that even a stranger would find himself filled with hope and optimism at the sight, for the people in the photo looked the way a happy family should.\n\nLater, after the girls had gone to bed, he would put away the albums. It was one thing to look at them with his daughters and tell stories in an attempt to keep their spirits up, it was another thing to gaze at them alone. He couldn't do that. Instead, he would sit alone on the couch, weighed down by the sadness he felt inside. Sometimes Stephanie would call. Their conversations were filled with their usual banter but it was somehow stilted at the same time, for he knew she wanted him to forgive himself. Despite her sometimes flippant remarks and her occasional teasing, he knew what she was really saying: that no one blamed him, that it wasn't his fault. That she and others were worried about him. To head off her reassurances, he'd always say that he was doing fine, even when he wasn't, for the truth was something he knew she didn't want to hear: that not only did he doubt he'd ever be fine again, but he wasn't even sure he ever wanted to be.\n\n# Seventeen\n\nWarm bands of sunlight continued to stretch toward them. In the silence, Travis squeezed Gabby's hand and winced at the pain in his wrist. It had been in a cast until a month ago, and the doctors had prescribed painkillers. The bones in his arms had fractured and his ligaments had torn in half, but after his first dose, he'd refused to take the painkillers, hating the woozy way they made him feel.\n\nHer hand was as soft as always. Most days he would hold it for hours, imagining what he would do if she squeezed his in return. He sat and watched her, wondering what she was thinking or if she was thinking at all. The world inside her was a mystery.\n\n\"The girls are good,\" he began. \"Christine finished her Lucky Charms at breakfast, and Lisa was close. I know you worry about how much they eat, since they're on the small side, but they've been pretty good about nibbling on the snacks I put out after school.\"\n\nOutside the window, a pigeon landed on the sill. It walked a few steps one way, then back again, before finally settling in place as it did on most days. It seemed, somehow, to know when it was time for Travis to visit. There were times he believed it was an omen of sorts, though of what, he had no idea.\n\n\"We do homework after dinner. I know you like to do it right after school, but this seems to be working out okay. You'd be excited at how well Christine is doing in math. Remember at the beginning of the year when she didn't seem to understand it at all? She's really turned it around. We've been using those flash cards you bought pretty much every night, and she didn't miss a single question on her latest test. She's even doing her homework without me having to walk her through it. You'd be proud of her.\"\n\nThe sound of the cooing pigeon was barely audible through the glass.\n\n\"And Lisa's doing well. We watch either _Dora the Explorer_ or _Barbie_ every night. It's crazy how many times she can watch the same DVDs, but she loves them. And for her birthday, she wants a princess theme. I was thinking about getting an ice-cream cake, but she wants to have her party at the park, and I'm not sure they'd get to the cake before it melts, so I'll probably have to get something else.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat.\n\n\"Oh, did I tell you that Joe and Megan are thinking of having another kid? I know, I know\u2014it's crazy considering how many problems she had with the last pregnancy and the fact that she's already in her forties, but according to Joe, she really wants to try for a little boy. Me? I think Joe's the one who wants a son and Megan's just going along with it, but with those two, you never really know, do you.\"\n\nTravis forced himself to sound conversational. Since she'd been here, he'd been trying to act as naturally as he could around her. Because they talked incessantly about the kids before the accident, because they discussed what was happening in their friends' lives, he always tried to talk about them when he visited her. He had no idea whether she heard him; the medical community seemed divided on that. Some swore that coma patients could hear\u2014and possibly remember\u2014conversations; others said just the opposite. Travis didn't know whom to believe, but he chose to live his days on the side of the optimists.\n\nFor that same reason, after glancing at his watch, he reached for the remote. In her stolen moments when she hadn't been working, Gabby's guilty pleasure was watching _Judge Judy_ on television, and Travis had always teased her about the way she took an almost perverse delight in the antics of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in Judge Judy's courtroom.\n\n\"Let me turn on the television, okay? Your show's on. I think we can catch the last couple of minutes.\"\n\nA moment later, Judge Judy was speaking over both the defendant and the plaintiff, just to get them to shut up, which seemed to be the predictable, recurring theme of the show.\n\n\"She's in rare form, huh?\"\n\nWhen the show was over, he turned it off. He thought about moving the flowers closer, in the hope that she would smell them. He wanted to keep her senses stimulated. Yesterday, he'd spent some time brushing her hair; the day before, he'd brought in some of her perfume and added a dab to each wrist. Today, however, doing any of those things seemed to take more effort than he could summon.\n\n\"Other than that, not much new is going on,\" he said with a sigh. The words sounded as meaningless to him as they no doubt did to her. \"My dad's still covering for me at the clinic. You'd be amazed at how well he does with the animals, considering how long ago he retired. It's like he never left. People still adore him, and I think he's happy being there. If you ask me, he never should have stopped working in the first place.\"\n\nHe heard a knock at the door and saw Gretchen walk in. In the past month, he'd come to depend on her. Unlike the other nurses, she maintained an undying faith that Gabby would emerge from all of this just fine and consequently treated Gabby as if she were conscious.\n\n\"Hey, Travis,\" she chirped. \"Sorry for interrupting, but I've got to hook up a new IV.\"\n\nWhen Travis nodded, she approached Gabby. \"I'll bet you're starving, honey,\" she said. \"Just give me a second, okay? Then I'll give you and Travis your alone time. You know how I am about interrupting two lovebirds.\"\n\nShe worked quickly, removing one IV bag and replacing it with another, all the while keeping up a steady stream of conversation. \"I know you're sore from your workout this morning. We really went at it, didn't we? We were like those folks you see on those infomercials. Working this, working that. I was really proud of you.\"\n\nEvery morning and again in the evening, one of the nurses came in to flex and stretch Gabby's limbs. Bend the knee, straighten it out; flex the foot up, then push it down. They did this for every joint and muscle in Gabby's body.\n\nAfter she finished hanging the bag, Gretchen checked the flow and adjusted the sheets, then turned to Travis.\n\n\"Are you doing okay today?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said.\n\nGretchen seemed sorry she'd asked. \"I'm glad you brought flowers,\" she said, nodding in the direction of the windowsill. \"I'm sure Gabby appreciates it.\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\n\"Are you going to bring in the girls?\"\n\nTravis swallowed through the lump in his throat. \"Not today.\"\n\nGretchen pursed her lips and nodded. A moment later, she was gone.\n\nTwelve weeks ago, Gabby was rolled into the emergency room on a gurney, unconscious and bleeding heavily from a gash on her shoulder. The physicians concentrated first on the gash because of the heavy blood loss, though in retrospect, Travis wondered whether a different approach would have changed things.\n\nHe didn't know, nor would he ever. Like Gabby, he'd been rolled into the emergency room; like Gabby, he'd spent the night unconscious. But there the similarities had ended. The following day, he woke up in pain with a mangled arm, while Gabby never woke up at all.\n\nThe doctors were kind, but they didn't try to conceal their concern. Brain injuries were always serious, they said, but they were hopeful the injury would heal and that all would be well in time.\n\nIn time.\n\nHe sometimes wondered whether doctors realized the emotional intensity of time, or what he was going through, or even that time was something finite. He doubted it. No one knew what he was going through or really understood the choice that lay before him. On the surface, it was simple. He would do exactly what Gabby wanted, exactly as she'd made him promise.\n\n_But what if..._\n\nAnd that was the thing. He had thought long and hard about the reality of the situation; he had stayed awake nights considering the question. He wondered again what love really meant. And in the darkness, he would toss and turn, wishing for someone else to make the choice for him. But he wrestled with it alone, and more often than not, he'd wake in the morning with a tear-drenched pillow in the place Gabby should have been. And the first words out of his mouth were always the same.\n\n\"I'm so sorry, sweetheart.\"\n\nThe choice Travis now had to make had its roots in two distinct events. The first event related to a couple named Kenneth and Eleanor Baker. The second event, the accident itself, had occurred on a rainy, windy night twelve weeks ago.\n\nThe accident was simple to explain and was similar to many accidents in that a series of isolated and seemingly inconsequential mistakes somehow came together and exploded in the most horrific of ways. In mid-November, they'd driven to the RBC Center in Raleigh to see David Copperfield perform onstage. Over the years, they'd usually seen one or two shows a year, if only to have an excuse to get away for an evening alone. Usually they had dinner beforehand, but that night they didn't. Travis was running late at the clinic, they got a late start out of Beaufort, and by the time they parked the car, the show was only minutes from beginning. In his haste, Travis forgot his umbrella, despite the ominous clouds and building wind. That was mistake number one.\n\nThey watched the show and enjoyed it, but the weather had deteriorated by the time they'd left the theater. Rain was pouring down hard, and Travis remembered standing with Gabby, wondering how best to get to their car. They happened to bump into friends who'd also seen the show, and Jeff offered to walk Travis to his car so he wouldn't get wet. But Travis didn't want him to have to go out of his way and declined Jeff's offer. Instead, he bolted into the rain, splashing through ankle-deep puddles on the way to his car. He was soaked to the bone by the time he crawled in, especially his feet. That was mistake number two.\n\nBecause it was late, and because they both had to work the following morning, Travis drove fast despite the wind and rain, trying to save a few minutes in a drive that normally took two and a half hours. Though it was difficult to see through the windshield, he drove in the passing lane, pushing past the speed limit, racing past cars with drivers who were more cautious about the dangers of the weather outside. That was mistake number three. Gabby asked him repeatedly to slow down; more than once, he did as she asked, only to speed up again as soon as he could. By the time they reached Goldsboro, still an hour and a half from home, she'd become so angry that she'd stopped speaking to him. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, refusing to talk, frustrated at the way he was tuning her out. That was mistake number four.\n\nThe accident was next, and it could have been avoided had none of the other things happened. Had he brought his umbrella or walked with his friend, he wouldn't have run to the car in the rain. His feet might have stayed dry. Had he slowed the car, he might have been able to control it. Had he respected Gabby's wishes, they wouldn't have argued, and she would have been watching what he intended to do and stopped him before it was too late.\n\nNear Newport, there's a wide, easy bend in the highway intersected by a stoplight. By that point in the drive\u2014less than twenty minutes from home\u2014the itch in his feet was driving him crazy. His shoes had laces, the knots made tighter by the moisture, and no matter how hard he tried to push them off his feet, the toe of one foot would slip from the heel of the other. He leaned forward, his eyes barely above the dash, and reached for one shoe with his hand. Glancing downward, he struggled with the knot and didn't see the light turn yellow.\n\nThe knot wouldn't come free. When it finally did, he lifted his eyes, but by then it was already too late. The light had turned red, and a silver truck was entering the intersection. Instinctively he hit the brakes, and the tail began to swerve on the rain-slicked road. Their car careened out of control. At the last instant, the wheels caught and they avoided the truck in the intersection, only to continue hurtling through the bend, off the highway, and toward the pines.\n\nThe mud was even more slippery, and there was nothing he could do. He turned the wheel and nothing happened. For an instant, the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was the sickening sound of shattering glass and twisting metal.\n\nGabby didn't even have time to scream.\n\nTravis brushed a loose strand of hair from Gabby's face and tucked it behind her ear, listening to his stomach as it gurgled. As hungry as he was, he couldn't bear the idea of eating. His stomach was perpetually knotted, and in those rare moments it wasn't, thoughts of Gabby would come rushing back to fill the void.\n\nIt was an ironic form of punishment, for during their second year of marriage, Gabby had taken it upon herself to teach Travis to eat things other than the bland food he'd long favored. He supposed it had come about because she'd grown tired of his restrictive habits. He should have realized that changes were coming when she started slipping in the occasional comment regarding the tastiness of Belgian waffles on Saturday mornings or how nothing was more satisfying on cold winter days than a plate of homemade beef stew.\n\nUntil that point, Travis had been the chef in the family, but little by little she began edging her way into the kitchen. She bought two or three cookbooks, and in the evenings, Travis would watch her as she lay on the couch, occasionally folding down the corner of a page. Now and then, she would ask him whether something sounded particularly good. She'd read aloud the ingredients of Cajun jambalaya or veal Marsala, and though Travis would say they sounded terrific, the tone of his voice made it obvious that even if she prepared these dishes, he probably wouldn't eat them.\n\nBut Gabby was nothing if not persistent, and she started making small changes anyway. She prepared butter or cream or wine sauces and poured them over her portion of the chicken he cooked nearly every night. Her single request was that he at least smell it, and usually he had to admit the aroma was appetizing. Later, she took to leaving a small amount in the serving bowl, and after she'd poured some on her plate, she simply added some to his whether he wanted to try it or not. And little by little, to his own surprise, he did.\n\nOn their third anniversary, Gabby prepared a mozzarella-stuffed, Italian-flavored meat loaf; in lieu of a gift, she asked him to eat it with her; by their fourth anniversary, they were sometimes cooking together. Though his breakfast and lunch were as boring as usual and most evenings his dinners were still as bland as always, he had to admit there was something romantic about preparing meals together, and as the years rolled on, they started to do it at least twice a week. Often, Gabby would have a glass of wine, and while they cooked, the girls were required to stay in the sunroom, where the prominent feature was a Berber carpet the color of emeralds. They called it \"green carpet time.\" While Gabby and Travis chopped and stirred and conversed quietly about their day, he reveled in the contentment that she had brought him.\n\nHe wondered if he'd ever get the chance to cook with her again. In the first weeks after the accident, he'd been almost frantic about making sure the evening nurse had his cell number handy. After a month, because she was breathing on her own, she was moved from the ICU to a private room, and he was certain the change would wake her. But as the days passed with no change at all, his manic energy was replaced by a quiet, gnawing dread that was even worse. Gabby had once told him that six weeks was the cutoff\u2014that after that, the odds of waking from a coma dropped dramatically. But still he held out hope. He told himself that Gabby was a mother, Gabby was a fighter, Gabby was different from all the rest. Six weeks came and went; another two weeks followed. At three months, he knew, most patients who remained in a coma were moved to a nursing home for long-term care. That day was today, and he was supposed to let the administrator know what he wanted to do. But that wasn't the choice he was facing. His choice had to do with Kenneth and Eleanor Baker, and though he knew he couldn't blame Gabby for bringing them into their lives, he wasn't ready to think about them just yet.\n\n# Eighteen\n\nThe house they built was the kind of place in which Travis could imagine spending the rest of his life. Despite its newness, there was a lived-in quality from the moment they moved in. He attributed this to the fact that Gabby had worked hard to create a home that made people feel comfortable as soon as the door was opened.\n\nShe was the one who oversaw the details that had made the house come alive. While Travis conceived the structure in terms of square footage and building materials that could survive the salty, humid summers, Gabby introduced eclectic elements he'd never considered. Once, while in the process of building, they were driving past a crumbling farmhouse, long since abandoned, and Gabby insisted he pull over. By that point, he'd grown used to her occasional flights of fancy. He humored her, and soon they were walking through what was once a doorway. They stepped across floors carpeted with dirt and tried to ignore the kudzu that wove through broken walls and gaping windows. Along the far wall, however, was a fireplace, thick with grime, and Travis remembered thinking that she'd somehow known it was there. She squatted next to the fireplace, running her hand along the sides and beneath the mantel. \"See this? I think it's hand-painted tile,\" she said. \"There must be hundreds of pieces, maybe more. Can you imagine how beautiful it was when it was new?\" She reached for his hand. \"We should do something like this.\"\n\nLittle by little, the house took on accents he'd never before imagined. They didn't just copy the style of the fireplace; Gabby found the owners, knocked on their door, and convinced them to let her purchase the fireplace in its entirety for less than it cost to clean it. She wanted big oak beams and a vaulted, soft pine ceiling in the living room, which seemed to match the gabled roofline. The walls were plaster or brick or covered with colorful textures, some that resembled leather, all of them somehow resembling works of art. She spent long weekends shopping for antique furniture and knickknacks, and sometimes it seemed as if the house itself knew what she was trying to accomplish. When she found a spot in the hardwood floor that creaked, she walked back and forth, a big grin on her face, to make sure she wasn't imagining it. She loved rugs, the more colorful the pattern the better, and they were scattered throughout the house with generous abandon.\n\nShe was practical, too. The kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms were airy and bright and sparkly modern, with large windows framing the gorgeous views. The master bathroom had a claw-foot tub and a roomy, glass-walled shower. She wanted a big garage, with plenty of room for Travis. Guessing that they'd spend a lot of time on the wraparound porch, she insisted on a hammock and matching rockers, along with an outdoor grill and a seating area located in such a way that during storms, they could sit outside without getting wet. The overall effect was one in which a person didn't know whether he or she was more comfortable inside or out; the kind of home where someone could walk in with muddy shoes and not get in trouble. And on their first night in their new home, as they lay on the canopy bed, Gabby rolled toward Travis with an expression of pure contentment, her voice almost a purr: \"This place, with you by my side, is where I'll always want to be.\"\n\nThe kids had been having problems, even if he didn't mention them to Gabby.\n\nNot surprising, of course, but most of the time, Travis was at a loss as to what to do. Christine had asked him more than once whether Mommy was ever going to come home, and though Travis always assured her that she would, Christine seemed uncertain, probably because Travis wasn't sure he believed it himself. Kids were perceptive like that, and at eight years old, she'd reached an age where she knew the world wasn't as simple as she'd once imagined it to be.\n\nShe was a lovely child with bright blue eyes who liked to wear neat bows in her hair. She wanted her room to always appear just so and refused to wear clothes that didn't match. She didn't throw temper tantrums when things weren't right; instead, she was the sort of child who organized her toys or picked a new pair of shoes. But since the accident, she got frustrated easily, and temper tantrums were now the norm. His family, Stephanie included, had recommended counseling, and both Christine and Lisa went twice a week, but the temper tantrums seemed to be getting worse. And last night, when Christine went to bed, her room was a mess.\n\nLisa, who'd always been small for her age, had hair the same color as Gabby's and a generally sunny disposition. She had a blanket she carried with her everywhere, and she followed Christine around the house like a puppy. She put stickers on all her folders, and her work in school usually came home covered in stars. Still, for a long time she'd cry herself to sleep. From downstairs, Travis could hear her weeping on the monitor, and he'd have to pinch the bridge of his nose to keep from joining in. On those nights, he would climb the stairs to the girls' bedroom\u2014since the accident, another change was that they wanted to sleep in the same room\u2014and Travis would lie beside her, stroking her hair and listening as she whimpered \"I miss Mommy\" over and over, the saddest words Travis had ever heard. Almost too choked up to speak, he would simply say, \"I know. I do, too.\"\n\nHe couldn't begin to take Gabby's place, and he didn't try; what that left, however, was a hole where Gabby used to be, an emptiness he didn't know how to fill. Like most parents, each of them had carved out fiefdoms of expertise when it came to child care. Gabby, he knew now, had taken a far greater share of the responsibility than he had, and he regretted it now. There were so many things he didn't know how to do, things that Gabby made seem easy. Little things. He could brush the girls' hair, but when it came to braids, he understood the concept but found them impossible to master. He didn't know what kind of yogurt Lisa referred to when she said she wanted \"the one with the blue banana.\" When colds settled in, he stood in the aisle of the grocery store, scanning the shelves of cough syrup, wondering whether to buy grape or cherry flavoring. Christine never wore the clothes he set out. He'd had no idea that Lisa liked to wear sparkly shoes on Fridays. He realized that before the accident, he hadn't even known their teachers' names or where in the school, exactly, their classrooms were located.\n\nChristmas had been the worst, for that had always been Gabby's favorite holiday. She loved everything about the season: trimming the tree, decorating, baking cookies, and even the shopping. It used to amaze Travis that she could retain her humor as she pushed through frenzied crowds in department stores, but at night, after the girls had gone to bed, she'd drag out the gifts with a giddy sense of glee, and together they'd wrap the items she'd purchased. Later, Travis would hide them in the attic.\n\nThere was nothing joyous about last year's holiday season. Travis did his best, forcing excitement when none was evident. He tried to do everything Gabby had done, but the effort of maintaining a happy facade was wearying, especially because neither Christine nor Lisa made things any easier. It wasn't their fault, but for the life of him, he didn't know how to respond when at the top of both their holiday wish lists was the request for Mommy to get better. It wasn't like a new Leapster or a dollhouse could take her place.\n\nIn the past couple of weeks, things had improved. Kind of. Christine still threw her tantrums and Lisa still cried at night, but they'd adapted to life in the house without their mom. When they walked in the house after school, they no longer called for her out of habit; when they fell and scraped their elbows, they automatically came to him to find a Band-Aid. In a picture of the family Lisa drew at school, Travis saw only three images; he had to catch his breath before he realized there was another horizontal image in the corner, one that seemed added almost as an afterthought. They didn't ask about their mom as much as they used to, and they visited rarely. It was hard for them to go, for they didn't know what to say or even how to act. Travis understood that and tried to make it easier. \"Just talk to her,\" he would tell them, and they would try, but their words would trail off into nothing when no response was forthcoming.\n\nUsually, when they did visit, Travis had them bring things\u2014pretty rocks they'd found in the garden, leaves they'd laminated, homemade cards decorated with glitter. But even gifts were fraught with uncertainty. Lisa would set her gift on Gabby's stomach and back away; a moment later, she'd move it closer to Gabby's hand. After that, she'd shift it to the end table. Christine, on the other hand, would move constantly. She'd sit on the bed and stand by the window, she'd peer closely at her mother's face, and through it all, she'd never say a single word.\n\n\"What happened at school today?\" Travis had asked her the last time she'd come. \"I'm sure your mom wants to hear all about it.\"\n\nInstead of answering, Christine turned toward him. \"Why?\" she asked, her tone one of sad defiance. \"You know she can't hear me.\"\n\nThere was a cafeteria on the ground floor of the hospital, and on most days Travis would go there, mainly to hear voices other than his own. Normally, he arrived around lunchtime, and over the past few weeks, he'd come to recognize the regulars. Most were employees, but there was an elderly woman who seemed to be there every time he arrived. Though he'd never spoken to her, he'd learned from Gretchen that the woman's husband had already been in the intensive care unit when Gabby was admitted. Something about complications from diabetes, and whenever he saw the woman eating a bowl of soup, he thought about her husband upstairs. It was easy to imagine the worst: a patient hooked up to a dozen machines, endless rounds of surgery, possible amputation, a man barely hanging on. It wasn't his business to ask, and he wasn't even certain he wanted to know the truth, if only because it felt as though he couldn't summon the concern he knew he'd need to show. His ability to empathize, it seemed to him, had evaporated.\n\nStill, he watched her, curious about what he could learn from her. While the knot in his stomach never seemed to settle enough for him to swallow more than a few bites of anything, she not only ate her entire meal, but seemed to enjoy it. While he found it impossible to focus long enough on anything other than his own needs and his daughters' daily existence, she read novels during lunch, and more than once, he'd seen her laughing quietly at a passage that had amused her. And unlike him, she still maintained an ability to smile, one she offered willingly to those who passed her table.\n\nSometimes, in that smile, he thought he could see a trace of loneliness, even as he chided himself for imagining something that probably wasn't there. He couldn't help wondering about her marriage. Because of her age, he assumed they'd celebrated a silver, perhaps even golden, anniversary. Most likely there were kids, even if he'd never seen them. But other than that, he could intuit nothing. He wondered whether they had been happy, for she seemed to be taking her husband's illness in stride, while he walked the corridors of the hospital feeling as if a single wrong step would send him crumpling to the floor.\n\nHe wondered, for instance, whether her husband had ever planted rosebushes for her, something Travis had done for Gabby when she'd first become pregnant with Christine. Travis remembered the way she looked as she sat on the porch, one hand on her belly, and mentioned that the backyard needed flowers. Staring at her as she said it, Travis could no more have denied her request than breathed underwater, and though his hands were scraped and his fingertips bloody by the time he finished planting the bushes, roses were blooming on the day Christine had been born. He'd brought a bouquet to the hospital.\n\nHe wondered whether her husband had watched her from the corner of his eye the way Travis watched Gabby when their kids frolicked on the swings in the park. He loved the way Gabby's expression would light up with pride. Often, he'd reach for her hand and feel like holding it forever.\n\nHe wondered whether her husband had found her beautiful first thing in the morning, with her hair askew, the way Travis did when he saw Gabby. Sometimes, despite the structured chaos always associated with mornings, they would simply lie together in each other's arms for a few more minutes, as if drawing strength to face the upcoming day.\n\nTravis didn't know whether his marriage had been especially blessed or whether all marriages were like his. All he knew was that without Gabby he was utterly lost, while others, including the woman in the cafeteria, somehow found the strength to go on. He didn't know whether he should admire the woman or feel sorry for her. He always turned away before she caught him staring. Behind him, a family wandered in, chattering excitedly and carrying balloons; at the register, he saw a young man digging through his pockets for change. Travis pushed aside his tray, feeling ill. His sandwich was only half-eaten. He debated whether to bring it with him back to the room but knew he wouldn't finish it even if he did. He turned toward the window.\n\nThe cafeteria overlooked a small green space, and he watched the changing world outside. Spring would be here soon, and he imagined that tiny buds were beginning to form on the dogwoods. In the past three months, he'd seen every kind of weather from this very spot. He'd watched rain and sun and seen winds in excess of fifty miles an hour bend the pine trees in the distance almost to the point of snapping. Three weeks ago, he'd seen hail fall from the sky, only to be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it's important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion.\n\n# Nineteen\n\nBy midafternoon, the sky was turning cloudy, and it was time for Gabby's afternoon routine. Though she'd completed the exercises from the morning, and a nurse would come by later in the evening to do another workout, he'd asked Gretchen if it would be okay if he did the same thing in the after noon as well.\n\n\"I think she'd like that,\" Gretchen had said.\n\nShe walked him through the process, making sure he understood that every muscle and every joint needed attention. While Gretchen and the other nurses always started with Gabby's fingers, Travis started with her toes. He lowered the sheet and reached for her foot, flexing her pinkie toe up and down, then again, before moving to the toe beside it.\n\nTravis had come to love doing this for her. The feel of her skin against his own was enough to rekindle a dozen memories: the way he'd rubbed her feet while she'd been pregnant, the slow and intoxicating back rubs by candlelight during which she'd seemed to purr, massages on her arm after she'd strained it lifting a bag of dog food one-handed. As much as he missed talking to Gabby, sometimes he believed that the simple act of touch was what he missed most of all. It had taken him over a month before he'd asked Gretchen's permission to help with the exercises, and during that time, whenever he'd stroked Gabby's leg, he'd felt somehow as if he were taking advantage of her. It didn't matter that they were married; what mattered was that it was a one-sided act on his part, somehow disrespectful to the woman he adored.\n\nBut this...\n\nShe needed this. She _required_ this. Without it, her muscles would atrophy, and even if she woke\u2014when she woke, he quickly corrected himself\u2014she would find herself permanently bedridden. At least, that's what he told himself. Deep down, he knew he needed it as well, if only to feel the heat from her skin or the gentle pulse of blood in her wrist. It was at such times he felt most certain that she would recover; that her body was simply repairing itself.\n\nHe finished with her toes and moved to her ankles; when that was done, he flexed her knees, bending them both to her chest and then straightening them. Sometimes, while lying on the couch and glancing through magazines, Gabby would absently stretch her leg in exactly the same way. It was something a dancer would do, and she made it look just as graceful.\n\n\"Does that feel good, sweetheart?\"\n\n_That feels wonderful. Thanks. I was feeling a little stiff._\n\nHe knew he'd imagined her answer, that Gabby hadn't stirred. But her voice seemed to arise from nowhere whenever he worked with her like this. Sometimes he wondered whether he was going crazy. \"How are you doing?\"\n\n_Bored out of my head, if you want to know the truth. Thanks for the flowers, by the way. They're lovely. Did you get them from Frick's?_\n\n\"Where else?\"\n\n_How are the girls? Tell me the truth this time._\n\nTravis moved to the other knee. \"They're okay. They miss you, though, and it's hard on them. Sometimes I don't know what to do.\"\n\n_You're doing the best you can, right? Isn't that what we always tell each other?_\n\n\"You're right.\"\n\n_Then that's all I expect. And they'll be okay. They're tougher than they look._\n\n\"I know. They take after you.\"\n\nTravis imagined her looking him over, her expression wary.\n\n_You look skinny. Too skinny._\n\n\"I haven't been eating much.\"\n\n_I'm worried about you. You've got to take care of yourself. For the girls. For me._\n\n\"I'll always be here for you.\"\n\n_I know. I'm afraid of that, too. Do you remember Kenneth and Eleanor Baker?_\n\nTravis stopped flexing. \"Yes.\"\n\n_Then you know what I'm talking about._\n\nHe sighed and started again. \"Yes.\"\n\nIn his mind, her tone softened. _Do you remember when_ _you made us all go camping in the mountains last year? How you promised that the girls and I would love it?_\n\nHe began working on her fingers and arms. \"What brought that up?\"\n\n_I think_ _about a lot of things here. What else can I do? Anyway, do you remember that when we first got there, we didn't even bother to set up camp\u2014just kind of unloaded the truck\u2014even though we heard thunder in the distance, because you wanted to show us the lake? And how we had to walk half a mile to get there, and right when we reached the shore, the sky opened up and it just... poured? Water gushing out of the sky like we were standing under a hose. And by the time we got back to camp, everything was soaked through. I was pretty mad at you and made you take us all to a hotel instead._\n\n\"I remember.\"\n\n_I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have gotten so mad. Even though it was your fault._\n\n\"Why is it always my fault?\"\n\nHe imagined her winking at him as he gently rolled her neck from side to side.\n\n_Because you're such a good sport when I say it._\n\nHe bent over and kissed her on the forehead. \"I miss you so much.\"\n\n_I miss you, too._\n\nHis throat clenched a little as he finished the exercise routine, knowing Gabby's voice would begin to fade away again. He moved his face closer to hers. \"You know you've got to wake up, right? The girls need you. I need you.\"\n\n_I know. I'm trying._\n\n\"You've got to hurry.\"\n\nShe said nothing, and Travis knew he'd pressed too hard.\n\n\"I love you, Gabby.\"\n\n_I love you, too._\n\n\"Can I do anything? Close the blinds? Bring you something from home?\"\n\n_Will you sit with me a while longer? I'm very tired._\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n_And hold my hand?_\n\nHe nodded, covering her body with the sheet once more. He sat in the chair by the bed and took her hand, his thumb tracing it slightly. Outside, the pigeon had come back, and beyond it, heavy clouds shifted in the sky, transforming into images from other worlds. He loved his wife but hated what life with her had become, cursing himself for even thinking this way. He kissed her fingertips one by one and brought her hand to his cheek. He held it against him, feeling her warmth and wishing for even the tiniest of movements, but when nothing happened, he moved it away and didn't even realize that the pigeon seemed to be staring at him.\n\nEleanor Baker was a thirty-eight-year-old housewife with two boys she adored. Eight years ago, she'd come into the emergency room vomiting and complaining about a blinding pain in the back of her head. Gabby, who was covering a friend's shift, happened to be working that day, though she didn't treat Eleanor. Eleanor was admitted to the hospital, and Gabby knew nothing about her until the following Monday, when she realized that Eleanor had been placed in the intensive care unit when she didn't wake up on Sunday morning. \"Essentially,\" one of the nurses said, \"she went to sleep and didn't wake up.\"\n\nHer coma was caused by a severe case of viral meningitis.\n\nHer husband, Kenneth, a history teacher at East Carteret High School who by all accounts was a gregarious, friendly guy, spent his days at the hospital. Over time, Gabby got to know him; at first it was only a few niceties here and there, but as time wore on, their conversations grew longer. He adored his wife and children, and always wore a neat sweater and pressed Dockers when he visited the hospital, and he drank Mountain Dew by the liter. He was a devout Catholic, and Gabby often found him praying the rosary by his wife's bedside. Their kids were named Matthew and Mark.\n\nTravis knew all this because Gabby spoke about him after work. Not in the beginning, but later, after they'd become something like friends. Their conversations were always the same in that Gabby wondered how he could continue to come in each and every day, what he might be thinking as he sat in silence beside his wife.\n\n\"He seems so sad all the time,\" Gabby said.\n\n\"That's because he is sad. His wife is in a coma.\"\n\n\"But he's there all the time. What about his kids?\"\n\nWeeks turned into months, and Eleanor Baker was eventually moved to a nursing home. Months eventually passed into a year, then another. Thoughts of Eleanor Baker might have eventually slipped away, if not for the fact that Kenneth Baker shopped at the same grocery store as Gabby. They would occasionally bump into each other, and always the conversation would turn to how Eleanor was doing. There was never any change.\n\nBut over the years, as they continued to run into each other, Gabby noticed that Kenneth had changed. \"She's still going,\" was the way he began to casually describe her condition. Where there had once been a light in his eyes when he spoke about Eleanor, there was now only blankness; where once there was love, now there seemed to be only apathy. His black hair had turned gray within a couple of years, and he'd become so thin that his clothes hung off him.\n\nIn the cereal aisle or frozen food section, Gabby couldn't seem to avoid him, and he became something of a confidant. He seemed to need her, to tell her what was happening, and in those moments they met, Kenneth mentioned one horrible event after another: that he'd lost his job, lost his house, that he couldn't wait to get all the kids out of the house, that the older one had dropped out of high school and the younger one had been arrested again for dealing drugs. _Again._ That was the word Gabby emphasized when she told Travis about it later. She also said she was pretty sure he'd been drunk when she'd run into him.\n\n\"I just feel so bad for him,\" Gabby said.\n\n\"I know you do,\" Travis said.\n\nShe grew quiet then. \"Sometimes I think it might have been easier if his wife had died instead.\"\n\nStaring out the window, Travis thought about Kenneth and Eleanor Baker. He had no idea whether Eleanor was still in the nursing home or whether she was still alive. Since the accident, he'd replayed those conversations in his head nearly every day, remembering the things Gabby had told him. He wondered whether somehow Eleanor and Kenneth Baker had been brought into their lives for a reason. How many people, after all, knew anyone who'd been in a coma? It seemed so... _fantastic,_ no more likely than visiting an island filled with dinosaurs or watching an alien spaceship blowing up the Empire State Building.\n\nBut Gabby worked in a hospital, and if there was some sort of reason for the Bakers to have come into their lives, what was it? To warn him that he was doomed? That his daughters would lose their way? Those thoughts terrified him, and it was the reason he made sure he was waiting when his daughters came home from school. It was the reason he would be taking them to Busch Gardens as soon as school let out, and it was the reason he let Christine spend the night at her friend's house. He woke every morning with the thought that even if they were struggling, which was normal, he still insisted they behave at home and in school, and it was the reason that when they misbehaved, both of them were sent to their rooms for the night as punishment. Because those were the things Gabby would have done.\n\nHis in-laws sometimes thought he was being too hard on the girls. That wasn't surprising. His mother-in-law, in particular, had always been judgmental. While Gabby and her dad could chat on the phone for an hour, conversations with her mother were always clipped. In the beginning, Travis and Gabby spent the mandatory holidays in Savannah and Gabby always came home stressed; once their daughters were born, Gabby finally told her parents she wanted to start her own holiday traditions and that while she would love to see them, her parents would have to come to Beaufort. They never did.\n\nAfter the accident, however, her parents checked into a hotel in Morehead City to be close to their daughter, and for the first month, the three of them were often in Gabby's room together. While they never said they blamed him for the accident, Travis could feel it in the way they seemed to keep their distance. When they spent time with Christine and Lisa, it was always away from the house\u2014outings for ice cream or pizza\u2014and they seldom spent more than a couple of minutes inside.\n\nIn time, they had to go back, and now they sometimes came up on weekends. When they did, Travis tried to stay away from the hospital. He told himself that it was because they needed time alone with their daughter, and that was partly true. What he didn't like to admit was that he also stayed away because they continually, if unintentionally, reminded him that he was responsible for Gabby being in the hospital in the first place.\n\nHis friends had reacted as he'd expected. Allison, Megan, and Liz prepared dinners in shifts for the first six weeks. Over the years, they'd grown close to Gabby, and sometimes it seemed as if Travis had to support them. They would show up with red eyes and forced smiles, holding Tupperware containers filled to the brim with lasagna or casseroles, side dishes, and desserts of every kind. They always made a special point to mention that chicken was always used in place of red meat, to ensure that Travis would eat it.\n\nThey were particularly good with the girls. In the beginning, they often held the girls as they cried, and Christine grew especially fond of Liz. Liz braided her hair, helped her make beaded bracelets, and usually spent at least half an hour with Christine, kicking the soccer ball back and forth. Once inside, they would begin to whisper as soon as Travis left the room. He wondered what they said to each other. Knowing Liz, he was certain that if she felt it was something important, she'd tell him, but usually she'd simply say that Christine wanted to talk. Over time, he found himself simultaneously thankful for her presence and envious of her relationship with Christine.\n\nLisa, on the other hand, was closer to Megan. They would color at the kitchen table or sit beside each other watching television; sometimes Travis would watch Lisa curl her body against Megan's in the same way she did with Gabby. In moments like those, they almost looked like mother and daughter, and for the briefest of moments, Travis would feel as if the family were reunited again.\n\nAllison, on the other hand, was the one who made sure the girls understood that even if they were sad and upset, they still had responsibilities. She reminded them to pick up their rooms, helped them with their homework, and always prompted them to bring their dishes to the sink. She was gentle about it, but firm as well, and while his daughters sometimes avoided their chores on the nights Allison didn't come, it happened less frequently than Travis would have guessed. On a subconscious level, they seemed to realize they craved structure in their lives, and Allison was exactly what they'd needed.\n\nBetween them and his mother\u2014who was there every afternoon and most weekends\u2014Travis was seldom alone with his daughters in the aftermath of the accident, and they were able to function as parents in a way that he simply couldn't. He'd needed them to do that for him. It was all he could do to get out of bed in the morning, and most of the time, he felt on the verge of crying. His guilt hung heavy, and not simply because of the accident. He didn't know what to do or where he was supposed to be. When he was at the hospital, he wished he were at home with his daughters; when he was at home with his daughters, he wished he were visiting Gabby. Nothing was ever right.\n\nBut after six weeks of dumping excess food in the garbage cans, Travis finally told his friends that while they were welcome to continue visiting, he no longer needed his dinners prepared. Nor did he want them coming by every day. By that point, with visions of Kenneth Baker playing in his mind, he knew that he had to take control over what was left of his life. He had to become the father he once had been, the father Gabby wanted him to be, and little by little, he did. It wasn't easy, and while there were still times when Christine and Lisa seemed to miss the attention from the others, it was more than offset by the attention Travis began to show again. It wasn't as if everything had reverted to normal, but now, at the three-month mark, their lives were as normal as could be expected. In taking responsibility for the care of his daughters, Travis sometimes thought he'd saved himself.\n\nOn the downside, since the accident, he'd left little time for Joe, Matt, and Laird. While they still dropped by occasionally for a beer after the girls had gone to bed, their conversations were stilted. Half the time, everything they said seemed to be... _wrong,_ somehow. When they asked about Gabby, he wasn't in the mood to talk about her. When they tried to talk about something else, Travis wondered why they seemed to be avoiding talking about Gabby. He knew he wasn't being fair, but while spending time with them, he was always struck by the differences between their lives and his. Despite their kindness and patience, despite their sympathy, he would find himself thinking that in a little while, Joe would head home to Megan and they'd talk quietly while curled up in bed; when Matt put his hand on his shoulder, he would wonder whether Liz was glad that Matt had gone over or whether she'd needed him to do something at home. His relationship with Laird was exactly the same, and despite himself, he was often unaccountably angry in their presence. While he was forced to live constantly with the unthinkable, their concern could be switched on and off, and for the life of him, he couldn't escape his rage at the unfairness of it all. He wanted what they had and knew they would never understand his loss, no matter how hard they tried. He hated himself for thinking these things and tried to hide his fury, but he got the sense that his friends realized that things had changed, even if they were uncertain what was really going on. Gradually, their visits became shorter and more infrequent. He hated himself for that, too, for the wedge he was creating between them, but he didn't know how to repair it.\n\nIn quiet moments, he wondered about his anger toward his friends, while he felt only gratitude toward their wives. He would sit on the deck pondering it all, and last week he'd found himself gazing at the crescent moon, finally accepting what he'd known all along. The difference, he knew, had to do with the fact that Megan, Allison, and Liz focused their support on his daughters, while Joe, Matt, and Laird focused their support on him. His daughters deserved that.\n\nHe, however, deserved to be punished.\n\n# Twenty\n\nSitting with Gabby, Travis glanced at his watch. It was coming up on half-past two, and normally he would be getting ready to say good-bye to Gabby so he could be home when the girls came back from school. Today, however, Christine was visiting a friend's house, and Lisa was going to a birthday party at the aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores, so neither would be home until just before dinner. The fact that his daughters had plans for today was fortunate, since he needed to stay longer anyway. Later, he had to meet with the neurologist and the hospital administrator.\n\nHe knew what the meeting was about, and he had no doubt they'd be in full-sympathy mode, complete with moderate, reassuring tones. The neurologist would tell him that because there was nothing more the hospital could do for Gabby, she would have to be transferred to a nursing home. He would be assured that since her condition was stable, the risk would be minimal and that a physician would check in on her weekly. Additionally, he would probably be told that the staff who worked in nursing homes were fully capable of providing the care she would need daily. If Travis protested, the administrator would probably step in and note that unless Gabby was in the intensive care unit, their insurance covered only a three-month stay in the hospital. He might also shrug and mention that since the hospital was meant to serve the local community, there wasn't room to keep her long-term, even if she had once been an employee. There was really nothing else he could do. Essentially, by teaming up, they wanted to make sure they got their way.\n\nWhat neither of them realized was that the decision wasn't quite that simple. Beneath the surface lurked the reality that while Gabby was in the hospital, it was assumed that she would wake up soon, for this was where temporary coma patients always stayed. Patients in temporary comas needed physicians and nurses nearby to quickly monitor changes that would signify the improvement they'd known was coming all along. In a nursing home, it would be assumed that Gabby would never wake up. Travis wasn't ready to accept that, but it seemed as if he weren't going to be given a choice.\n\nBut Gabby had a choice, and in the end, his decision wasn't going to be based on what either the neurologist or the administrator said to him. He would base his decision on what he thought Gabby would want.\n\nOutside the window, the pigeon was gone, and he wondered whether it went off to visit other patients, like a doctor making his rounds, and if it did, whether the other patients noticed the pigeon the way he did.\n\n\"Sorry about crying earlier,\" Travis whispered. As he stared at Gabby, he watched her chest rising and falling with every breath. \"I couldn't help it.\"\n\nHe was under no illusions he would hear her voice this time. It happened only once a day.\n\n\"Do you know what I like about you?\" he asked. \"Aside from pretty much everything?\" He forced a smile. \"I like the way you are with Molly. She's all right, by the way. Her hips haven't given out, and she still likes to lie in the tall grass whenever she can. Whenever I see her doing that, I think about those first few years we were together. Remember when we used to take the dogs on walks down the beach? When we'd go out early so we could let them off the leash and they could run around? Those were always such... restful mornings, and I used to love watching you laugh as you chased Molly in circles, trying to tap her butt. She used to go crazy when you did that, and she'd get this gleam in her eye with her tongue hanging out, waiting for you to make your move.\"\n\nHe paused, noting with surprise that the pigeon had returned. It must like listening to him talk, he decided.\n\n\"That's how I knew you'd be great with kids, by the way. Because of how you were with Molly. Even that first time we met...\" He shook his head, his mind flashing back. \"Believe it or not, I've always liked the fact that you stormed over to my place that night, and not just because we ended up getting married. You were like a mama bear protecting her cub. It's impossible to get that angry unless you're capable of loving deeply, and after watching how you were with Molly\u2014lots of love and attention, lots of worry, and nobody on earth better mess with her\u2014I knew you'd be exactly the same way with kids.\"\n\nHe traced his finger along her arm. \"Do you know how much that's meant to me? Knowing how much you love our daughters? You have no idea how much comfort that gave me over the years.\"\n\nHe leaned his face close to her ear. \"I love you, Gabby, more than you'll ever know. You're everything I've ever wanted in a wife. You're every hope and every dream I've ever had, and you've made me happier than any man could possibly be. I don't ever want to give that up. I can't. Can you understand that?\"\n\nHe waited for a response, but there was nothing. There was always nothing, as if God were telling him that his love was somehow not enough. Staring at Gabby, he suddenly felt very old and very tired. He adjusted the sheet, feeling alone and apart from his wife, knowing he was a husband whose love had somehow failed her.\n\n\"Please,\" he whispered. \"You've got to wake up, sweetheart. Please? We're running out of time.\"\n\n\"Hey,\" Stephanie said. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she looked nothing like the successful professional she'd become. Living in Chapel Hill, she was the senior project manager at a rapidly growing biotechnology firm, but in the last three months, she'd spent three or four days a week in Beaufort. Since the accident, she'd been the only one Travis could really talk to. She alone knew all his secrets.\n\n\"Hey,\" Travis said.\n\nShe crossed the room and leaned over the side of the bed. \"Hey, Gabby,\" she said, kissing her on the cheek. \"You doing okay?\"\n\nTravis loved the way his sister treated Gabby. Except for Travis, she was the only one who'd always seemed comfortable in Gabby's presence.\n\nStephanie pulled up another chair and slid it closer to Travis. \"And how are you doing, big brother?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said.\n\nStephanie gave him the once-over. \"You look like hell.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\n\"You're not eating enough.\" She reached in her handbag and pulled out a bag of peanuts. \"Eat these.\"\n\n\"I'm not hungry. I just had lunch.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"Enough.\"\n\n\"Humor me, okay?\" She used her teeth to tear open the bag. \"Just eat these and I promise I'll shut up and won't bother you again.\"\n\n\"You say that every time you're here.\"\n\n\"That's because you keep looking like hell.\" She tilted her head toward Gabby. \"I'll bet she said the same thing, too, right?\" She'd never questioned Travis's claims about hearing Gabby's voice, or if she did, her tone reflected no concerns about it.\n\n\"Yeah, she did.\"\n\nShe forced the bag toward him. \"Then take the peanuts.\"\n\nTravis took the bag, lowering it to his lap.\n\n\"Now put some in your mouth, then chew and swallow.\"\n\nShe sounded like their mother. \"Did anyone ever tell you that you can be a little bit too pushy at times?\"\n\n\"Every day. And believe me, you need someone to be pushy with you. You're just lucky you have me in your life. I'm quite the blessing for you.\"\n\nFor the first time all day, he gave a genuine laugh. \"That's one word for it.\" He poured out a small handful of nuts and began to chew. \"How are things with you and Brett?\"\n\nStephanie had been dating Brett Whitney for the past two years. One of the most successful hedge fund managers in the country, he was wildly wealthy, handsome, and considered by many to be the most eligible bachelor south of the Mason-Dixon Line.\n\n\"We're still going.\"\n\n\"Trouble in paradise?\"\n\nStephanie shrugged. \"He asked me to marry him again.\"\n\n\"And you said?\"\n\n\"The same thing I said before.\"\n\n\"How did he take it?\"\n\n\"Fine. Oh, he did his 'I'm hurt and angry' thing again, but he was back to normal in a couple of days. We spent last weekend in New York.\"\n\n\"Why don't you just marry him?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I probably will.\"\n\n\"Here's a hint, then. You might want to say yes when he asks.\"\n\n\"Why? He'll ask again.\"\n\n\"You sound so certain when you say that.\"\n\n\"I am. And I'll say yes when I'm positive he wants to marry me.\"\n\n\"He's asked you three times. How much more positive can you get?\"\n\n\"He just thinks he wants to marry me. Brett is the kind of guy who likes challenges, and right now, I'm a challenge. As long as I stay a challenge, he'll keep asking. And when I know he's really ready, that's when I'll say yes.\"\n\n\"I don't know...\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" she said. \"I know men, and I have my charms.\" Her eyes glittered with mischief. \"He knows that I don't need him, and it practically kills him.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"You definitely don't need him.\"\n\n\"So, changing the subject, when are you going back to work?\"\n\n\"Soon,\" he mumbled.\n\nShe reached into his bag of peanuts and popped a couple in her mouth. \"You are aware that Dad's not exactly a spring chicken anymore.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"So... next week?\"\n\nWhen Travis didn't respond, Stephanie folded her hands in front of her. \"Okay, here's what's going to happen, since you obviously haven't made up your mind. You're going to start showing up at the clinic, and at the very least, you're going to stay every day until at least one o'clock. That's your new schedule. Oh, and you can close the office on Friday at noon. That way, Dad's only there for four afternoons.\"\n\nHe squinted at her. \"I can see you've been giving this a lot of thought.\"\n\n\"Someone has to. And just so you know, this isn't just for Dad. You need to go back to work.\"\n\n\"What if I don't think I'm ready?\"\n\n\"Too bad. Do it anyway. If not for you, do it for Christine and Lisa.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Your daughters. Remember them?\"\n\n\"I know who they are....\"\n\n\"And you love them, right?\"\n\n\"What kind of a question is that?\"\n\n\"Then if you love them,\" she said, ignoring his question, \"you've got to start acting like a parent again. And that means you have to go back to work.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because,\" she said, \"you have to show them that no matter what horrible things happen in life, you still have to go on. That's your responsibility. Who else is going to teach them that?\"\n\n\"Steph...\"\n\n\"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I am saying you don't have a choice. After all, you haven't let them quit, have you? They're still in school, right? You're still making them do homework, right?\"\n\nTravis said nothing.\n\n\"So, if you expect them to handle their responsibilities\u2014and they're only six and eight\u2014then you've got to handle yours. They need to see you getting back to normal, and work is part of that. Sorry. That's life.\"\n\nTravis shook his head, feeling his anger rise. \"You don't understand.\"\n\n\"I understand completely.\"\n\nHe brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezed. \"Gabby is...\"\n\nWhen he didn't continue, Stephanie put her hand on his knee. \"Passionate? Intelligent? Kind? Moral? Funny? Forgiving? Patient? Everything you ever imagined in a wife and mother? In other words, pretty much perfect?\"\n\nHe looked up in surprise.\n\n\"I know,\" she said quietly. \"I love her, too. I've always loved her. She's not only been the sister I never had, but my best friend, too. Sometimes she felt like my only real friend. And you're right\u2014she's been wonderful for you and the kids. You couldn't have done any better. Why do you think I keep coming down here? It's not just for her, or for you. It's for me. I miss her, too.\"\n\nUnsure how to respond, he said nothing. In the silence, Stephanie sighed.\n\n\"Have you decided what you're going to do?\"\n\nTravis swallowed. \"No,\" he admitted. \"Not yet.\"\n\n\"It's been three months.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said.\n\n\"When's the meeting?\"\n\n\"I'm supposed to meet with them in half an hour.\"\n\nWatching her brother, she accepted that. \"Okay. I'll tell you what. I'll let you think about it some more. I'll just head over to your place and see the girls.\"\n\n\"They're not there, but they should be back later.\"\n\n\"You mind if I wait around?\"\n\n\"Go ahead. There's a key\u2014\"\n\nShe didn't let him finish. \"Beneath the plaster frog on the porch? Yeah, I know. And if you're curious, I'm pretty sure most burglars could figure that out, too.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"I love you, Steph.\"\n\n\"I love you, too, Travis. And you know I'm here for you, right?\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Always. Anytime.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nStaring at him, she finally nodded. \"I'll just wait for you, okay? I want to know what happens.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nStanding, she reached for her purse and flung it over her shoulder. She kissed her brother on the top of his head.\n\n\"We'll see you later, okay, Gabby?\" she said, not expecting an answer. She was halfway out of the room when she heard Travis's voice again.\n\n\"How far should you go in the name of love?\"\n\nStephanie half turned. \"You've asked me that question before.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Travis hesitated. \"But I'm asking what you think I should do.\"\n\n\"Then I'll tell you what I always do. That it's your choice how you handle this.\"\n\n\"What does that mean for me?\"\n\nHer expression seemed almost helpless. \"I don't know, Trav. What do you think it means?\"\n\n# Twenty-one\n\nIt was a little more than two years ago when Gabby bumped into Kenneth Baker on one of those summer evenings for which Beaufort was famous. With live music playing and dozens of boats tied up at the docks on a summer night, it had seemed like the perfect night to bring Gabby and the kids downtown for ice cream. While they stood in line with the kids, Gabby casually mentioned that she'd seen a beautiful print in one of the stores they'd passed. Travis smiled. By then, he'd grown used to her hints.\n\n\"Why don't you check it out,\" he'd said. \"I've got the girls. Go ahead.\"\n\nShe was gone longer than he'd expected, and when she returned, her expression was troubled. Later, after they'd gone home and put the girls to bed, Gabby sat on the couch, clearly preoccupied.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" he asked.\n\nGabby shifted on the couch. \"I ran into Kenneth Baker earlier today,\" she admitted. \"When you were getting ice cream.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah? How's he doing?\"\n\nShe sighed. \"Do you realize that his wife's been in a coma for six years now? Six _years._ Can you imagine what that must be like for him?\"\n\n\"No,\" Travis said. \"I can't.\"\n\n\"He looks like an old man.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I'd age, too. He's going through something terrible.\"\n\nShe nodded, her expression still troubled. \"He's angry, too. It's like he resents her. He said he only visits her now and then. And his kids...\" Lost in thought, she seemed to lose track of her sentence.\n\nTravis stared at Gabby. \"What's this about?\"\n\n\"Would you visit me? If something like that happened to me?\"\n\nFor the first time, he felt a pang of fear, even though he wasn't quite sure why. \"Of course I would.\"\n\nHer expression was almost sad. \"But after a while, you'd visit less.\"\n\n\"I'd visit you all the time.\"\n\n\"And in time, you'd resent me.\"\n\n\"I'd never resent you.\"\n\n\"Kenneth resents Eleanor.\"\n\n\"I'm not Kenneth.\" He shook his head. \"Why are we even talking about this?\"\n\n\"Because I love you.\"\n\nHe opened his mouth to respond, but she raised her hand. \"Let me finish, okay?\" She paused, collecting her thoughts. \"When Eleanor first went into the hospital, it was obvious how much Kenneth loved her. That's what I noticed whenever we spoke, and over time, I think he told me their entire story\u2014how they'd met at the beach the summer after graduation; that when he first asked her out, she'd said no, but he somehow finagled her number anyway; that he first told her he loved her on her parents' thirtieth anniversary. But he didn't just tell the stories\u2014it was like he was reliving them over and over. In a way, he reminded me of you.\"\n\nGabby reached for his hand. \"You do the same thing, you know. Do you know how many times I've heard you tell someone about the first time we met? Don't get me wrong\u2014I love that about you. I love the fact that you keep those memories alive in your heart and that they mean as much to you as they do to me. And the thing is... when you do, I can feel you fall in love with me again. In some ways, it's the most touching thing you do for me.\" She paused. \"Well, that and cleaning the kitchen when I'm too tired to do it.\"\n\nDespite himself, he laughed. Gabby didn't seem to notice.\n\n\"Today, though, Kenneth was just so... bitter, and when I asked about Eleanor, I got the sense that he wished she were dead. And when I compare that to the way he used to feel about his wife, and what's happened to his kids... it's terrible.\"\n\nWhen her voice died away, Travis squeezed her hand. \"That's not going to happen to us....\"\n\n\"That's not the point. The point is, I can't live knowing that I didn't do what I should have done.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nShe ran her thumb over his hand. \"I love you so much, Travis. You're the best husband, the best person, that I've ever known. And I want you to make me a promise.\"\n\n\"Anything,\" he said.\n\nShe looked directly at him. \"I want you to promise that if anything ever does happen to me, you'll let me die.\"\n\n\"We already have living wills,\" he countered. \"We did those when we did our regular wills and power of attorney.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she said. \"But our lawyer retired to Florida, and as far as I know, no one but the three of us knows that I don't want my life prolonged in the event I can't make my own decisions. It wouldn't be fair to you or the kids to put your lives on hold, because in time, resentment would be inevitable. You would suffer and the kids would suffer. Seeing Kenneth today convinced me of that, but I don't want you to ever be bitter about anything we shared. I love all of you too much for that. Death is always sad, but it's also inevitable, and that's why I signed the living will in the first place. Because I love all of you so much.\" Her tone became softer and yet more determined. \"And the thing is... I don't want to feel like I have to tell my parents or my sisters about the decision I made. The decision we made. I don't want to have to find another attorney and redraft the documents. I want to be able to trust that you'll do what I want. And that's why I want you to promise me that you'll honor my wishes.\"\n\nThe conversation struck him as surreal. \"Yeah... sure,\" he said.\n\n\"No, not like that. I want you to promise me. I want you to make a vow.\"\n\nTravis swallowed. \"I promise to do exactly what you want. I swear it.\"\n\n\"No matter how hard it is?\"\n\n\"No matter how hard.\"\n\n\"Because you love me.\"\n\n\"Because I love you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"And because I love you, too.\"\n\nThe living will Gabby had signed in the attorney's office was the document Travis had brought with him to the hospital. Among other things, it specified that her feeding tubes were to be removed after twelve weeks. Today was the day he had to make his choice.\n\nSitting beside Gabby in the hospital, Travis recalled the conversation he'd had with Gabby that night; he remembered the vow he'd made to her. He'd replayed those words a hundred times over the last few weeks, and as the three-month mark approached, he'd found himself growing ever more desperate for Gabby to wake. As had Stephanie, which was why she was waiting for him at home. Six weeks ago, he'd told her about the promise he'd made to Gabby; the need to share it had become unbearable.\n\nThe next six weeks passed without relief. Not only didn't Gabby stir, but she'd shown no improvement in any of her brain functions. Though he tried to ignore the obvious, the clock had moved forward, and it was now the hour of his decision.\n\nSometimes, during his imaginary conversations with her, he'd tried to get her to change her mind. He'd argue that the promise hadn't been a fair one; that the only reason he'd said yes was that the prospect seemed so unlikely, he'd never believed it would come up. He confessed that had he been able to predict the future, he would have torn up the documents she'd signed in the attorney's office, for even if she couldn't respond, he still couldn't imagine a life without her.\n\nHe would never be like Kenneth Baker. He felt no bitterness toward Gabby, nor would he ever. He needed her, he needed the hope he felt whenever they were together. He drew strength from visiting her. Earlier today, he'd been exhausted and lethargic; as the day wore on, his sense of commitment had only grown stronger, leaving him certain that he would have the ability to laugh with his daughters, to be the father Gabby wanted him to be. It had worked for three months, and he knew he could do it forever. What he didn't know was how on earth he could go on knowing that Gabby was gone. As strange as it seemed, there was a comforting predictability to the new routine of his life.\n\nOutside the window, the pigeon paced back and forth, making him think it was pondering the decision with him. There were times when he felt a strange kinship with the bird, as if it were trying to teach him something, though what, he had no idea. Once, he had brought some bread with him, but he hadn't realized the screen would prevent him from tossing it onto the ledge. Standing before the glass, the pigeon had eyed the bread in his hand, cooing slightly. It flew away a moment later, only to return and stay the rest of the afternoon. After that, it showed no fear of him. Travis could tap the glass and the pigeon would stand in place. It was a curious situation that gave him something else to think about when sitting in the quiet room. What he wanted to ask the pigeon was this: Am I to become a killer?\n\nThis was where his thoughts inevitably led, and it was what differentiated him from others who were expected to carry out the desires outlined in living wills. They were doing the right thing; their choice was rooted in compassion. For him, however, the choice was different, if only for logical reasons. If A and B, then C. But for his commission of one mistake after the next, there would have been no car accident; had there been no accident, there would have been no coma. He was the proximate cause of her injury, but she hadn't died. And now, with the flourish of some legal documents from his pocket, he could finish the job. He could be responsible for her death once and for all. The difference turned his stomach inside out; with every passing day, as the decision approached, he ate less and less. Sometimes it seemed not only that God wanted Gabby to die, but that He wanted Travis to know that it had been entirely his fault.\n\nGabby, he was certain, would deny it. The accident was just that\u2014an accident. And she, not he, had made the decision as to how long she wanted a feeding tube. Yet he couldn't shed the crushing weight of his responsibility, for the simple reason that no one, aside from Stephanie, knew what Gabby wanted. In the end, he alone would make the choice.\n\nThe grayish afternoon light gave the walls a melancholy cast. He still felt paralyzed. Buying time, he removed the flowers from the windowsill and brought them to the bed. As he laid them across Gabby's chest and took his seat, Gretchen appeared in the doorway. She moved  into the room slowly; as she checked Gabby's vitals, she didn't say a word. She jotted something in the chart and smiled briefly. A month ago, when he was doing Gabby's exercises, Gabby had mentioned that she was pretty sure Gretchen had a crush on him.\n\n\"Is she going to be leaving us?\" he heard Gretchen ask.\n\nTravis knew she was referring to a transfer to a nursing home; in the halls, Travis had heard whispers that it would be coming soon. But there was more to her question than Gretchen could possibly understand, and he couldn't summon the will to answer.\n\n\"I'm going to miss her,\" she said. \"And I'm going to miss you, too.\"\n\nHer expression was brimming with compassion.\n\n\"I mean it. I've worked here longer than Gabby, and you should have heard the way she used to talk about you. And the kids, too, of course. You could tell that even though she loved her job, she was always happiest when it was time to go home at the end of the day. She wasn't like the rest of us, who were excited to be done for the day. She was excited to go home, to be reunited with her family. I really admired that about her, that she had a life like that.\"\n\nTravis didn't know what to say.\n\nShe sighed, and Travis thought he saw the glisten of tears. \"It breaks my heart to see her like this. And you, too. Do you know that every nurse in the hospital knows you sent your wife roses every anniversary? Pretty much every woman here wished that her husband or boyfriend would do things like that. And then, after the accident, the way you are with her... I know you're sad and angry, but I've seen you do the exercises with her. I've heard what you say, and... it's like you and she have this connection that can't be broken. It's heartbreaking and yet beautiful. And I feel so horrible for what you're both going through. I've been praying for you both every night.\"\n\nTravis felt his throat close.\n\n\"I guess what I'm trying to say is that you two make me believe that true love really exists. And that even the darkest hours can't take that away.\" She stopped, her expression revealing that she felt she'd said too much, and she turned away. A moment later, as she was about to leave the room, he felt her place a hand on his shoulder. It was warm and light and lingered for just an instant, and then it was gone, and Travis was alone with his choice once more.\n\nIt was time. Looking at the clock, he knew he couldn't wait any longer. The others were waiting for him. He crossed the room to shut the blinds. Habit led him to turn on the television. Though he knew the nurses would turn it off later, he didn't want Gabby to lie alone in a room more silent than a tomb.\n\nHe'd often imagined himself trying to explain how it happened. He could see himself shaking his head in disbelief while sitting at the kitchen table with his parents. \"I don't know why she woke up,\" he heard himself saying. \"As far as I can tell, there is no magical answer. It was just like every other time I visited... except that she opened her eyes.\" He could imagine his mother crying tears of joy, he could picture himself making the call to Gabby's parents. Sometimes it was as clear to him as if it had actually happened, and he would hold his breath, living and experiencing the feeling of wonder.\n\nBut now he doubted that it would ever be possible, and from across the room, he stared at her. Who were they, Gabby and he? Why had it all turned out this way? There had been a time when he would have had reasonable answers to those questions, but that time was long past. These days, he understood nothing. Above her, the fluorescent light hummed, and he wondered what he was going to do. He still didn't know. What he knew was this: She was still alive, and where there was life, there was always hope. He focused on her, wondering how someone so close and so present could remain so remote.\n\nToday, he had to make his choice. To tell the truth meant Gabby would die; to tell a lie meant that Gabby's wish would be denied. He wanted her to tell him what to do, and from somewhere far away, he could imagine her answer.\n\n_I already have, sweetheart. You know what you have to do._\n\nBut the choice, he wanted to plead, had been based on faulty assumptions. If he could go back in time, he would never have made that promise, and he wondered whether she would have even asked him to. Would she have made the same decision if she'd known that he would cause her coma in the first place? Or if she'd known that pulling the feeding tube and watching her slowly starve to death would certainly kill a part of him? Or if he told her that he believed he could be a better father if she remained alive, even if she never recovered at all?\n\nIt was more than he could bear, and he felt his mind begin to scream: _Please wake up!_ The echo seemed to shake the very atoms of his being. _Please, sweetheart. Doit for me. For our daughters. They need you. I need you. Open your eyes before I go, while there's still time...._\n\nAnd for a moment, he thought he saw a twitch, he would swear he saw her stir. He was too choked up to speak, but as always, reality reasserted itself, and he knew it had been an illusion. In the bed, she hadn't moved at all, and watching her through his tears, he felt his soul begin to die.\n\nHe had to go, but there was one more thing he had to do. Like everyone, he knew the story of Snow White, of the kiss from the Prince that broke the evil spell. That's what he thought of every time he left Gabby for the day, but now the notion struck him as imperative. This was it, his very last chance. Despite himself, he felt a tiny swell of hope at the thought that somehow, this time would be different. While his love for her had always been there, the finality had not, and maybe the combination constituted the magical formula that he'd been missing. He steadied himself and moved toward the bed, trying to convince himself that this time it would work. This kiss, unlike all the others, would fill her lungs with life. She would moan in momentary confusion, but then she would realize what he was doing. She would feel his life pouring into hers. She would sense the fullness of his love for her, and with a passion that surprised him, she would begin to kiss him in return.\n\nHe leaned closer, their faces drawing near, and he could feel the heat of her breath mingling with his. He closed his eyes against the memory of a thousand other kisses and touched his lips to hers. He felt a kind of spark, and all at once he felt her slowly coming back to him. She was the arm that held him close in times of trouble, she was the whisper on the pillow beside him at night. It was working, he thought, it was really working... and as his heart began to race in his chest, it finally dawned on him that nothing had changed at all.\n\nPulling back, all he could do was lightly trace her cheek with his finger. His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.\n\n\"Good-bye, sweetheart.\"\n\n# Twenty-two\n\nHow far should a person go in the name of love?\n\nTravis was still turning this question over in his mind when he pulled into the drive, even though he'd already made his decision. Stephanie's car was parked out front, but except for the living room, the rest of the house was dark. An empty house would have been too much to bear.\n\nThe chill was biting as he stepped out of his car, and he pulled his jacket tighter. The moon had yet to rise, and the stars glittered overhead; if he concentrated, he knew he could still remember the names of the constellations that Gabby had once traced for him. He smiled briefly, thinking back on that evening. The memory was as clear as the sky above, but he forced it away, knowing he didn't have the strength to let it linger. Not tonight.\n\nThe lawn was shiny with moisture, promising a heavy frost overnight. He reminded himself to put out the girls' mittens and scarves so he wouldn't have to rush around in the morning. They would be home soon, and despite his fatigue, he missed them. Tucking his hands in his pockets, he made his way up the front steps.\n\nStephanie turned when she heard him enter. He could feel her trying to read his expression. She started toward him.\n\n\"Travis,\" she said.\n\n\"Hey, Steph.\" He removed his jacket, realizing he couldn't remember the drive back home.\n\n\"Are you okay?\"\n\nIt took him a moment to respond. \"I don't know.\"\n\nShe put her hand on his arm. Her voice was gentle. \"Can I get you something to drink?\"\n\n\"A glass of water would be great.\"\n\nShe seemed relieved to be able to do something. \"Be back in a jiffy.\"\n\nHe sat on the couch and leaned his head back, feeling as drained as if he'd spent the day in the ocean, fighting waves. Stephanie returned and handed him the glass.\n\n\"Christine called. She's running a little late. Lisa's on her way.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. He nodded before focusing on the family portrait.\n\n\"Do you want to talk about it?\"\n\nHe took a drink of water, realizing how parched his throat had become. \"Did you think about the question I asked you earlier? About how far someone should go in the name of love?\"\n\nShe considered the question for a moment. \"I think I answered that.\"\n\n\"You did. Sort of.\"\n\n\"What? You're telling me it wasn't a good enough answer?\"\n\nHe smiled, thankful that Stephanie was still able to talk to him as she always had. \"What I really wanted to know is what you would have done if you were in my position.\"\n\n\"I knew what you wanted,\" she said hesitantly, \"but... I don't know, Trav. I really don't. I can't imagine having to make that kind of decision, and to be honest, I don't think anyone can.\" She exhaled. \"Sometimes I wish you'd never told me.\"\n\n\"I probably shouldn't have. I had no right to burden you with that.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I didn't mean it like that. I know you had to talk to someone about it, and I'm glad you trusted me. It's just that it made me feel terrible for what you've been going through. The accident, your own injuries, worries about the kids, your wife in a coma... and then to have to make a choice whether or not to honor Gabby's wishes? It's too much for anyone to handle.\"\n\nTravis said nothing.\n\n\"I've been worried about you,\" she added. \"I've barely slept since you told me.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't apologize. I should be the one apologizing to you. I should have moved back here as soon as it happened. I should have visited Gabby more often. I should have been around every time you needed to talk to someone.\"\n\n\"It's all right. I'm glad you didn't walk away from your job. You worked hard to get there, and Gabby knew that, too. Besides, you were here a lot more than I thought you would be.\"\n\n\"I just feel so sorry for what you've been going through.\"\n\nHe slipped his arm around her. \"I know,\" he said.\n\nTogether, they sat in silence. In the background, Travis heard the heater click on as Stephanie sighed. \"I want you to know that no matter what you decided, I'm with you, okay? I know, more than almost anyone, how much you love Gabby.\"\n\nTravis turned toward the window. Through the glass, he could see the lights from his neighbors' houses gleaming in the darkness. \"I couldn't do it,\" he finally said.\n\nHe tried to collect his thoughts. \"I thought I could, and I even rehearsed the words I would say when telling the doctors to remove her feeding tube. I know that's what Gabby wanted, but... in the end I just couldn't do it. Even if I spend the rest of my life visiting her in the nursing home, it's still a better life than one I could spend with anyone else. I love her too much to let her go.\"\n\nStephanie gave him a wan smile. \"I know,\" she said. \"I could see it on your face when you walked in the door.\"\n\n\"Do you think I did the right thing?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered without hesitation.\n\n\"For me, or for Gabby?\"\n\n\"Both.\"\n\nHe swallowed. \"Do you think she'll wake up?\"\n\nStephanie met his eyes. \"Yes, I do. I've always believed that. The two of you... there's something uncanny about the way you are with each other. I mean everything\u2014the way you look at each other, the way she relaxes when you put your hand on her back, the way you both seem to know what the other is always thinking... it's always struck me as extraordinary. That's another reason I keep putting marriage off. I know I want something like what you two share, and I'm not sure I've found it yet. I'm not sure I ever will. And with love like that... they say anything's possible, right? You love Gabby and Gabby loves you, and I just can't imagine a world where you're not together. Together the way you're meant to be.\"\n\nTravis let her words sink in.\n\n\"So what's next?\" she asked. \"You need help burning the living will?\"\n\nDespite the tension, he laughed. \"Maybe later.\"\n\n\"And the lawyer? He won't come back to haunt you, right?\"\n\n\"I haven't heard from him in years.\"\n\n\"See, that's another sign you did the right thing.\"\n\n\"I guess.\"\n\n\"What about nursing homes?\"\n\n\"She'll be transferred next week. I just have to make the arrangements.\"\n\n\"Need help?\"\n\nHe massaged his temples, feeling unbearably tired. \"Yeah,\" he said. \"I'd like that.\"\n\n\"Hey\u2014\" She gave him a little shake. \"You made the right decision. Don't feel guilty about a single thing. You did the only thing you could do. She wants to live. She wants the chance to get back to you and the girls.\"\n\n\"I know. But...\"\n\nHe couldn't finish his sentence. The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present... yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.\n\n\"I'm scared,\" he finally admitted.\n\n\"I know,\" she said, pulling him close. \"I'm scared, too.\"\n\n# Epilogue\n\n _June 2007_\n\nThe muted landscape of winter had given way to the lush colors of late spring, and as Travis sat on the back porch, he could hear birds. Dozens, maybe hundreds, were calling and chirping, and every so often a flock of starlings would break from the trees, flying in formations that nearly seemed choreographed.\n\nIt was a Saturday afternoon, and Christine and Lisa were still playing on the tire swing that Travis had hung the week before. Because he wanted a long, slow arc for the girls\u2014something different from the regular swing set\u2014he'd cut a few of the low branches before securing the rope as high in the tree as possible. He'd spent an hour that morning pushing the swing and listening to his daughters squeal in delight; by the time he'd finished, the back of his shirt was slick with perspiration. And still the girls wanted more.\n\n\"Let Daddy rest for a few minutes,\" he'd wheezed. \"Daddy's tired. Why don't you push each other for a while.\"\n\nTheir disappointment, etched so clearly on their faces and in the droop of their shoulders, lasted only moments. Soon they were squealing again. Travis watched them swing, his mouth curling into a slight smile. He loved the musical sound of their laughter, and it warmed his heart to see them playing so well together. He hoped they would always remain as close as they were now. He liked to believe that if he and Stephanie were any indication, they would grow even closer in later years. At least that was the hope. Hope, he'd learned, was sometimes all a person had, and in the past four months, he'd learned to embrace it.\n\nSince he'd made his choice, his life had gradually returned to a kind of normalcy. Or at least a semblance thereof. Along with Stephanie, he'd toured half a dozen nursing homes. Prior to those visits, his preconceptions of nursing homes were that they were all dimly lit, filthy places where confused, moaning patients wandered the halls in the middle of the night and were watched over by orderlies who bordered on the psychotic. None of which turned out to be true. At least, not in the places he and Stephanie visited.\n\nInstead, most were bright and airy, run by thoughtful, reflective middle-aged men or women in suits who went to great pains to prove their facilities were more hygienic than most homes and that the staff was courteous, caring, and professional. While Travis spent the tours wondering whether Gabby would be happy in a place like this or whether she'd be the youngest patient in the nursing home, Stephanie asked the hard questions. She asked about background checks for the staff and emergency procedures, she wondered aloud how quickly complaints were resolved, and as she strolled the halls, she made it obvious that she was well aware of every code and regulation that had been mandated by law. She offered hypothetical situations that might come to pass and asked how they'd be handled by the staff and director; she asked how many times Gabby would be turned in the course of a day, so as to prevent bedsores. At times, she struck Travis as being like a prosecutor trying to convict someone of a crime, and though she ruffled the feathers of a few directors, Travis was grateful for her vigilance. In his state of mind, he was barely able to function, but he was dimly aware that she was asking all the right questions.\n\nIn the end, Gabby was transferred by ambulance to a nursing home run by a man named Elliot Harris, only a couple of blocks from the hospital. Harris had impressed not only Travis, but Stephanie as well, and Stephanie had filled out most of the paperwork in his office. She'd insinuated\u2014true or not\u2014that she knew people in the state legislature and ensured that Gabby was given a gracious private room that overlooked a courtyard. When Travis visited her, he rolled the bed toward the window and puffed up her pillows. He imagined that she enjoyed the sounds from the courtyard, where friends and families met, along with the sunlight. She'd said that to him once when he'd been flexing her legs. She'd also said that she understood his choice and that she was glad he'd made it. Or, more accurately, he'd imagined that she had.\n\nAfter placing her in the home and spending most of another week with her while they both got acclimated to her new environment, he'd gone back to work. He took Stephanie's suggestion and began working until early afternoon four days a week; his father filled in after that. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed interaction with other people, and when he had lunch with his father, he found he was able to finish nearly all of his meal. Of course, working regularly meant he had to juggle his schedule with Gabby. After seeing the girls off to school, he went to the nursing home and spent an hour there; after work, he spent another hour with Gabby before the girls got home. On Fridays, he was there most of the day, and on weekends, he usually made it in for a few hours. That depended on the girls' schedules, which was something Gabby would have insisted on. Sometimes on the weekends they wanted to join him, but most times they didn't want to or didn't have the time because of soccer games or parties or roller-skating. Somehow, without the choice of whether Gabby would live or die hovering over him, their growing distance didn't bother Travis as much as it once had. His daughters were doing what they needed to do to heal and move on, just as he was. He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives. And then, one afternoon nine weeks after she'd been admitted to the nursing home, the pigeon appeared at Gabby's window.\n\nAt first, Travis didn't believe it. Truth be told, he wasn't even positive it was the same bird. Who could tell? Gray and white and black with dark, beady eyes\u2014and, okay, most of the time a pest\u2014they all looked pretty much alike. And yet, staring at it... he _knew_ it was the same bird. It _had_ to be. It paced back and forth, showing no fear of Travis when he approached the glass, and it had a coo that sounded... _familiar_ somehow. A million people could tell him he was crazy, and part of him would know they were right, but still...\n\nIt was the same pigeon, no matter how crazy it sounded.\n\nHe watched it in wonder, amazed, and the following day, he brought some Wonder Bread and scattered a few pieces on the sill. After that, he glanced at the window regularly, waiting for the pigeon to reappear, but it never did. In the days following its visit, he found himself depressed by its absence. Sometimes, in fanciful moments, he liked to think that it had simply come to check on them, to make sure Travis was still watching over Gabby. Either that, he told himself, or it came to tell him not to give up hope; that in the end, his choice had been correct.\n\nOn the back porch, remembering that moment, he marveled that he could stare out at his happy daughters and experience so much of their joy himself. He barely recognized this sense of well-being, the feeling that all was right in the world. Had the appearance of the pigeon heralded the changes that took hold of their lives? He supposed it was only human to wonder about such things, and Travis figured that he'd be telling the rest of the story as long as he lived.\n\nWhat happened was this: It was midmorning, six days after the pigeon had reappeared, and Travis was working at the clinic. In one room was a sick cat; in another, a Doberman puppy needing shots. In the third room, Travis was suturing a mutt\u2014half Labrador, half golden retriever\u2014that had received a gash while crawling through barbed wire. He finished the final stitch, tied off the knot, and was about to tell the owner how to keep the gash from getting infected when an assistant entered the room without knocking. Travis turned in surprise at the interruption.\n\n\"It's Elliot Harris,\" she said. \"He needs to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Can you take a message?\" Travis asked, glancing at the dog and its owner.\n\n\"He said it can't wait. It's urgent.\"\n\nTravis apologized to the client and told the assistant to finish up. He walked to his office and closed the door. On the phone was a flashing light signaling Harris on hold.\n\nThinking back, he wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear. He did feel, however, something ominous as he raised the receiver to his ear. It was the first\u2014and the only\u2014time Elliot Harris had ever called him at the office. He steadied himself, then pressed the button.\n\n\"Travis Parker speaking,\" he said into the phone.\n\n\"Dr. Parker, it's Elliot Harris,\" the director said. His voice was calm and unreadable. \"I think you should come down to the nursing home as quickly as you can.\"\n\nIn the short silence that followed, a million thoughts raced through Travis's mind: that Gabby had stopped breathing, that she'd taken a turn for the worse, that somehow all hope had been lost. In that instant, Travis gripped the phone as if trying to ward off whatever might come next.\n\n\"Is Gabby okay?\" he finally asked, the words sounding choked.\n\nThere was another pause, probably only a second or two. A blink of an eye that was years in the making, is the way he described it now, but the two words that followed made him drop the phone.\n\nHe was eerily calm as he left his office. At least, that's what his assistants would tell him later: that in looking at him, he gave no clues as to what had happened. They said that they'd watched as he drifted past the front desk, oblivious to those who were watching him. Everyone, from the staff to the owners who'd brought their animals to the clinic, knew that Travis's wife was in the nursing home. Madeline, who was eighteen and worked at the front desk, stared at him with wide eyes as he approached her. By that point, nearly everyone in the office knew that the nursing home had called. In small towns, news is nearly instantaneous.\n\n\"Would you call my dad and tell him to come in?\" Travis asked. \"I have to go to the nursing home.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Madeline answered. She hesitated. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"Do you think you could drive me? I don't think I should be behind the wheel right now.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said, looking frightened. \"Just let me make the call first, okay?\"\n\nAs she punched the number, Travis stood as if paralyzed. The waiting room was silent; even the animals, it seemed, knew something had happened. He heard Madeline speaking to his dad as if from a great distance; in fact, he was only dimly aware of where he was. It was only when Madeline hung up the phone and told him that his father would be right in that Travis seemed to recognize his surroundings. He saw the fear on Madeline's face. Maybe because she was young and didn't know better, she asked the question that everyone seemed to be thinking.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\nTravis saw empathy and concern etched on their faces. Most of them had known him for years; some had known him since he was a child. A few, mostly the staff, knew Gabby well and, after the accident, they had gone through a period that almost resembled mourning. It wasn't anyone's business and yet it was, because his roots were here. Beaufort was their home, and looking around, he recognized everyone's curiosity as something akin to familial love. Yet he didn't know what to say to them. He'd pictured this day a thousand times, but now, however, everything was blank. He could hear himself breathing. If he concentrated hard enough, he believed that he would even be able to feel his heart beating in his chest; but his thoughts seemed too far away to grasp, let alone put into words. He wasn't sure what to think. He wondered if he'd heard Harris correctly or if it had all been a dream; he wondered if he'd somehow misunderstood. In his mind, he replayed the conversation, hunting for hidden meanings, trying to grasp the reality behind the words, but try as he might, he couldn't seem to focus long enough to even feel the emotion he was supposed to. Terror kept him from feeling anything at all. Later, he would describe the way he was feeling then as like being on a teeter-totter, with ultimate happiness on one end and ultimate loss on the other, while he was stuck in the middle, his legs on both sides, thinking that a single wrong move in either direction would send him tumbling off.\n\nIn the clinic, he put his hand on the counter to steady himself. Madeline rounded the counter with her keys dangling. Travis looked around the waiting room, then at Madeline, then at the floor. When he raised his eyes, all he could do was mimic exactly what he'd heard on the phone only moments before.\n\n\"She's awake,\" he finally said.\n\nTwelve minutes later, after thirty lane changes and three traffic lights that were definitely yellow and perhaps even red, Madeline brought the car to a halt at the entrance to the nursing home. Travis hadn't said a word since he'd been in the car, but he smiled his thanks as he pushed open the car door.\n\nThe drive had done nothing to clear his mind. He hoped beyond hope and was excited beyond all measure; at the same time, he couldn't shake the thought that somehow he'd misunderstood. Maybe she woke for an instant and was in a coma again; maybe someone had gotten the information wrong in the first place. Maybe Harris had been referring to some obscure medical condition that improved brain function, rather than the obvious. His head spun with alternating scenarios of hope and despair as he made his way toward the entrance.\n\nElliot Harris was waiting for him and seemed far more in control than Travis imagined himself ever being again.\n\n\"I've already called the physician and the neurologist, and they're going to be here in a few minutes,\" he said. \"Why don't you go up to her room?\"\n\n\"She's okay, right?\"\n\nHarris, a man Travis barely knew, put a hand on his shoulder, ushering him forward. \"Go see her,\" he said. \"She's been asking for you.\"\n\nSomeone held the door open for him\u2014no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even remember whether it had been a male or a female\u2014and Travis entered the facility. A quick right led him to the stairs, and he bounded up them, becoming more wobbly the higher he got. On the second floor, he pulled open the door and saw both a nurse and an orderly waiting, as if expecting him. By their excited expressions, he assumed they must have seen him come in and wanted to tell him what was happening, but he didn't stop, and they let him pass. As he took the next step, he felt as if his legs were about to give way. He leaned against the wall to steady himself for a moment, then took another step toward Gabby's room.\n\nIt was the second room on the left, and her door stood open. As he got closer, he heard the murmur of people talking. At the door, he hesitated, wishing he'd at least brushed his hair but knowing it didn't matter. He stepped inside, and Gretchen's face lit up.\n\n\"I was at the hospital next to the doctor when he got the page, and I just had to come see....\"\n\nTravis barely heard her. Instead, all he could register was the sight of Gabby, his wife, propped up weakly on her hospital bed. She seemed disoriented, but her smile when she saw him told him everything he needed to know.\n\n\"I know you two have a lot of catching up to do...,\" Gretchen went on in the background.\n\n\"Gabby?\" Travis finally whispered.\n\n\"Travis,\" she croaked. Her voice sounded different, scratchy and hoarse from disuse, but somehow, it was Gabby's voice just the same. Travis moved slowly toward the bed, his eyes never leaving hers, unaware that Gretchen was already backing out, shutting the door behind her.\n\n\"Gabby?\" he repeated in near disbelief. In his dream, or what he thought was a dream, he watched as she moved her hand from the bed to her stomach, as if that took all the strength she had.\n\nHe sat on the bed beside her.\n\n\"Where were you?\" she asked, the words slurry but nonetheless full of love, unmistakably full of life. Awake. \"I didn't know where you were.\"\n\n\"I'm here now,\" Travis said, and at that he broke down, his sobs coming out in heaving bursts. He leaned toward Gabby, aching for her to hold him, and when he felt her hand on his back, he began to cry even harder. He wasn't dreaming. Gabby was holding him; she knew who he was and how much she meant to him. It's real, was all he could think, this time, it's real....\n\nWith Travis unwilling to leave Gabby's side, his dad covered for him at the clinic for the next few days. Only recently had he returned to something resembling a full-time schedule, and on weekends like this, with his daughters running and laughing in the yard and Gabby in the kitchen, he sometimes caught himself grasping for details of the past year. His memories of the days he spent in the hospital had a blurry, hazy quality to them, as if he'd been only slightly more conscious than Gabby.\n\nGabby hadn't emerged from her coma unscathed, of course. She had lost a great deal of weight, her muscles had atrophied, and a numbness persisted on most of her left side. It took days before she could stand upright without support. The therapy was maddeningly slow; even now, she spent a couple of hours daily with the physical therapist, and in the beginning, she often grew frustrated that she could no longer do simple things she'd once taken for granted. She hated her gaunt appearance in the mirror and commented more than once that she looked as if she had aged fifteen years. In moments like those, Travis always told her she was beautiful, and he'd never been more sure of anything.\n\nChristine and Lisa took a bit of time to adjust. On the afternoon that Gabby woke up, Travis asked Elliot Harris to call his mother so she could pick up the girls from school. The family was reunited an hour later, but when they stepped into the room, neither Christine nor Lisa seemed to want to get close to their mother. Instead, they clung to Travis and offered monosyllabic answers to whatever Gabby asked. It took half an hour before Lisa finally crawled onto the bed alongside her mother. Christine didn't open up until the following day, and even then she kept her feelings at bay, as if she were meeting Gabby for the first time. That night, after Gabby had been transferred back to the hospital and Travis brought the girls home, Christine asked whether \"Mommy was really back, or if she'd go back to sleep again.\" Though the physicians made it clear they were fairly certain she wouldn't, they hadn't ruled it out completely, at least for the time being. Christine's fears reflected his own, and whenever he found Gabby sleeping or simply resting after a grueling round of therapy, Travis's stomach would clench. His breathing would get shallow, and he'd nudge her gently, growing increasingly panicked that she wouldn't open her eyes. And when she finally stirred, he couldn't mask his relief and gratitude. While Gabby accepted his anxieties in the beginning\u2014she admitted the thought scared her as well\u2014it had begun to drive her crazy. Last week, with the moon high in the sky and crickets chirping, Travis began to stroke her arm as she lay beside him. Her eyes opened and she focused on the clock, noting it was a little after three in the morning. A moment later, she sat up in bed and glared at him.\n\n\"You've got to stop doing this! I need my sleep. Unbroken, regular sleep, like everyone else in the world! I'm exhausted, can't you understand that? I refuse to live the rest of my life knowing that you're going to nudge me awake every hour!\"\n\nThat had been the extent of her comments; it couldn't even be classified as an argument, since he didn't have time to respond before she'd rolled over with her back to him, muttering to herself\u2014but it struck Travis as so... _Gabby-like_ that he breathed a sigh of relief. If she no longer worried about slipping into a coma again\u2014and she swore she didn't\u2014then he knew he shouldn't, either. Or, at the very least, he could let her sleep. If he was honest with himself, he wondered whether the fear would ever disappear completely. Now, in the middle of the night, he simply listened to the way she breathed, and when he noticed differences in the pattern, differences that hadn't occurred when she'd been in a coma, he was finally able to roll over and go back to sleep.\n\nThey were all adjusting, and he knew that would take time. Lots of it. They had yet to talk about the fact that he'd disregarded the living will, and he wondered whether they ever would. He had yet to tell Gabby the extent of the imaginary conversations she'd had with him while she was in the hospital, and she had little to say about the coma itself. She didn't remember anything: no aromas, no sounds from the television, nothing about his touch. \"It's like time just... _vanished_.\"\n\nBut that was fine. It was all as it should be. Behind him, he heard the screen door creak open and he turned. In the distance, he could see Molly lying in the tall grass off to the side of the house; Moby, old guy that he was, was sleeping in the corner. Travis smiled as Gabby spied her daughters, noting her content expression. As Christine pushed Lisa on the tire swing, both of them giggling madly, Gabby took a seat in the rocker beside Travis.\n\n\"Lunch is ready,\" she said. \"But I think I'll let them play for a few more minutes. They're having such a good time.\"\n\n\"They are. They wore me out earlier.\"\n\n\"Do you think that maybe later, when Stephanie gets here, we can all head over to the aquarium? And maybe have some pizza afterward? I've been dying for pizza.\"\n\nHe smiled, thinking he could stay in this moment forever. \"That sounds good. Oh yeah, that reminds me. I forgot to tell you that your mom called when you were in the shower.\"\n\n\"I'll call her back in a little while. And I've got to call about the heat pump, too. The girls' room just wouldn't cool off last night.\"\n\n\"I can probably fix it.\"\n\n\"I don't think so. The last time you tried to fix it, we had to buy a whole new unit. Remember?\"\n\n\"I remember you didn't give me enough time.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah,\" she teased. She winked at him. \"Do you want to eat out here or inside?\"\n\nHe pretended to debate the question, knowing it wasn't really important. Here or there, they would all be together. He was with the woman and daughters he loved, and who could ever need or want anything more than that? The sun shone bright, flowers were blooming, and the day would pass with a careless ease that had been impossible to imagine the winter before. It was just a normal day, a day like any other. But most of all, it was a day in which everything was exactly the way it should be.\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nBen Walker stars as 'Travis Shaw' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTeresa Palmer stars as 'Gabby Holland' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nBen Walker stars as 'Travis Shaw' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nMolly and Moby in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTravis Shaw (Ben Walker, far left), Monica (Alexandra Daddario, left), Ryan (Tom Welling, right), and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer, far right) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Shep Shaw (Tom Wilkinson) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nMegan (Anna Enger, left), Brad (Jesse Boyd, center), Ben (Brad James, upper right), and Liz (Noree Victoria, lower left) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nMegan (Anna Enger, far left), Ben (Brad James, left), Brad (Jesse Boyd, center), Stephanie Shaw (Maggie Grace, right), and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer, far right) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTeresa Palmer stars as 'Gabby Holland' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Travis Shaw (Ben Walker) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTravis Shaw (Ben Walker) and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTravis Shaw (Ben Walker) and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTravis Shaw (Ben Walker) and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Travis Shaw (Ben Walker) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTravis Shaw (Ben Walker) and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTeresa Palmer stars as 'Gabby Holland' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Travis Shaw (Ben Walker) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Travis Shaw (Ben Walker) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nGabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) and Travis Shaw (Ben Walker) in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# See THE CHOICE in theaters February 2016\n\nTeresa Palmer stars as 'Gabby Holland' in THE CHOICE.\n\n_Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved._\n\n# About the Author\n\nWith over 100 million copies of his books sold, Nicholas Sparks is one of the world's most beloved storytellers. His novels include twelve #1 _New York Times_ bestsellers. All of his books, including _Three Weeks with My Brother_ , the memoir he wrote with his brother, Micah, have been _New York Times_ and international bestsellers, and were translated into more than fifty languages. Ten of Nicholas Sparks's novels have been adapted into major motion pictures, with _The Choice_ coming in 2016. You can visit him at NicholasSparks.com.\n\n# Also by Nicholas Sparks\n\n_See Me_\n\n_The Longest Ride_\n\n_The Best of Me_\n\n_Safe Haven_\n\n_The Last Song_\n\n_The Lucky One_\n\n_Dear John_\n\n_At First Sight_\n\n_True Believer_\n\n_Three Weeks with My Brother_\n\n_The Wedding_\n\n_The Guardian_\n\n_Nights in Rodanthe_\n\n_A Bend in the Road_\n\n_The Rescue_\n\n_A Walk to Remember_\n\n_Message in a Bottle_\n\n_The Notebook_\n\n# [PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF  \n#1 _NEW YORK TIMES_ BESTSELLING AUTHOR  \nNICHOLAS SPARKS](toc.xhtml#toc-praise)\n\n# The Choice\n\n\"Provides subtle lessons in love and hope... reinforces the theory that all choices, no matter how seemingly unimportant... often have far-reaching, rippling effects. Sparks has become a favorite storyteller because of his ability to take ordinary people, put them in extraordinary situations, and create unexpected outcomes.\"\n\n\u2014 _BookReporter.com_\n\n\"A heartrending love story... will have you entranced. And if _The Notebook_ left you teary-eyed, his latest will have the same effect.\"\n\n\u2014 _Myrtle Beach Sun News_\n\n\"Will unleash a torrent of tears... But, the emotion will be emotionally cleansing for it involves a choice each of us is likely to face one day. This is the stuff of serious romance novels.\"\n\n\u2014ContemporaryLit.About.com\n\n\"Will leave the reader feeling warm of heart.\"\n\n\u2014CurledUp.com\n\n# Dear John\n\n\"Beautifully moving... Has tremendous emotional depth, revealing the true meaning of unconditional love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine_\n\n\"Full of pathos.\"\n\n\u2014 _Roanoke Times_\n\n\"For Sparks, weighty matters of the day remain set pieces, furniture upon which to hang timeless tales of chaste longing and harsh fate.\"\n\n\u2014 _Washington Post Book World_\n\n\"Sparks lives up to his reputation... a tribute to courageous and self-sacrificing soldiers.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n# At First Sight\n\n\"An ending that surprises.\"\n\n\u2014 _New York Times Book Review_\n\n\"Engrosses readers from the first page to the last... a novel that tugs at the heartstrings.\"\n\n\u2014 _Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine_\n\n\"Nicholas Sparks is one of the best-known writers in America and overseas for good reason: He has written stories that reveal the yearning for our most prized possession: love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Mobile Register_ (AL)\n\n\"Highly recommended. Nicholas Sparks can take a simple plot and turn it into a masterwork of art... Be prepared for a surprise ending.\"\n\n\u2014BestsellersWorld.com\n\n\"Sheds light on the quirks couples discover in each other, and the frustration that can ensue... _At First Sight_ delves deeper still\u2014into the more serious realities of life and love.\"\n\n\u2014 _New Bern Sun-Journal_ (NC)\n\n\"A tender, poignant tale... Never expect the expected when you pick up a Nicholas Sparks novel... Prepare to laugh, cry, and fall in love all over again!\"\n\n _\u2014RoundTableReviews.com_\n\n# True Believer\n\n\"Time for a date with Sparks... The slow dance to the couple's first kiss is a two-chapter guilty pleasure.\"\n\n\u2014 _People_\n\n\"For romance fans, _True Believer_ is a gem.\"\n\n\u2014EDGEBoston.com\n\n\"Another winner... a page-turner... has all the things we have come to expect from him: sweet romance and a strong sense of place.\"\n\n\u2014 _Charlotte Observer_\n\n\"A story about taking chances and following your heart. In the end, it will make you, too, believe in the miracle of love.\"\n\n\u2014BusinessKnowhow.com\n\n\"Sparks does not disappoint his readers. He tells a fine story that entertains us.\"\n\n\u2014 _Oklahoman_\n\n# The Wedding\n\n\"Sweet but packs a punch... There is a twist that pulls everything together and makes you glad you read this.\"\n\n\u2014 _Charlotte Observer_\n\n\"A slice of life readers will take to their hearts.\"\n\n\u2014 _Tulsa World_\n\n\"Sparks tells his sweet story... [with] a gasp-inducing twist at the very end. Satisfied female readers will close the covers with a sigh.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n# The Guardian\n\n\"An involving love story... an edge-of-your-seat, unpredictable thriller.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n\"Nicholas Sparks is a top-notch writer. He has created a truly spine-tingling thriller exploring love and obsession with a kind of suspense never before experienced in his novels.\"\n\n\u2014RedBank.com\n\n\"Fans of Sparks won't be disappointed.\"\n\n\u2014 _Southern Pines Pilot_ (NC)\n\n# Nights in Rodanthe\n\n\"Bittersweet... romance blooms... You'll cry in spite of yourself.\"\n\n\u2014 _People_\n\n\"Passionate and memorable... smooth, sensitive writing... This is a novel that can hold its own.\"\n\n\u2014Associated Press\n\n\"Extremely hard to put down... a love story, and a good love story at that.\"\n\n\u2014 _Boston Herald_\n\n# A Bend in the Road\n\n\"Sweet, accessible, uplifting.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n\"A powerful tale of true love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n\"Don't miss it; this is a book that's light on the surface but with subtle depths.\"\n\n\u2014BookLoons.com\n\n# The Rescue\n\n\"A romantic page-turner... Sparks's fans won't be disappointed.\"\n\n\u2014 _Glamour_\n\n\"All of Sparks's trademark elements\u2014love, loss, and small-town life\u2014are present in this terrific read.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n# A Walk to Remember\n\n\"An extraordinary book... touching, at times riveting... a book you won't soon forget.\"\n\n\u2014 _New York Post_\n\n\"A sweet tale of young but everlasting love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Chicago Sun-Times_\n\n\"Bittersweet... a tragic yet spiritual love story.\"\n\n\u2014 _Variety_\n\n# Message in a Bottle\n\n\"The novel's unabashed emotion\u2014and an unexpected turn\u2014will put tears in your eyes.\"\n\n\u2014 _People_\n\n\"Glows with moments of tenderness... delve[s] deeply into the mysteries of eternal love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Cleveland Plain Dealer_\n\n\"Deeply moving, beautifully written, and extremely romantic.\"\n\n\u2014 _Booklist_\n\n# The Notebook\n\n\"Nicholas Sparks... will not let you go. His novel shines.\"\n\n\u2014 _Dallas Morning News_\n\n\"Proves that good things come in small packages... a classic tale of love.\"\n\n\u2014 _Christian Science Monitor_\n\n\"The lyrical beauty of this touching love story... will captivate the heart of every reader and establish Nicholas Sparks as a gifted novelist.\"\n\n\u2014 _Denver Rocky Mountain News_\n\n# **Reading Group Guide**\n\n## **_Discussion Questions_**\n\n  1. When the novel opens, Travis is feeling guilty about an argument he had with his wife. His friends assure him, however, that guilt is \"the cornerstone of a good marriage.\" What do they mean by this and do you agree?\n  2. Travis says that his father knew he would marry his mother the minute he touched her hand. How do you know when you've met \"the right one\"? Do you believe in love at first sight?\n  3. Do you think it is right for Gabby to get intimately involved with Travis while she insists she loves someone else? Is it possible to be \"in love\" with two different men at the same time?\n  4. Gabby is in a committed relationship with Kevin, but he doesn't offer to marry her. Travis does. What are the differences between a committed relationship and a marriage? Do you think marriage is always a better option?\n  5. Travis says, \"There's no such thing as being friends, not with single men and women our age.\" Do you agree? Is it possible for men and women to be friends?\n  6. The small town of Beaufort has a significant presence in the book. What are the advantages and disadvantages of small-town life? Why do you think Nicholas Sparks sets so many of his books in small towns?\n  7. Travis is a veterinarian and both Gabby and Travis own dogs. What does their relationship with animals reveal about their characters?\n  8. During the course of the novel, Travis decides having close friends isn't enough for him and he needs Gabby in his life. How important are friends in having a happy, fulfilled life? Can they be more important than a spouse? More important than family?\n  9. Do you believe that Travis was responsible for the car accident? Why or why not?\n  10. The free-spirited Travis adapts readily to married life and his role as a father. Do you think it's common for men who shy away from commitment to change dramatically when the right woman comes along?\n  11. Does anything positive result from the terrible accident that Gabby has?\n  12. What is the \"choice\" Travis must make? What do you make of his choice and what would you have done if you were in his position?\n  13. Gabby and Travis discuss the fate of Kenneth and Eleanor Baker frequently, yet view what happened to this couple somewhat differently. Whose view do you share, Gabby's or Travis's? What do you think accounts for the difference in the way Kenneth and Travis deal with their tragedies?\n  14. Travis asks, \"How far should a person go in the name of love?\" How far is Travis willing to go? What is the most difficult choice you've made in the name of love?\n  15. What do you make of the novel's ending? Were you surprised by the story's conclusion?\n\nMore Nicholas Sparks!\n\n#1 _New York Times_ bestselling author Nicholas Sparks returns with another classic story of second chances and love tested:\n\nA preview follows\n\n# Prologue\n\nHe hadn't been in Wilmington for more than a day before he knew it was the kind of city he'd never settle in for good. It was too touristy, and the whole place seemed as though it had grown willy-nilly, without any planning. While the historic district had the kind of porch-fronted homes he'd anticipated, with columns and detailed wainscoting and sprawling magnolia trees in the yards, those lovely neighborhoods gradually gave way to a commercial area of strip malls, convenience stores, chain restaurants, and car dealerships. Endless traffic snaked through the district, growing even more unbearable in the summers.\n\nBut the grounds of UNC Wilmington had been a pleasant surprise. Somehow, he'd imagined a campus heavy on the ugly architecture of the sixties and seventies. There were a few of those buildings, especially at the fringes of the university, but the central quads had proved to be an oasis of sorts\u2014shaded walkways and manicured lawns, the Georgian columns and brick fa\u00e7ades of Hoggard and Kenan Halls gleaming in the late-afternoon sunlight.\n\nHe admired the commons as well. There was a clock tower there and when he'd first arrived, he'd stared at the image reflected in the pond behind it, time itself mirrored and unreadable at a glance. As long as he had an open textbook in his lap, he could sit and watch the activities, almost invisible to the students who wandered around in their self-absorbed trances.\n\nIt was warm for late September, students lounging in shorts and tank tops, skin evident everywhere. He wondered if they dressed the same way for class. Like them, he'd come to the campus to learn. He'd visited three times in three days, but there were still too many people around; too many possible memories, and he didn't want to be remembered. He debated whether to move to another area before finally deciding there was no reason. As far as he could tell, no one cared that he was here.\n\nHe was close, so very close, but for now it was important to remain patient. He drew a long breath, holding it in before finally releasing it. On the walkways, he saw a pair of students walking to their classes, backpacks slung over their shoulders, but at this time of day, they were outnumbered by those classmates who were getting an early start to the weekend. Here and there, students were clustered in groups of three or four, talking and sipping from water bottles he suspected were filled with alcohol, while a couple of Abercrombie-model lookalikes were tossing a Frisbee back and forth, their girlfriends chatting off to the side. He spotted a young man and woman arguing, the woman's face flushed. He watched as she pushed at her boyfriend, creating space between them. He smiled at that, respecting her anger and the fact that unlike him, she wasn't compelled to hide the way she was feeling. Beyond the couple, another group of students played a game of touch football with the carefree abandon of those without real responsibility.\n\nHe figured that many of the students he saw were planning to go out tonight and tomorrow night. Fraternity houses. Sorority houses. Bars. Clubs. For many of them, the weekend would start tonight, since many classes didn't even meet on Fridays. He'd been surprised when he'd first learned that; with the cost of a college education so high, he would have thought that students would have been demanding more time in class with their professors, not three-day weekends. Then again, he supposed the schedule suited both the students and the professors. Didn't everyone want things to be easy these days? To expend the least effort possible? To take shortcuts?\n\nYes, he thought. That's exactly what students were learning here. They were learning that hard decisions weren't necessary, that making the right choice was unimportant, especially if it entailed extra work. Why study or try to change the world on a Friday afternoon when you could be out enjoying the sun?\n\nShifting his eyes from left to right, he wondered how many of these students even gave much thought to the lives they were going to lead. Cassie used to, he remembered. She thought about the future all the time. She had plans. She'd mapped out her future by seventeen, but he could remember thinking that there was something tentative about the way she'd talked about it, and he'd had the sense that she didn't quite believe in herself or the face she showed to the world. Why else would she have made the decisions that she had?\n\nHe'd tried to help her. He'd done the right thing, followed the law, filed reports with the police, even talked to the assistant district attorney. And up until that point, he'd believed in society's rules. He'd held the na\u00efve view that good would triumph over evil, that danger could be corralled, that events could be controlled. Rules would keep a person safe from harm. Cassie had believed that, too\u2014after all, wasn't that what kids were taught when they were young? Why else would parents say the things they did? Look both ways before you cross the road. Don't get into a car with a stranger. Brush your teeth. Eat your vegetables. Put on your seat belt. The list went on and on, rules to protect and save us.\n\nBut rules could be dangerous, too, he'd learned. Rules were about averages, not specifics, and since people were conditioned since childhood to accept rules, it was easy to follow them blindly. To trust in the system. It was easier not to worry about random possibilities. It meant that people didn't have to think about potential consequences, and when the sun was shining on Friday afternoons, they could play Frisbee without a care in the world.\n\nExperience was the most painful of teachers. For nearly two years, the lessons he'd learned had been all he could think about. They had nearly consumed him, but slowly a clarity had begun to emerge. She had known about the danger. He had warned her what would happen. And in the end, she'd cared only about following the rules, because it was convenient.\n\nChecking his watch, he saw it was finally time to go. He closed the textbook and rose from his spot, pausing to see if his movement had caused others to notice him. It hadn't. He set off then, crossing the commons, textbook beneath his arm. In his pocket was a letter he'd written, and he veered toward the mailbox just outside the science building. He dropped the envelope through the slot and waited; a few minutes later, he spotted Serena emerging from the doors, precisely on time.\n\nHe already knew much about her. These days, it seemed that every young person had Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat, their lives on display for anyone who cared to put the pieces together. What they liked, who their friends were, where they spent their time. He already knew from a Facebook post that she'd be having brunch at her parents' house with her sister this Sunday, and as he watched her walking ahead of him, her dark brown hair tumbling past her shoulders, he noted again how beautiful she was. There was a natural grace about her, and she drew appreciative smiles from the guys she passed, though lost in conversation, she didn't seem to notice. She was walking with a short, heavy blonde, a friend from class. They'd been in an education seminar together; he knew she wanted to become an elementary school teacher. Making plans, just like Cassie used to do.\n\nHe kept his distance, energized by the power he felt in her presence. The power he'd been husbanding for the last two years. She had no idea how close he was or what he could do. She never so much as glanced over her shoulder, but why should she? He was no one to her, just another face in the crowd...\n\nHe wondered whether she was telling the blonde about her weekend plans, rattling off places to go or the people she intended to see. For his part, he planned to join the family for brunch on Sunday, though not as a guest. Instead, he would watch them from a nearby house, located in a neighborhood that was solidly middle class. The house had been empty for a month, the owners having lost it to foreclosure, but it was not yet up for sale. Though the locks on the doors were solid, he'd been able to gain entry through a window along the side of the house without much trouble. He already knew that from the master bedroom, he could see onto their back porch and into the kitchen. On Sunday, he'd watch the close-knit family laugh and joke at the table on the porch.\n\nHe knew something about each of them. Felix Sanchez was the classic immigrant success story; the newspaper article that was proudly laminated and on display at their restaurant chronicled how he'd arrived in the country illegally as a teenager without speaking a word of English and begun working as a dishwasher in a local restaurant. Fifteen years later, after becoming an American citizen, he'd saved enough money to open his own place in a strip mall\u2014La Cocina de la Familia\u2014serving his wife Carmen's recipes. While she cooked, he did everything else, especially in the early years of the business. Little by little, their restaurant had expanded, and it was now regarded as one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city. Though there were more than fifteen employees, many were relatives, retaining the restaurant's family character. Both parents still worked there, and Serena waited tables three times a week, just as her older sister, Maria, once had. Felix was a member of both the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, and he and his wife attended the seven a.m. mass at St. Mary's every Sunday, where he also served as a deacon. Carmen was a bit more of a mystery; he knew only that she was still more comfortable speaking Spanish than English and, like her husband, was proud of the fact that Maria had become the first college graduate in the family.\n\nAs for Maria...\n\nHe hadn't yet seen her in Wilmington. She'd been out of town for the last few days at a legal conference, but he knew her best of all. In the past, when she'd lived in Charlotte, he'd seen her many times. He'd talked to her. He'd tried to convince her she was wrong. And in the end, she'd made him suffer as no one should ever suffer, and he hated her for what she'd done.\n\nWhen Serena waved good-bye to her friend and headed toward the parking lot, he continued walking straight. There was no reason to follow her, and he was content knowing that he'd see the small but happy family on Sunday. Especially Maria. Maria was arguably even more beautiful than her sister, though frankly, both had been winners in the genetic lottery, with their dark eyes and nearly perfect bone structure. He tried to imagine them sitting close together at the table; despite the seven-year age difference, many people might assume they were twins. And yet they were different. Where Serena was outgoing to a fault, Maria had always been quieter and driven, the more serious and studious of the two. Even so, they were close, best friends as well as sisters. He speculated that perhaps Serena saw traits in her sister that she wanted to emulate, and vice versa. He felt a frisson of excitement at the thought of the weekend, knowing it might be one of the last times the family would all be together with any semblance of normalcy. He wanted to see how they would act before tension began to infect their sweet happy family... before the fear took hold. Before their lives were slowly\u2014and then furiously\u2014brought to ruin.\n\nHe'd come here, after all, for a purpose, and that purpose had a name.\n\nIts name was vengeance.\n\n# DON'T MISS THE NEW NOVEL FROM NICHOLAS SPARKS\n\nA powerful story of unconditional love\u2014its challenges, risks, and, most of all, its unexpected rewards:\n\nA preview follows\n\n# Chapter 1\n\n# And Baby Makes Three\n\n_\"Wow!\" I can remember saying as soon as Vivian stepped out of the bathroom and showed me the positive result of the pregnancy test. \"That's great!\"_\n\n_In truth, my feelings were closer to...Really? Already?_\n\n_It was more shock than anything, with a bit of terror mixed in. We'd been married for a little more than two years, and Vivian had already told me that she intended to stay home for the first few years after we had a baby. I'd always agreed when she'd said it\u2014I wanted the same thing\u2014but in that moment, I also realized that our life as a couple with two incomes would soon be coming to an end. Moreover, I wasn't sure in that moment whether I was even ready to become a father, but what could I do? It wasn't as though she'd tricked me, nor had she concealed the fact that she wanted to have a baby, and she'd let me know when she stopped taking the pill. I wanted children as well, of course, but Vivian had stopped the pill only three weeks earlier. I can remember thinking that I probably had a few months at least before her body readjusted to its normal, baby-making state. For all I knew, it could be hard for her to become pregnant, which meant it might even be a year or two._\n\n_But not my Vivian. Her body had adjusted right away. My Vivian was fertile._\n\n_I slipped my arms around her, studying her to see if she was already glowing. But it was too soon for that, right? What exactly is glowing, anyway? Is it just another way of saying someone looks hot and sweaty? How were our lives going to change? For better or for worse?_\n\n_Questions tumbled over each other in my mind. And in that moment, as I held my wife, I, Russell Green, had answers to none of them._\n\n*******\n\nMonths later, the big _IT_ happened, though I admit much of the day remains a blur.\n\nLooking back, I probably should have written it all down while it was still fresh in my mind. A day like the big _IT_ should be remembered in vivid detail\u2014not the fuzzy snapshots I tend to recall. The only reason I remember as much as I do is because of Vivian. Every detail seemed etched into her consciousness, but then she was the one in labor and pain has a way of sometimes sharpening the mind. Or so they say.\n\nWhat I do know is this: sometimes, in recalling events of that day, she and I are of slightly differing opinions. For instance, I considered my actions completely understandable under the circumstances, whereas Vivian would declare alternately that I was selfish, or simply a complete idiot. When she told the story to friends\u2014and she has done so many times\u2014people inevitably laughed, or shook their heads and offered her pitying glances.\n\nIn all fairness, I don't think I was either selfish or a complete idiot; after all, it was our first child, and neither of us knew exactly what to expect when she went into labor. Does anyone really feel prepared for what's coming? Labor, I was told, is unpredictable; during her pregnancy, Vivian reminded me more than once that the process from initial contractions to actual birth could take more than a day\u2014especially for the first child\u2014and labors of twelve hours or more were not uncommon. Like most young fathers-to-be, I considered my wife the expert and took her at her word. After all, she was the one who'd read all the books.\n\nIt should also be noted that I wasn't entirely deficient on the morning in question. I had taken my responsibilities seriously. Both her overnight bag and the baby's bag were packed, and the contents of both had been checked and double-checked. The camera and video camera were charged and ready, and the baby's room was fully stocked with everything our child would need for at least a month, including a bunch of things I didn't even know existed. I knew the quickest route to the hospital and had planned alternate routes, if there happened to be an accident on the highway. I had also known the baby would be coming soon; in the days leading up to the actual birth, there'd been numerous false alarms, but even I knew the countdown had officially started.\n\nIn other words, I wasn't entirely surprised when my wife shook me awake at half past four on Saturday, August 16, 2008, announcing that the contractions were about four minutes apart and that it was time to go to the hospital. I didn't doubt her; she knew the difference between Braxton Hicks and the _real thing_ , and yet, in that moment, I also have to admit that as much as I'd been preparing myself, my first thoughts weren't about throwing on my clothes and loading up the car; in fact, they weren't about my wife and soon-to-be-born child at all. Rather, my thoughts went something like this: _Today's the big_ IT _, and people are going to be taking a lot of photographs. Other people will be looking at these photographs forever, and\u2014considering it's for posterity\u2014I should probably hop in the shower before we go, since my hair looks as though I'd spent the night in a wind tunnel._\n\nIt's not that I'm vain; I simply thought I had _plenty of time_ , so I told Vivian I'd be ready to go in a few minutes. As a general rule, I shower quickly\u2014no more than ten minutes on a normal day, including shaving\u2014but just after I'd applied the shaving cream, I thought heard my wife cry out from the living room. I listened again, hearing nothing, but sped up nonetheless. By the time I was rinsing off, I heard her shouting, though strangely it seemed as though she was shouting _about_ me, not _at_ me. I wrapped a towel around me and stepped into the darkened hallway, still dripping wet. As God is my witness, I was in the shower for less than five minutes.\n\nVivian cried out again and it took me a moment to process that Vivian was on all fours and shouting into her cell phone that I was _IN THE DAMN SHOWER!_ and demanding _WHAT IN THE HELL CAN THAT IDIOT BE THINKING?!?!?!?_ _Idiot_ , by the way, was the nicest term she used to describe me in that same conversation; her language was actually quite a bit more colorful. What I didn't know was that the contractions that had been four minutes apart were now\u2014in the blink of an eye\u2014only two minutes apart, and that she also in back labor. Back labor, by the way, is excruciating, and Vivian suddenly let out a scream so powerful that it became its own living entity, one that may still be hovering above our neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina, an otherwise peaceful place.\n\nRest assured, I moved into even higher gear after that, slapping on clothes without completely toweling off, and loading the car. I supported Vivian as she continued to grimace, buckling her into the front seat and trying not to comment on the fact that she was digging her fingernails into my forearm. A moment later, I was behind the wheel, and once on the road, I called the obstetrician, who promised to meet us at the hospital.\n\nThe contractions were still a couple of minutes apart when we arrived, but Vivian's continuing anguish meant that she was taken straight to labor and delivery. I held her hand and tried to guide her through her breathing\u2014during which she again offered various colorful sentiments about me and where I could _stick the damn breathing!_ \u2014until the anesthesiologist arrived for the epidural. Early in the pregnancy, Vivian had debated whether or not to get one before reluctantly deciding in favor, and now it appeared to be a blessing. As soon as the medication kicked in her agony vanished entirely, and I saw my wife smile for the first time since she'd shaken me awake that morning. Her obstetrician\u2014in his sixties, with neat gray hair and a friendly face\u2014wandered into the room every twenty to thirty minutes to see how dilated she was, and in between those visits I called both sets of parents, as well as my sister.\n\nThen, it was time. Nurses were summoned and they readied the equipment with calm professionalism. Then, all at once, the doctor told my wife to push.\n\nVivian had pushed through three contractions when the doctor announced that one more should do it. Vivian was less exhausted than I'd imagined she might be\u2014to that point, she'd been in labor only three hours\u2014and when she pushed, the doctor began rotating his wrists and hands like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. The next thing I knew, I was a father.\n\nJust like that.\n\nThe pediatrician took our baby, and though she was slightly anemic, she had ten fingers, ten toes, a healthy heart, and a set of obviously functioning lungs. I asked about the anemia\u2014the pediatrician said it was nothing to worry about\u2014and after the pediatrician squirted a bunch of goop in our baby's eyes, she was cleaned and swaddled and placed in my wife's arms.\n\nJust as I'd predicted, photos were taken all day long. But the funny thing is, when people glanced at those same photos later, no one seemed to care how I looked at all.\n\n*******\n\nIt's been said that babies are born looking like either Winston Churchill or Mahatma Gandhi, but because the anemia lent a grayish pallor to my daughter's skin, my first thought was that she looked a little bit like Yoda, without the ears of course. A _beautiful_ Yoda, mind you, a _breathtaking_ Yoda, a Yoda so _miraculous_ that when she gripped my finger, my heart nearly burst. My parents arrived a few minutes later, and in my nervousness and excitement, I met them in the hallway and blurted out the first words that came to mind.\n\n_\"We have a gray baby!\"_\n\nMy mother looked at me as though I'd gone insane while my father dug his finger into his ear as if wondering if the waxy buildup had clouded his ability to hear correctly. Ignoring my comment, they entered the room and saw Vivian cradling our daughter in her arms, her expression serene. My eyes followed theirs, and when I looked upon my wife and daughter, I thought to myself that this baby had to be the single most precious little girl in the history of the world. While I'm sure all new fathers think the same thing about their own children, the simple fact is that there can only be one child who is actually the _most precious_ , and part of me marveled that others in the hospital weren't stopping by our room, simply to witness history in the making.\n\nMy mom stepped toward the bed, craning her neck to peer even closer.\n\n\"Did you decide on a name?\" she asked.\n\n\"London,\" my wife answered, without looking up, her attention completely devoted to our child. \"We've decided to name her London.\"\n\n*******\n\nMy parents eventually left, then returned later that afternoon. In between, Vivian's parents visited as well. They'd flown in from Alexandria, Virginia, where Vivian had been raised, and while Vivian was thrilled, I immediately felt the tension in the room begin to rise. I'd always sensed that they believed their daughter had _settled_ when deciding to marry me, and who knows? If the future was any indication, maybe they were right. Nor did they seem to like my parents, and the feeling was mutual. While the four of them were always cordial, it was nonetheless obvious that they preferred to avoid each other's company.\n\nMy older sister, Marge, also came by with her partner, Liz, bearing gifts. Marge and Liz had been together longer than Vivian and I had\u2014they were going on seven years at the time. Not only did I think Liz was a terrific partner for my sister, but I knew that Marge was the greatest older sibling a guy could have. With both my parents working\u2014Dad was a plumber and Mom worked as a receptionist at a dentist's office until her retirement a few years back\u2014Marge had not only served as a substitute parent at times, but as a sibling confidante who helped me wade through the angst of adolescence. Neither Liz nor Marge liked Vivian's parents either, by the way, a feeling that had coalesced at my wedding, when Vivian's parents refused to let Marge and Liz sit together at the main table. Granted, Marge had been in the wedding party and Liz had not\u2014and Liz had opted to wear a tuxedo\u2014but it was the kind of slight that neither of them had been able to forgive, since other couples, all heterosexual, had been allowed the privilege. Frankly, I don't blame Marge or Liz for being upset about it, because I was bothered, too. She and Liz get along better than most of the married couples I know.\n\nWhile our visitors came and went, I stayed in the room with my wife for the rest of the day, alternately sitting in the rocking chair near the window or on the bed beside her, both of us repeatedly whispering in amazement that _we had a daughter_. I would stare at Vivian and stare at London, knowing with certainty that I belonged with these two and that the three of us would forever be connected. The feeling was overwhelming\u2014like everything else that day\u2014and I found myself speculating what London would look like as a teenager, or what she would dream about, or what she would do with her life. Whenever London cried, Vivian would automatically move her to her breast, and I would witness yet another miracle.\n\n_How does London know how to do that?_ I wondered to myself. _How on earth does she know?_\n\n*******\n\nThere is another moment, however, that is all mine, a precious memory and the only one I can still recall with pristine clarity.\n\nIt occurred on that first night in the hospital, long after our final visitors had left. Vivian was asleep and I was dozing in the rocking chair when I heard my daughter begin to fuss. I knew that I'd have to wake my wife in a few moments\u2014my breasts didn't have what London needed\u2014but I gently scooped my daughter into my arms. Before that day, I'd never actually held a newborn, and terrified that I might break her, I immediately pulled her close to my body.\n\nI thought that London would begin to cry, and I was ready to hand her to Vivian, but instead, I saw my daughter staring up at me with unfocused eyes. She blinked twice and began to settle, finally closing her eyes again. I inched back to the rocking chair, and for the next twenty minutes, all I could do was marvel at the feelings she induced in me. That I adored her, I already knew; what I hadn't realized was that the thought of life without her seemed suddenly inconceivable, and I remember whispering to her that as her father, I would always be there for her, no matter what the future might bring. As if knowing exactly what I was saying, London pooped and squirmed and then began to cry. In the end, I handed her back to Vivian.\n\n# Chapter 2\n\n# In the Beginning\n\n_\"I told them today,\" Vivian announced._\n\n_It was a little past ten on a Friday night, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, we'd been able to share some alone time. We'd sat on the couch with the television on\u2014harkening back to the pre-London days. As Vivian thumbed through a magazine, I realized how much I'd missed these simple moments._\n\n_Later, when we were in the bedroom, Vivian had slipped into her pajamas and crawled into bed. London had been asleep for three hours; at six weeks, she was sleeping almost four hours at a stretch, giving us hope that she might hit five or six hours sooner rather than later. Vivian hadn't had a full night's sleep since the night before the birth, and though she hadn't complained, she looked tired. Beautiful, but definitely tired._\n\n_\"Told who what?\" I asked._\n\n_\"Rob,\" she answered, meaning her boss at the media company where she worked. \"I officially let him know that after my maternity leave was up, I wouldn't be coming back.\"_\n\n_\"Oh,\" I said, feeling the same pang of terror I'd felt when I'd seen the positive pregnancy result. Since that time, I'd tried my best not to think about it. Vivian earned nearly as much as I did, and I think part of me hoped that she'd change her mind, even if the other part also wanted her to stay at home._\n\n_\"He said the door was always open if I changed my mind,\" she added. \"But I told him that London was not going to be raised by strangers. Otherwise, why have a child in the first place? If you don't want to be there, I mean?\"_\n\n_\"You don't have to convince me,\" I said, doing my best to hide my feelings. \"I'm on your side.\" Well, part of me was, anyway._\n\n_\"Good. Otherwise, you shouldn't have married me in the first place.\"_\n\n_I forced a smile. \"You know that means we can't go out to dinner as much and we'll have to cut back on discretionary spending, right?\"_\n\n_\"I know.\"_\n\n_\"And you're okay with not shopping as much?\"_\n\n_\"You say it like I waste money. I never do that.\"_\n\n_The credit card bills sometimes seemed to indicate otherwise\u2014as did her closet, which bulged with clothes and shoes and bags\u2014but I could hear the irritation in her tone, and the last thing I wanted to do was argue with her. Instead, I rolled toward her, pulling her close, something else on my mind. I nuzzled and kissed her neck, and she exhaled softly._\n\n_\"Now?\"_\n\n_\"It's been a long time.\"_\n\n_\"And my poor baby feels like he's about to blow up, doesn't he?\"_\n\n_\"Frankly, I don't want to risk it.\"_\n\n_She laughed, and as I began to unbutton her pajama top, a noise sounded on the baby monitor. In that instant, we both froze\u2014as if London could hear us as well\u2014and waited. Hoped._\n\n_Nothing._\n\n_Still nothing._\n\n_And just when I thought the coast was clear and I let out a breath I didn't even know I'd been holding, the noise from the baby monitor began again, this time at higher volume. With a sigh, I rolled onto my back and Vivian slipped from the bed, as disappointed as I was. By the time London finally calmed\u2014which took a good half hour\u2014Vivian wasn't in the mood for a second attempt and I didn't want to push her._\n\n_In the morning, Vivian and I had more luck. So much luck, in fact, that I cheerfully volunteered to take care of London when she woke so that Vivian could go back to sleep and get some much-needed rest. London, however, must have been just as tired as Vivian; it wasn't until I'd finished my second cup of coffee that I heard various noises but no cries emanating from the baby monitor._\n\n_In her room, the mobile above the crib was rotating, and when I looked down at London, I saw a wiggly baby, full of energy, her legs shooting like pistons. I couldn't help but smile, and recognizing me, she suddenly smiled as well._\n\n_It wasn't gas; it wasn't a reflexive tic. This was a real smile, as true as the sunrise, and when she emitted an unexpected giggle, the already brilliant start to my day was suddenly a thousand times even better._\n\n*******\n\nIt's funny what life can teach a person, and the main thing I've learned is this: I'm not a wise man.\n\nI'm not unintelligent, mind you. Or at least I don't like to think so. But wisdom means more than being intelligent, because it encompasses understanding, empathy, experience, inner peace, and intuition, and in retrospect, I obviously lack many of these traits.\n\nHere's what else I've learned: age doesn't guarantee wisdom, any more than age guarantees intelligence. I know that's not a popular notion\u2014don't we frequently regard our elders as wise partially because they're gray and wrinkled?\u2014but lately I've come to believe that some people are born with the capacity to become wise while others aren't, and in some people, wisdom seems to be evident even at a young age.\n\nMy sister, Marge, for instance. She's wise, and she's only six years older than I am. Frankly, she's been wise as long as I've known her. My mom and dad are wise, too, and I've been thinking about it a lot these days because it's become clear to me that even though wisdom runs in the family, it bypassed me entirely.\n\nIf I were wise, after all, I would have listened to Marge ten years ago, when she drove me out to the cemetery where our grandparents were buried and asked me whether I was absolutely sure whether Vivian was right for me and if I really knew what I might be getting into.\n\nIf I were wise, I would have listened to my father when he asked me whether I was sure I should strike out on my own and start my own advertising company, when I was thirty-five years old.\n\nIf I were wise, I would have listened to my mom when she told me to spend as much time with London as I could, since children grow up so fast, and you can never get those years back.\n\nBut like I said, I'm not a wise man. And because of that, my life pretty much went into a tailspin, and even now, I wonder if I'll ever recover.\n\n*******\n\nWhere does one begin when trying to make sense of a story that makes little sense at all? At the beginning? And where is the beginning?\n\nWho knows?\n\nSo let's start with this. When I was child, I grew up believing that I'd feel like an adult by the time I was eighteen, and I was right. At eighteen, I was already making plans. My family had lived paycheck to paycheck, and I had no intention of doing the same. I had dreams of starting my own business, of being my own boss, even if I wasn't sure what I was actually going to do. Figuring that college would help steer me in the proper direction, I went to NC State but gradually came to the realization that I'd been fooling myself. The longer I was there, the younger I seemed to feel, and by the time I collected my degree, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was pretty much the same guy I'd been in high school.\n\nNor had college helped me decide on the kind of business I'd start. I had little in the way of real-world experience and even less capital, so deferring the idea of my own business, I took a job in advertising for a man named Jesse Peters. I wore suits to the office and worked a ton of hours, and yet, more often than not, I still felt _younger_ than my actual age might indicate. On weekends, I'd frequent the same bars I did in college, and I imagined that I could start over as a freshman, fitting right in with whatever fraternity I happened to join. Over the next few years there would be even more changes; I'd get married and purchase a house and drive a hybrid, but even then I didn't necessarily always feel like the adult version of me. Peters, after all, had essentially taken the place of my parents\u2014like my parents, he could tell me what to do _or else_ \u2014which made it seem as though I was still _pretending_. In quiet moments, I'd sometimes try to convince myself: _Okay, it's official. I'm now a grown-up._\n\nThat realization came, of course, after London was born and Vivian quit her job. I was thirty years old, destined to remain an employee and be told what to do forever. While setting aside my dream was hard, it also fostered my maturity. The pressure I felt to provide for my family over the next few years required sacrifice on a scale that even I hadn't expected, and if that isn't being a grown-up, I don't know what is. After finishing at the agency\u2014on days when I actually made it home at a reasonable hour\u2014I'd walk through the door and hear London call out \"Daddy!\" and always wish that I could spend more time with her. She'd come running and I'd crouch to let her jump in my arms. She'd start talking a mile a minute about whatever she'd been doing, whether it was coloring or feeding the fish, or the bow that Mommy had put in her hair, and I'd remind myself that all the sacrifices had been worth it, if only because of the wonderful little girl I held in my arms.\n\nI waded through my early thirties thinking I'd finally figured it all out. In the hectic rush of life, it was easy to convince myself that the important things\u2014my wife and daughter, my job, my family\u2014were going okay, even if I couldn't be my own boss. In rare moments when I imagined a future, I would find myself picturing a life that wasn't all that different than the one I was currently leading, and that was okay, too. On the surface, things seemed to be running rather smoothly, and looking back, that should have been a warning sign. Trust me when I say that I had _absolutely no idea_ that within a couple of years\u2014I'm thirty-seven now\u2014I'd wake in the mornings feeling like one of those immigrants on Ellis Island who'd arrived in America with nothing in their possession but the clothes on their back, not speaking the language, and wondering, _What am I going to do now?_\n\nWhen, exactly, did it all begin to go wrong? If you ask Marge, the answer is obvious: \"It started going downhill as soon as you met Vivian,\" she's told me more than once. Of course, being Marge, she would automatically correct herself. \"I take that back,\" she would add. \"It started way before that, when you were still in grade school and hung that poster on your wall, the one with the girl in the skimpy bikini with the big bahoonas. I always liked that poster, by the way, but it warped your thinking.\" Then, after further consideration, she would shake her head, speculating, \"Now that I think about it, you were always kind of screwed up, and coming from the person who's always been regarded as the family screwup, that's saying something. Maybe your real problem is that you've always been too damn nice for your own good. Being _too nice_ always ends up biting you in the ass.\"\n\nAnd that's the thing. When you start trying to figure out what went wrong\u2014or, more specifically, where _you_ went wrong\u2014it's a bit like peeling an onion. There's always another layer, another mistake in the past or a painful memory that stands out, which then leads one back even further in time, and then even further, in search of the _ultimate truth_. All I really know is that I've reached the point where I've stopped caring where or when or why my life suddenly began to feel like I'd made a series of massive wrong turns: the only thing that really matters now is learning enough to avoid making the same mistakes again.\n\n*******\n\nTo understand why I feel the way I do, it's important to understand me. Which isn't easy, by the way. I've been me for more than a third of a century, and half the time, I still don't understand myself. So let me start with this. As I've grown older, I've come to believe that there are two types of men in the world: the marrying type, and the bachelor type. The marrying type is the kind of guy who pretty much sizes up every girl he dates, assessing whether or not she could be The One. It's the reason that women in their thirties and forties often say things like _All the good men are taken_. By that, women mean guys who are ready, willing, and able to commit to being part of a couple.\n\nI've always been the marrying type. And I'm good with that. Lots of men\u2014including my father, with whom I share virtually nothing else in common\u2014are the marrying type, and their lives are better for it. To me, being part of a couple\u2014being committed\u2014just feels _right_. For whatever reason, I've always been more comfortable in the presence of women than men, even in friendship, and spending time with one woman _who also happened to be madly in love with me_ struck me as the best of all possible worlds.\n\nAnd it can be, I suppose. But that's where things get a bit trickier, because not all marrying types are the same. There are subgroups within the marrying types, guys who may also consider themselves to be _romantic_ , for instance. Sounds nice, right? The kind of guy that most women insist they want? It probably is, and I must admit that I'm a card-carrying member of this particular subgroup. In rare instances, however, this particular subtype is also wired to be a _people pleaser_ , and these three traits are, according to Marge, the root of all my problems. Because when taken together, these three things made me believe that anything was possible...that with just a bit more effort\u2014if only I tried a little harder\u2014then everything would turn out fine.\n\nMarge is probably right, but lately I've begun to wonder how that happened. What was it that made me that way? Was it simply my nature? Was I influenced by family dynamics? Or did I simply watch too many romantic movies at an impressionable age? Or all of the above?\n\nI have no idea, but I state without hesitation that the _watching too many romantic movies_ thing was entirely Marge's fault. She loved the classics, like _An Affair to Remember_ and _Casablanca_ , but _Ghost_ and _Dirty Dancing_ were up there, too, and we must have watched _Pretty Woman_ at least twenty times. That movie was her all-time favorite. What I didn't know, of course, was that Marge and I enjoyed watching it because we both had massive crushes on Julia Roberts at the time, but that's beside the point. The film will probably live on forever because it _works_. The characters played by Richard Gere and Julia Roberts had... _chemistry_. They talked. They learned to trust each other, despite the odds. They fell in love. And how can one possibly forget the scene in which Richard Gere is waiting for Julia\u2014he's planning to take her to the opera\u2014and she emerges wearing a gown that utterly transforms her? The audience sees Richard's awestruck expression, and he eventually opens a velvet box, which holds the diamond necklace Julia will also be wearing that evening. As Julia reaches for it, Richard snaps the lid closed, and Julia's sudden joyful surprise...\n\nIt was all there, really, in just those few scenes. The romance, I mean\u2014trust, anticipation, and joy combined with opera, dressing up, and jewelry all led to _love_. In my nine-year-old brain, it just clicked: a how-to manual of sorts to impress a girl. All I really had to do was remember that girls had to _like_ the guy first and that romantic gestures would then lead to _love_. In the end, another romantic in the real world was created. I've been one ever since.\n\nIn sixth grade\u2014after seeing _Pretty Woman_ and the first year I started having serious crushes on the opposite sex\u2014a new girl joined my class, Melissa Anderson. She'd moved from Minnesota during the previous summer, and with blond hair and blue eyes, she shared the look of her Swedish ancestors. When I saw her on the first day of school, I'm pretty sure I went slack-jawed, and I wasn't the only one. Every guy was mesmerized. There was little doubt in my mind that Melissa Anderson was far and away the prettiest girl who'd ever set foot in Mrs. Hartman's class at Arthur E. Edmonds elementary school, or any other class in any other school for that matter.\n\nEvery boy in class had a crush her at one point or another that year, including me, but the difference was that I knew exactly what to do while they did not. I was planning to win her over\u2014what is romance for, if not exactly that?\u2014and though I wasn't Richard Gere with private jets and diamond necklaces, I did have a bicycle and I had learned how to macram\u00e9 bracelets, complete with wooden beads. Those, however, would come later. First\u2014just like Richard and Julia\u2014we had to get to _like_ each other. I began to find reasons to sit at the same table with her at lunch. While she talked, I listened and asked questions, lots of them over the next few weeks, and when she finally told me that she thought I was nice, I knew it was time to take the next step. I wrote her a poem\u2014about her life in Minnesota and how pretty she was\u2014and I slipped it to her on the bus one afternoon, along with a flower. I took my seat, knowing exactly what would happen: She would realize I was different, and with that would come an even greater epiphany; she'd turn toward me and meet my gaze before offering a smile, and when we got off the bus, she'd reach for my hand and ask me to walk her home.\n\nExcept it didn't work out that way. Instead of reading the poem, she gabbed with her friend April the whole way home, and the following day, she sat next to Tommy Harmon at lunch and didn't talk to me at all. Nor did she talk to me the following day, or the day after that. When Marge found me sulking in my bedroom later, she told me that I was trying too hard and that I should just be myself.\n\n\"But that's who I am.\"\n\n\"Then you'd better think twice about that,\" Marge snorted, \"because it makes you seem desperate.\"\n\nProblem was, I didn't think twice. Did Richard Gere think twice? He clearly knew more than my sister, and again, here's where wisdom and I were obviously traveling in opposite directions down the highway. Because _Pretty Woman_ was a movie and I was living in the real world, the pattern I established with Melissa Anderson continued, with variations, until it eventually became a habit I couldn't break. I became the king of romantic gestures\u2014flowers, notes, cards, and the like\u2014and in college, I was even the \"secret admirer\" to a girl I happened to fancy. I opened doors and paid for dates, and I listened whenever a girl wanted to talk, even if it was about how much she still loved her ex-boyfriend. Most girls sincerely liked me. I mean that. To them, I was a _friend_ , the kind of guy who'd get invited to hang out with a group of girlfriends whenever they went out, but I seldom succeeded in landing the girl I'd set my sights on. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, _\"You're the nicest guy I know, and I'm sure you'll meet someone special. I have two or three friends I could probably set you up with...\"_\n\nIt wasn't easy being the guy who was _perfect for someone else_. It often left me brokenhearted, but in my obstinacy, I remained the king of romantic gestures whenever someone captured my imagination. And through it all, I tried to understand why women told me that they wanted certain traits\u2014romance and kindness, interest and the ability to listen\u2014while not seeming to appreciate it when they were actually offered to them.\n\nI wasn't altogether unlucky in love, of course. In high school, I had a girlfriend named Angela for most of my sophomore year; in college, Rachel and I were together most of my junior year. And during the summer after graduation from college, less than a week after I'd taken a job with the Peters Group, I met a woman named Emily, and that's where things got interesting.\n\nEmily still lives in the area, and over the years, I'd see her out and about, either alone or with her husband and their son. She was the first woman I ever loved, and I've come to realize that _romance_ and _nostalgia_ are often intertwined. I still often miss her. Emily was sweet and kind, quick to laugh, intelligent and with a passion for painting, a woman who might have been perfect for me. My parents loved her; Marge loved her. When we were together, we were comfortable even when silent. Our relationship was easy and relaxed; more than lovers, we were friends. We trusted each other and could talk about anything. She delighted in the notes I'd place under her pillow or the flowers I'd have delivered to her workplace for no reason whatsoever. Emily loved me as much as she loved romantic gestures, and after dating her for a little more than a year, I made plans to propose, even putting a deposit down on an engagement ring.\n\nAnd then, I screwed it up. Don't ask me why. I could blame the booze that night\u2014I'd been drinking with friends at a bar\u2014or maybe there was some part of me that was afraid that I was still too young to get tied down. For whatever reason, I struck up a conversation with a woman named Carly. She was beautiful and she knew how to flirt and she'd recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend. One drink led to another, which led to more flirting, and we eventually ended up in bed together. In the morning, Carly made it clear that what had happened was simply a fling, with no strings attached, and though she kissed me goodbye, she didn't bother giving me her phone number.\n\nThere are a couple of very simple Guy Rules in this sort of situation, and Rule Number One goes like this: _Never ever tell._ And if your sweetheart ever suspects anything and asks directly, go immediately to Rule Number Two: _Deny, deny, deny._\n\nAll guys know these rules, but the thing was, I also felt guilty. Horribly guilty. I was ashamed every time I looked at Emily, and even after a month, I couldn't put the experience behind me, nor could I seem to forgive myself. Keeping it secret seemed inconceivable; I couldn't imagine building a future with Emily knowing it was constructed, at least in part, on a lie. I talked to Marge about it, and Marge was, as always, helpful in that sisterly way of hers.\n\n\"Keep your stupid trap shut, you dimwit. You made a mistake\u2014a whopper\u2014and you should feel guilty. That's a crappy thing you did. But if you're never going to do it again, then don't hurt Emily's feelings, too. Something like this will crush her.\"\n\nI knew Marge was right, and yet...\n\nI wanted Emily's forgiveness, because I wasn't sure I could forgive myself without it, and so in the end, I went to Emily and said the words that even now, I wish I could take back.\n\n\"There's something I have to tell you,\" I began, and proceeded to spill everything.\n\nIf forgiveness was the goal, it didn't work. If trying to build a long-term relationship on a foundation of truth was another goal, that didn't work either. Through angry tears, she told me to get out and that she needed some time to think.\n\nI left her alone for a week, waiting for her to call while moping around my apartment, but the phone never rang. The following week, I left two messages\u2014and apologized again both times\u2014but she still wouldn't call. It wasn't until the following week that we finally had lunch, but it was strained, and when she left the restaurant, she told me not to walk her to her car. The writing was on the wall, and a week after that, she left a message saying it was over for good. A little while later, I learned through the grapevine that she'd gone on a date with someone from work and had plans to go out with him again. I don't know whatever happened to him, but a few years later, she met the guy she eventually did marry. It was the year before I married Vivian, and I can remember feeling glum for a few weeks.\n\nThe passage of time has lessened my guilt\u2014time always does\u2014and I try to console myself with the idea that at least for her, my indiscretion was a blessing in disguise. I heard from a friend of a friend a couple of years after our breakup that she'd married an Australian guy, and in those rare moments I caught a glimpse of her, it looked as though life was treating her well. I'd tell myself that I was happy for her. Emily, more than anyone, deserved a wonderful life, and Marge feels exactly the same way. Even after I'd married Vivian, my sister would sometimes turn to me in quiet moments and say, \"That Emily sure was something. You really messed that up, didn't you?\"\n\n*******\n\nI was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and aside from a single year in another city, I've lived there all my life. Even now, it strikes me as almost impossible that Vivian and I met in the place where we did, or even that we ever met at all. After all, she, like me, was from the south; like mine, her job kept required long hours, and she seldom went out. What are the odds, then, that I'd meet Vivian at a cocktail party in Manhattan?\n\nAt the time, I was working at the agency's satellite office in midtown, which probably sounds like a bigger deal than it really was. Jesse Peters was of the opinion that pretty much anyone who showed promise in the Charlotte office had to serve at least a little time up north, if only because a number of our clients are banks, and every bank has a major presence in New York City. You've probably seen some of the commercials I've worked on; I like to think of them as thoughtful and serious, projecting the soul of integrity. The first of those commercials, by the way, was conceived while I was living in a small studio on West 77th, between Columbus and Amsterdam, and trying to figure out whether my ATM accurately reflected my checking account, which showed a balance with just enough funds to purchase a meal deal at a nearby fast food place.\n\nOn a Saturday night in May, a CEO of the one of the banks who _loved my vision_ was hosting a charity event to benefit MoMA. The CEO was seriously into art\u2014something I knew nothing about\u2014and even though it was an exclusive, black-tie event, I hadn't wanted to attend. But his bank was a client and Peters was my _do-what-I-tell-you-or-else_ boss, so what could I do?\n\nI remember almost nothing about the first half hour, other than that I clearly didn't belong. Well over half the people in attendance were old enough to be my grandparents, and practically everyone was in a different stratosphere when it came to our respective levels of wealth. At one point, I found myself listening as two gray-haired gentlemen debated the merits of the G-IV when compared to the Falcon 2000. It took me a while to figure out that they were comparing their private jets.\n\nWhen I turned away from the conversation, I saw on the other side of the room a familiar-looking man who was, I soon discovered, Vivian's boss. I recognized him from late night television, and Vivian would later tell me that he considered himself an art collector. She'd wrinkled her nose when she said it, implying that he had money but no taste, which didn't surprise me at all. Despite famous guests, his show's trademark humor was best described as low-brow.\n\nVivian was standing behind him, hidden from my line of sight at first. Like everyone else in the room, I couldn't help watching the talk show host, even though I didn't particularly like him. A minute or so later, he took a few steps forward to greet someone, and all at once I saw her. I could only stare, suddenly wondering whether she was the reason that everyone had been gazing in their direction. Her dark hair, flawless skin, and cheekbones that supermodels dream about made me sure she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.\n\nAt first I thought she was his date, but the longer I watched, the more confident I was that they weren't _together_ , that she instead worked for him in some capacity. Nor was she wearing a ring, another good sign...but really, what chance did I have?\n\nYet the romantic within me was undeterred, and when she went to the bar to get a cocktail, I sidled up to the bar as well. Up close, she was even more gorgeous, and when she happened to turn in my direction, her sultry eyes drew me in.\n\n\"It's you,\" I said.\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"The one the Disney artists think about when they draw the eyes of their princesses.\"\n\nNot great, I'll admit. Ham-handed, maybe even cheesy, and in the awkward pause that ensued, I knew I'd blown it. But here's the thing: she laughed.\n\n\"Now there's a pickup line I've never heard before.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't work on just anyone,\" I said. I offered my hand and smiled. \"I'm Russell Green.\"\n\nShe hesitated before taking my hand, but her eyes still showed amusement.\n\n\"I'm Vivian Hamilton,\" she said, and I almost gasped.\n\nHer name was _Vivian_.\n\nJust like Julia Roberts's character in _Pretty Woman_.\n\n*******\n\nHow does one actually know when another is _right_ for you? What kind of signals does that entail? To meet a person and think, _this is the one with whom I want to spend the rest of my life_. For example, how could Emily seem right, and Vivian seem right, when they were as different as night and day? When the relationships were as different as night and day?\n\nI don't know, but when I think about Vivian, it's still easy to remember the heady thrill of our first few evenings together. While Emily and I were warm and comfortable, Vivian and I burned hot, almost from the very beginning. Every interaction, every conversation seemed to amplify my growing belief that we were fated for one another.\n\nAs the marrying type, I began to fantasize about the paths our life together would take, our passionate connection burning forever. Within a couple of months, I was certain I wanted Vivian to be my wife, even if I didn't say as much. Vivian took longer to feel the same way about me, but by the time we'd been seeing each other six months, Vivian and I were a _serious item_ , testing the waters on how each felt about God, money, politics, families, neighborhoods, kids, and our core values. More often than not, we were in agreement. Taking a cue from yet another romantic movie, the week before I moved back to Charlotte, I proposed on the viewing deck of the Empire State Building.\n\nI _thought_ I knew what I was getting when I dropped to one knee. But looking back, Vivian _knew_ with certainty\u2014not only that I was the kind of man she wanted, but _needed_.\n\n*******\n\nAnd then what, you may wonder? After we made our vows?\n\nLike every married couple, we had our ups and downs, our challenges and opportunities, successes and failures. When all the dust had settled, I came to realize that marriage, at least in theory, is wonderful.\n\nIn practice, though, I think a more accurate word is _complicated_.\n\nMarriage, after all, is never quite what one imagines it will be, and even now I'm not exactly sure what I expected. Part of me\u2014the romantic part\u2014no doubt imagined the entire venture as an extended commercial for Hallmark cards with roses and candles and everything in soft focus, a dimension in which love and trust could surmount any challenge. The more practical side of me knew that remaining a couple over the long term was work, and took effort on both sides. It requires commitment and compromise, communication and cooperation, especially as life tends to throw curveballs, often when we least expect them. Ideally, the curveball slides past the couple with little damage; at other times, facing those pitches together makes the couple more committed to each other.\n\nBut sometimes, the curveballs end up smacking us in the chest and close to the heart, leaving bruises that never seem to heal.\n\n_Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Willow Holdings, Inc._\n\n### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.\n\nTo receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.\n\nSign Up\n\nOr visit us at hachettebookgroup.com\/newsletters\n\n# Contents\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Welcome\n  4. Dedication\n  5. Acknowledgments\n  6. Prologue\n  7. Part One\n    1. Chapter One\n    2. Chapter Two\n    3. Chapter Three\n    4. Chapter Four\n    5. Chapter Five\n    6. Chapter Six\n    7. Chapter Seven\n    8. Chapter Eight\n    9. Chapter Nine\n    10. Chapter Ten\n    11. Chapter Eleven\n    12. Chapter Twelve\n    13. Chapter Thirteen\n    14. Chapter Fourteen\n  8. Part Two\n    1. Chapter Fifteen\n    2. Chapter Sixteen\n    3. Chapter Seventeen\n    4. Chapter Eighteen\n    5. Chapter Nineteen\n    6. Chapter Twenty\n    7. Chapter Twenty-one\n    8. Chapter Twenty-two\n  9. Epilogue\n  10. Photos\n  11. About the Author\n  12. Also by Nicholas Sparks\n  13. Praise for The Novels of #1 _New York Times_ Bestselling Author Nicholas Sparks\n  14. Reading Group Guide\n  15. A Preview of _See Me_\n  16. A Preview of _Two By Two_\n  17. Newsletters\n  18. Copyright\n\n# Navigation\n\n  1. Begin Reading\n  2. Table of Contents\n\n# Copyright\n\nThis book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2007 by Nicholas Sparks\n\nExcerpt from _See Me_ copyright \u00a9 2015 by Nicholas Sparks\n\nMotion Picture Artwork \u00a9 2015 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.\n\nCover design: Brian Lemus \/ Cover Art: Motion Picture Artwork \u00a9 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.\n\nAll rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n\nGrand Central Publishing\n\nHachette Book Group\n\n1290 Avenue of the Americas\n\nNew York, NY 10104\n\nhachettebookgroup.com\n\ntwitter.com\/grandcentralpub\n\nFirst ebook edition: September 2007\n\nGrand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nThe Grand Central Publishing name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nThe Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.\n\nThe publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.\n\nISBN 978-0-446-40131-9\n\nE3-20160429-JV-PC\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n**BETWEEN**  \n **BOARDSLIDES**  \n**AND**  \n **BURNOUT**\n\nMY NOTES FROM THE ROAD\n\n**TONY HAWK**\n\n_To my Family:  \nThank you for all of the love,  \nlaughter, and support._\n\n# INTRODUCTION:\n\n# _WELCOME TO MY WORLD_\n\n**LIFE ON THE ROAD IS A WORLD UNTO ITSELF.**\n\n**THERE IS NO WAY TO DESCRIBE THE REALITY OF BEING IN A DIFFERENT CITY EVERY DAY, SLEEPING IN A NEW BED EVERY NIGHT, AND SHARING THE CLOSE COMPANY OF ONLY A FEW OTHERS ALONG THE WAY.**\n\n**It is in turns exciting, grueling, glamorous, disgusting, tiring, comical, stressful, and shocking\u2014but it is never boring. I have been touring regularly since I was sixteen years old, and I am well aware of the jaded perspective from which we (the lucky travelers who tour at others' expenses) view the world. We have a sense of immunity from normal rules and an unspoken creed that whatever happens on the road is just part of the game. I never forget that skating is what got me here, so that is always the priority when touring. You can't live too excessively when you're required to put on daily athletic performances.**\n\nAs a husband and a father of three boys, I find touring all the more surreal. My life shifts from normal spousal duties at home\u2014like fixing breakfast for the kids, taking them to school, attending parent-teacher conferences, taking out the trash, paying bills, waiting in line at the DMV, reading _Hop on Pop_ , and watching _SpongeBob SquarePants_ \u2014to flying in private jets, performing in front of thousands of people, getting VIP treatment at restaurants and clubs, and having everything paid for by someone else. Neither lifestyle allows sufficient sleep, but I am completely thankful to have both. I love my family life and the normalcy that defines it, and I realize that the road's carefree glamour is short-lived. Striking a healthy balance between being home and being away is the biggest challenge of my life. I've become very selective about which events or projects I get involved with. My wife, Erin, has an amazing ability to keep our family grounded in reality while accepting that my time away is a mandatory aspect of what I do for a living. I bring my family along whenever possible, but often my schedule is not conducive to hauling around three kids. It's not fun for them and is more stressful than enjoyable for my wife and me. My oldest son, Riley, is an avid skater and a well-seasoned traveler, so he often joins me on trips (depending on his school absentee status). It is refreshing to view new places and experiences through his eyes, because I often forget to simply relax and be a tourist amid all the hype.\n\nI realize that this dual lifestyle could all come to a screeching halt (due to injury, popularity decline, or an ultimatum from home) at some point, and I am thankful for everything I have experienced so far. I never imagined that riding empty swimming pools as a kid would become a career, and I could only dream that my career would be this much fun.\n\nThe following is part of a longer journal that I have kept throughout my travels, usually written on the flight home. I've tried to be selective about the entries, choosing only those that involve some sort of milestone, interesting anecdote, or lesson. It covers the past two years, which have been among the craziest in terms of scheduling and prospects. As you read, a couple of patterns should emerge: first, you'll discover that skateboarding as a career is much more work than you ever imagined; second, you should be able to trace a steady increase in skateboarding's recognition and respectability. You can also see how my life as a skater has been a catalyst for many other opportunities like work in movies and television, and invitations to many different fund-raisers and events.\n\nThe strangest part about garnering this much fame is that I never skated in hopes of being a celebrity. Skaters were outcasts when I was growing up, and a skating career wasn't even an option. There was no money to be made. Everything has changed (some argue that it has for the worst, most agree it's for the better), and I am proud to be considered a professional skateboarder at age thirty-four, honored to have had so many opportunities, and grateful that people have finally accepted skateboarding for its positive aspects. So here it is: life on the road, swaying between board-slides and burnout, and having a blast during the process.\n\n# THinGs  \nI HAVE LEARNED FROM EXTENSIVE TRAVELING:\n\n**Airline ticket agents are capable** of almost anything (flight upgrades, waiving fees, rerouting, rescheduling, and so forth), but it all depends on your attitude and their mood at the time. They're also capable of keeping you from making your flight.\n\n**Checking out of a hotel is a waste of time.** They know when you're scheduled to leave, they already have your credit card and address, and they'll mail you an itemized receipt if there are any charges in question.\n\n**Once you get to fly first class internationally** , you never want to go back to coach.\n\n**Artsy hotels have the most beautiful clientele** (all Ian Schrager and Peter Morton hotels, for example).\n\n**You can almost always use your own headphones** to watch in-flight movies. Sometimes the sound only comes out of one side, but it's worth not being scammed for an extra four dollars when you've probably already paid hundreds to be on the flight. Rarely do flight attendants take notice, as long as you plug in just as the movie is starting.\n\n**There are some exceptional restaurants** that have more than one location these days, including P.F. Chang's, The Cheesecake Factory, Nobu, Romano's Macaroni Grill, Ruth's Chris Steak House, China Grill, and Wahoo's Fish Taco.\n\n**While flying, wear clothes that may be suitable** or comfortable for more than one day in case your luggage is delayed. Also be sure to carry any absolute necessities with you, rather than checking them, for the same reason.\n\n**Frequent flier miles are invaluable** , if for no other reason than being able to wait in a shorter check-in line.\n\n**One-third of all flight attendants comment about skating** down the aisle when they see you carrying a skateboard onto an airplane.\n\n**Laptop batteries never last as long as they're supposed to** , so bring at least one backup on a flight if you expect to watch an entire DVD.\n\n**There are too many Starbucks.** (In fact, there are two directly across the street from each other in many cities.)\n\n**Eating in Europe is more of an event than a necessity.** Waiters never check up on you, and the quest for a bill is strenuous. If a Euro friend invites you out to dinner, expect it to last at least two hours.\n\n**Jet tag is only a major issue** when flying over the Atlantic.\n\n**All crowds, regardless of culture** , love inverts, McTwists, and big airs\u2014just like in the eighties.\n\n**Dial-up internet access is seriously expensive** when traveling overseas (even when you have a local access number in the country you're visiting).\n\n**My Titanium G4 PowerBook is indispensable** , and I should treat it better.\n\n# Table of Contents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nDedication\n\nIntroduction: Welcome to My World\n\nPart 1 - 2000\n\nSkatepark Design 101\n\nBig Man on Campus?\n\nSkatepark of Tampa (S.P.O.T.)\n\nEspn's B3 Event\n\nTom's Nuts\n\nOccupation: Author\n\nNo Time for Illness\n\nAnother B3\n\nFit for a Prince?\n\nGigantic Skatepark Tour\n\nThe East Coast Leg\n\nSushi Tour\n\nThe Book Tour\n\nThe 2000 Summer X Games\n\nThps2 Showdown\n\nSwiss Account\n\nA 9 When you Least Expect It\n\nScramble\n\nThe New Guy\n\nOne More Hawk\n\nWilly's Mayhem\n\nBillboard (Head) Bash\n\nIn Memory of Raymond Lang\n\nPart 2 - 2001\n\nJackassed\n\nVenice Meets Park City\n\nMadtv\n\nThe Winter X Games\n\nOld-School Skate Jam\n\nHawk Skate Store Grand Opening\n\nWhere's Bam?\n\n(Lifetime) Achievement Award\n\nThanks, Mom!\n\nChocolate Monster\n\nThe (International) Gigantic Skatepark Tour\n\nKeegan Wesley Anson Hawk\n\nMore Awards\n\n2001 Summer X Games\n\nPost 9\/11\n\nHawk Store #2\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAlso by Tony Hawk\n\nCopyright\n\nAbout the Publisher\n\n# [part 1] 2000\n# [SKATEPARK  \nDESIGN 101](008-toc.html#c01a)\n\n## FEBRUARY 19, 2000  \n _Ocean Beach: San Diego, California_\n\nToday was the grand opening of a new public skatepark in Ocean Beach. Andy Macdonald asked if I could come to the pro demo that was scheduled for noon, and I was stoked to skate something new. I didn't expect much, since most city-built parks seem to be small and, in too many cases, poorly designed.\n\nThis new park proved me wrong on all accounts\u2014it's huge. The city got its act together and actually consulted skaters on what to build. Too many cities rely on a cement contractor to tell them what skaters like, when the builder has no idea what is functional for skating\u2014that was the disappointing case with the Carlsbad park. Carlsbad is fun, but it should be much better for the money and effort that went into it. Ocean Beach is a blast to skate, although there were too many people nearly colliding at these opening-day festivities.\n\nI took a few good slams trying to transfer out of the big spine bowl into the street course but luckily hurt nobody else in the process of hurting myself. It was very gratifying seeing such a big crowd turn out for a skatepark opening, further confirming skating's general acceptance in our society. We are here to stay, and another permanent city-built skate facility shows the support that we have finally gained. Thank you, San Diego.\n\n# BIG MAN ON CAMPUS?\n\n## MARCH 16, 2000  \n _Jean Farh Middle School: San Diego, California_.\n\nMy sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Lisiak, asked if I would join an event in which alumni come to the school and read books to different classes. She was always my favorite teacher, giving equal chances to every student and always being supportive of my skating. I agreed and met her in the media center at 11 A.M. She told me that she had kept my participation a secret, so as not to draw too much attention. I didn't think this was really necessary, but things got hectic. I read a book to the class about careers in sports, relating all of the baseball\/football\/basketball facts to what I do. I tried to give anecdotes to keep their wandering attention. I then answered questions from students until the bell rang.\n\nWhat I thought was the lunch bell was actually the end of the day for the students (it was Thursday, and Thursdays are their short schedule days). Suddenly there was a swarm of kids outside the class door chanting my name and demanding that I come out. I guess word spread throughout the school that I was there. I hung around in the classroom and talked to Mrs. Lisiak for a bit while waiting for the crowd to thin out, but these kids were persistent and didn't seem to lessen in number. Another participant in the reading program happened to be a cop, and he offered to drive his police car up to the door and escort me off the campus. This was becoming a little exaggerated, but there were too many kids to accommodate while I was there.\n\n**AS WE DROVE THROUGH THE CAMPUS IN THE CRUISER, KIDS RAN AFTER US, BANGING ON THE WINDOWS** (of a cop car!), asking for autographs, and almost getting run over in the process. I sat in the cruiser while the cop's partner got out and drove my car to the nearest shopping center, away from the madness. We swapped in front of Albertson's while a few kids who managed to make it all the way there surrounded my car asking for autographs. Eighteen years ago I was considered an outcast and a nerd in this neighborhood because I skated, and now I needed a police escort to leave it safely.\n\n# [SKATEPARK OF TAMPA  \n(S.P.O.T.)](008-toc.html#c03a)\n\n## MARCH 18, 2000  \n _San Diego, California, to Tampa, Florida._\n\nI agreed to do a skate demo for Hanger 19, a shop in San Diego, before realizing that this was the same weekend as the annual Skatepark of Tampa event. I wasn't going to Tampa to compete, but I wanted to go to check out the contest and support the Birdhouse team. I booked a flight to allow me to do both. Jeff Taylor (Adio team manager\/darkman) picked me up at 11 A.M. to drive down to the shop. My flight was leaving at 3 P.M., so the schedule was tight.\n\nAfter the demo, we got some bagel sandwiches to go and pulled up to the airport with thirty minutes to spare. If I decide to quit skating, I could easily get a job at the information counter of the San Diego airport, since I know it all too well. The same goes for LAX, Denver, and Chicago, since they are all United hubs. I checked in and walked straight onto the plane. On the way to Tampa, I managed to catch up on some chapters for a book that Sean Mortimer (Mort) and I are writing. (The deadline is coming way too soon, so I foresee some sleepless nights of editing in the near future.) But I got cut short due to only bringing one PowerBook battery.\n\n## MARCH 19, 2000\n\nI arrived this morning at 12:30 A.M. and woke up at 9 A.M. I headed straight for the park where both the vert event and street finals were scheduled for today.\n\nIt is ironic that one of the biggest events in the skate industry in terms of credibility takes place on a mediocre vert ramp. Tampa has had the same vert ramp for more than ten years and the design has been outdated by a bigger standard of ramps. The skatepark has remained in business through skating's toughest times, thanks to the undying devotion of Brian Schaeffer, longtime skater and S.P.O.T. founder. There is an unspoken obligation for the pros to show up for this hardcore skate event. **I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY SLAMS** in one vert session as everyone tried to adjust to the smaller transitions. The vert final was more of a contest of who could stay on than who skated best, but a few guys managed to shine.\n\nEarlier, Bucky Lasek informed me that he planned to take one run, nail everything, and walk out, leaving his remaining two runs unskated. This is a legendary move pulled off by Tom Penny, who won the event a few years ago when he had a flawless routine, skated out the door when his time was up, and wasn't seen the rest of the day. Bucky's first run consisted of three bails in a row, so it would have been surprising to see him leave in a blaze of glory. He made his second run, which was very good but not his absolute best. He was forced to take his last run and forego his rockstar ambitions for now. Bob Burnquist had one insane run where he was pulling ridiculous switch variations that only he can do, and he had one recovery from a sketchy landing that didn't seem possible. It was obvious that they were first and second, but it was almost impossible to decide between them. In the end, Bucky won. Other notable performances: Anthony Furlong, who placed third in his first professional event, and Renton Millar, who made kickflip five-0's on every run.\n\nBucky, Bob, Lance Mountain, Ridge, and I went to lunch, and we came back during the street competition to see Kerry Getz absolutely destroy the place. The loudest crowd approval came when Rick McCrank ollied over the entire pyramid into a frontside nosegrind down the handrail at the end of his run (but after time). Andrew Reynolds took his first two runs but skipped his last due to an exhaustive shooting schedule over the last week. Rodil De Arajo, the wunderkind from Brazil, placed third, because of his unbelievable consistency. McCrank won the best trick event with his nosegrind and placed second in the finals just behind Kerry. This was a true skate event, and it was great to see such a turnout by the crowd as well as the pros.\n\n# ESPN'S B3 EVENT\n\n## MARCH 24, 2000  \n _Lake Havasu, Arizona_.\n\nMy good friend Greg, Jared Prindle (my friend\/assistant), and I drove here last night for the ESPN B3 (bikes, boards, and blades\u2014thus the B3) event this weekend. Coincidentally, it was a spring break weekend (okay, no coincidence), so there would be thousands of college students exploring new methods of intoxication. We were mainly an audience to this madness, but it can be great entertainment.\n\nWe went to the event site just in time to catch some street practice before the preliminary runs started. The course looked fun, so I decided to skate a little. This turned out to be one of the worst decisions of the weekend.\n\nI skated for about fifteen minutes, testing various obstacles and trying to stay out of the way of the competing pros. I tried to crooked grind a box from a quarterpipe, but it was steeper than I thought. This miscalculation led to my truck missing the ledge and flying over the box with my feet racing to get ahead of my body. As I landed, my knee folded sideways to the outside and I felt a small pop. I instantly felt like I was going to puke\u2014the only other time I've felt queasy from a fall was when I broke my elbow. I sat down and saw a strange protrusion coming out of the side of my knee. I have seen this phenomenon before in my ankle, but it is usually instant swelling from a bad twist and is soft to the touch. This bulge was rock-hard, meaning that my bone was in the wrong place. I got up and my knee felt stiff, but functional. As I walked down the ramp to leave, I felt another pop and realized that it was the bone returning to its normal position. I felt a great sense of relief, but it was scary.\n\nIn the evening, Greg, Jared, and I went to witness the infamous spring break festivities, which is basically a thousand people at a club drinking, dancing, and trying not to leave alone. Most of the skaters from the event were there, which always spices up any activity. It was fun to watch for a while, but we eventually got bored and drove home. My knee seemed to be in better shape by the end of the night, but I was still worried.\n\n**_\"the course looked fun, so I decided to skate a little\"_**\n\n# TOM'S NUTS\n\n## MARCH 26, 2000  \nSPENCER'S BIRTHDAY:  \n _Home, Carlsbad, California_.\n\nTom Green called this morning to thank us for the package we sent to him while he was in the hospital, which included a comedy CD, a picture that my son Riley drew, a card from our family, and a bag of nuts. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer two weeks ago, and has undergone two surgeries since then. He had one testicle removed last week and some lymph nodes removed a few days ago. Shocking, especially since he's only twenty-seven years old. He has kept his unbelievable sense of humor throughout this ordeal, and is dedicating a show to the entire process. He is raising awareness about cancer in an entire generation that may have felt immune to any such tragedy.\n\nThey did tests on his lymph nodes and the outlook was very good, meaning that he shouldn't have to go through chemotherapy. We are all thankful and amazed at Tom's willpower\u2014he will attend the Oscars this evening (he was released from the hospital this morning) with his girlfriend, Drew Barrymore. I'm sure that the nut and ball jokes will be flying off the hook. It shows great character to be faced with such a dilemma and still have the courage to make fun of it.\n\nOtherwise, Spencer's birthday went well. A houseful of kids is a lesson in patience.\n\n# OCCUPATION: AUTHOR\n\n## MARCH 30, 2000  \n _New York City._\n\nErin and I flew in last night, since today I was a presenter at the ReAct Take Action Awards banquet.\n\nFrom there, Sarah Hall, my publicist, and I had a meeting with ReganBooks to discuss our current book project, which is still unnamed. I am pushing for _Occupation: Skateboarder_ , but it is a little plain. The meeting went well. I have a lot of confidence in ReganBooks.\n\nWriting a book always seemed like a noble experience in which you could come to terms with your past and really understand the evolution of becoming who you are. There is a taste of that, but mostly it's a lot of _work_. Mort and I have been poring over chapters the last two months, and any new idea becomes another two weeks of research and writing. Let's just say that this book will be thorough, but the deadline is closing in fast. As I type this, I have four chapters waiting to be edited and trick explanations to finish (eight in total). Pictures are an entirely different can of worms. I think the deadline is supposed to be April first...\n\n# [NO TIME FOR  \nILLNESS](008-toc.html#c07a)\n\n## APRIL 5, 2000  \n _Carlsbad, California, to Hartford, Connecticut._\n\nMy knee is definitely getting better, but it aches sporadically. I skated yesterday for the first time since I wrecked it in Arizona. Kneeslides were a struggle, but it worked. I had to shoot ads for Quiksilver and there were deadlines to meet, so Grant Brittain, my old skatepark manager who is now a famous skate photographer, obliged and we got a few sequences. I don't have the confidence in my knee to go through the motions of learning something new, so we shot tricks I could already do. To make it interesting. I did each trick (ollie five, ollie to bluntslide, frontside cab, and a gay twist heelflip body varial) over the six-foot channel at Mission Valley. I tried to do a backside pop shove-it, but the wind was not cooperating.\n\nI think I'm getting sick. I woke up today with serious aches, but I assumed it was from skating so much yesterday after being out of commission. That may have contributed, but it's more than just skate aches. I feel like every motion is a task and my head is going to droop into oblivion. The last time I felt like this was during an Australian tour in 1996, and I stayed sick for several weeks afterward. I don't have time for sickness these days...Now, where did I put the Advil?\n\n## APRIL 6, 2000\n\nI got up at 6:30 A.M. after a hopeless night of tossing and turning (the NyQuil didn't work as well as I'd hoped). My call time was at 7:30 at ESPN headquarters. They are shooting a bunch of _Sports-Center_ commercials this week, so there are at least three crews working at once. My first job was pretending to be asleep when someone makes a prank phone call to me. It is supposed to be someone at _SportsCenter_ pulling high school jokes while they have a slumber party. Basically, I answer the phone groggily, \"Hello?\" They say, \"Do you have Prince Albert in a Can?\" to which I answered several different ways like, \"What?\" or \"Is that you, Kenny?\" or \"How cheesy!\" They had three cameras on me, so the whole scenario took about fifteen minutes to complete.\n\nMort and I are on a new (earlier) deadline for the book. He's getting married soon, so his days are cluttered with meeting priests, heading up a new website (monsterskate.com), and writing about me\u2014good luck, Sean. I'll try to finish the table of contents before Monday.\n\n# ANOTHER B3\n\n## APRIL 17, 2000  \n _Louisville, Kentucky._\n\nI went to the event site to check out vert practice and film a segment with Mat Hoffman, the legendary BMX freestyler. We were supposed to reenact a doubles run that we had done a few years ago\u2014this time with a fingerboard and a fingerbike on a Tech Deck halfpipe. Mat asked if we could really ride the ramp, meaning that we would destroy it. Mat landed on it with the back wheels of his bike and it exploded. I ollied onto one of the bigger pieces and flattened it. We continued until it was mere shards of plastic. Kids scrambled for the bits and had us sign each one.\n\n**GETTING FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER AT THESE EVENTS HAS BECOME VERY DIFFICULT**. Once I leave the fenced-off section of the venue, I get swarmed for autographs. Unless I continue to move as I sign stuff, there is no end in sight. I must come off as rude at some point because it is virtually impossible to fulfill all the requests and actually get anything else done.\n\nThe vert event was one of the best I've seen. Bob Burnquist did two incredible runs, adding his repertoire of switch moves like backside ollies and kickflips to fakies. When Bob is on, he is almost impossible to beat. Bucky Lasek also had a great run that tied Bob's first, but he didn't make another one completely so Bob took it. Andy Mac had one of the sketchiest runs I've ever seen, but he threw everything on the wall and stayed on until way past his time was up. He ended up third. It's hard to believe that the skating level keeps improving at each event.\n\n# FIT FOR A PRINCE?\n\n## MAY 24, 2000  \n _Monte Carlo, Monaco._\n\nMy sister Pat and I arrived today for the Laureus World Sports Awards, which is an inaugural event awarding excellence in many different sports around the world. I have been nominated in the Alternative Sports category along with Shaun Palmer and Travis Pastrana. Mercedes and Cartier sponsor the whole thing, so no expenses have been spared. As we arrived, the hostess invited us to a lunch cruise on a yacht for all of the invited guests. We would have cut it close by driving, so she offered to arrange a helicopter to take us there. I wasn't really up for another flight, regardless of how short it was, so we got a ride in one of the many Mercedes taxis straight to the hotel.\n\nWe went to a party held by _Vogue_ in conjunction with the event. Models, including Naomi Campbell and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, swarmed the pool area in various high-fashion dresses. Boy George was at the turntables and many U.S. television and movie personalities were in attendance. The coolest guy in the place had to be Samuel L. Jackson, so I managed to get a picture with him. Champagne flowed like water. I asked the bartender for a beer and he looked at me like I was an alien. (I already felt like one anyway.) There were two silent auctions for custom concept Mercedes and starting bids were $500.000. I think they both sold. I literally bumped into David Hasselhoff and Sylvester Stallone on the way out. If Mercedes pays, they will come...\n\n**\"the coolest guy  \nin the place had to be  \nSamuel L. Jackson\"**\n\n## MAY 25, 2000\n\nAfter participating in a regatta this afternoon (on a boat appropriately named _Perseverance_ , since it struggled to keep up and barely finished), I went to the hotel, got dressed, and headed to the Awards. Once inside, we were asked to clear the way for another entering guest\u2014Nelson Mandela. Prince Albert of Monaco (\"His Serene Highness\") was also there.\n\nShaun walked away with the Best Alternative Athlete award and gave a classy speech about our sports finally gaining some recognition and being treated as equal athletes. In a sports category as broad as \"Alternative,\" Shaun is the obvious choice, since he has dominated more than one. Other winners included Tiger Woods, Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong, and Sergio Garcia. The event lasted three hours, and everyone went to the after party hosted by Cartier. Tables were scarce, and once again we were around a huge crowd of strangers. I felt like I was in the way wherever I stood.\n\n# GIGANTIC SKATEPARK TOUR\n\n## JUNE 16, 2000  \n _Home: Carlshad, California, to Los Angeles, California._\n\nThe skatepark tour is closing in, so I have been on the phone nonstop tying up loose ends. I've never run into so many difficulties while setting up a tour. One park closed, Bucky got hurt, Brian Anderson is M.I.A., and crossing the Canadian border is going to be too costly with all of the video equipment. On our earlier tours, preproduction mostly involved calling shops and renting a van. It gets more complicated when there are more people and bigger finances involved\u2014at least the missing skaters and canceled parks have been replaced.\n\nI've also been doing a lot of interviews lately regarding the tour. I called our local \"alternative\" radio station (91X) this morning and talked briefly about our Mission Valley stop with their host. I then drove up to L.A. and did a segment with Pat O'Brien for _Access Hollywood_. His son is an avid skater, so he is a huge supporter of skating endeavors. We talked about the tour, THPS2, and my book. Hopefully it will air before the tour is over. I drove home against L.A. five-o'clock-Friday traffic\u2014bad move. **WHEN I GOT HOME, I STARTED PACKING.**\n\n## JUNE 17, 2000  \n _Home: Carlshad, California, to Mission Valley: San Diego, California._\n\nEveryone flew in to San Diego today to start the tour. Willy Santos, Robert Earl, Frank Barbara, and Morgan Stone came to pick me up in the tour bus\u2014a huge version of a limousine, complete with three satellite TVs and an insane sound system.\n\nThe coverage on this tour is going to be very voyeuristic\u2014 _Real World_ meets _Truth or Dare_. From the moment the bus showed up, there has been a camera on my face recording every movement and conversation. I am slowly learning to deal with the need to make every situation a potential segment for the show. If a decision is to be made, it might be relevant to the programming\u2014so we have to make sure a camera is present. Welcome to _TonyTV_.\n\nWhen we picked up Andrew Reynolds and Kris Markovich at the airport, you can bet it was a paparazzi scene. All of the tour members went to the hotel and had an orientation meeting. I was surprised at how accepting everyone is to this reality-based approach of covering the tour. Almost all of the skaters agreed to wear wireless microphones while demoing, allowing the viewer to hear exactly what was happening. I don't know how it will turn out, but it will be interesting.\n\n## JUNE 18, 2000  \n _Mission Valley: San Diegn, California_\n\nI woke up for our 9 A.M. production meeting. It was our last-minute preparation for the first demo day. We went to the pool for a training session with Barry Zaritsky, my trainer. He is helping everyone (including me) get over various injuries, and will be with us the entire trip. His techniques are very effective, but militant.\n\nWe boarded the bus for our five-minute drive to the park. As we approached, the crowd looked pretty thin. We had to sit on the bus until they had cameras in place to record our grand entrance. We finally got out and started skating street with a few of the locals. Suddenly the park was full of spectators. Willy was ripping the flat bar above the pyramid and Andrew was throwing frontside kickflips with ease. I was having a hard time getting used to my taped-up ankle and dealing with the heat. We skated for nearly an hour, and then I headed over to the vert ramp.\n\nBob Burnquist and Shaun White joined me on the vert ramp and we had a brief session while trying to fight heat exhaustion. Bob and I did a couple of doubles lines, and then Rick Thorne showed up. Thorne and I tried to do a doubles line and things got ugly. We planned on doing a line where I went over him, we set up twice, and then he would go over me. The first part went well, but when he was supposed to go over me, I could tell (much too late) that he didn't have enough speed. I was already committed to a backside lipslide at that point, so I prepared for the worst. His handlebar jabbed my back, which wasn't too bad, but it sent him flying to the flat bottom. He ended up spraining his wrist and getting a HUGE bruise on his butt cheek. This ended our vert demo.\n\n**\"it was the first of many long days to come\"**\n\nWe took a short break and started our \"special event\" on the street course. First was a ten-minute jam for a Best Trick event and then we had a Highest Ollie event off of the launch box.\n\nThe judges for the best trick were kids in the audience, so they voted for Shaun White and his melon 360 over the 18-foot launch box. The Highest Ollie event was next\u2014they started the bar at two feet above the launch box and moved it up six inches at a time after everyone had cleared it. If someone missed a height three times, they were out. It started getting gnarly at five feet, and only a few guys made it including Andrew, Kris, Bob, and me. We all managed to clear six feet, so they moved it up to six and a half. I cleared it, but the landing was too sketchy\u2014I had to kick it away. I tried two more times, but I couldn't help thinking about my knee folding during a bad landing. Bob was the only one that managed to make it, so he was declared the winner. He chose to outdo everyone by raising it again and clearing seven feet. He finally gave in at seven and a half. So now if anyone asks Bob how high he can ollie, he can honestly say seven feet (leaving out the jump ramp detail).\n\n**WE THEN SIGNED AUTOGRAPHS FOR NEARLY EVERYONE IN ATTENDANCE AND FINALLY LEFT THE PARK FIVE HOURS AFTER WE ARRIVED. THIS WAS LONGER THAN WE HAD PLANNED, BUT THE CROWD SEEMED APPRECIATIVE.**\n\nAfter returning to the hotel, I finally removed the radio microphone from my shirt and exited the camera world to have a Father's Day dinner with Erin and Spencer. It was the first of many long days to come.\n\n## JUNE 19, 2000  \n _San Diego to Hollywood to Ventura, California_\n\n**OUR NEXT DESTINATION: THE PLAYBOY MANSION.**\n\n_Playboy_ has a group of girls that participate in sports like mountain biking and snowboarding, so they have been donned the clich\u00e9d _Playboy_ \"Extreme Team.\" They greeted us as we drove up to the mansion and proceeded to give us a tour of the grounds. They showed us Hef's collection of exotic pets, including peacocks and monkeys. We were even invited to swim in the infamous \"grotto\" pool, to which we didn't hesitate. There is a rock cave in the middle of the pool that houses a giant Jacuzzi and couch-beds around the perimeter. If these walls could talk. As we left, a limo pulled up to the front door and we were quickly escorted out through the back of the compound. Evidently. Hef was about to depart for the NBA Finals (twins in tow) and we were not \"cleared\" to be in the area. As we slowly made our way to Ventura, we watched the Lakers take the title and their fans take to mindless destruction in their celebration.\n\n## JUNE 20, 2000  \n _Ventura, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada_\n\nAs we pulled in to Skate Street, the crowd was lined up around the corner and there was a sizeable audience already inside. We exited the bus and went straight into a street demo. The crowd was pumped and all of the skaters rose to the occasion. Access _Hollywood_ was on site covering the event, and they were surprised at the level of excitement in the place. We skated street for nearly an hour, took a break, and did a shorter vert demo. The crowd was lining the deck of the vert ramp, making it difficult to concentrate while waiting for a run. Every ten seconds before I dropped in, kids demanded that I give them my board\/pads\/helmet\/watch\/shoes\/kidneys\/soul, and I briefly escaped their grasp. I finally quit skating due more to mental than physical exhaustion.\n\n**WE TOOK ANOTHER BREAK AND HELD THE BEST TRICK EVENT ON ONE OF THE FUN BOXES ON THE COURSE.** Danny Way showed up late, but managed to pull a 360 flip to frontside 50\/50 all the way across. Billy-Joe, one of the locals, made a perfect kickflip noseslide during the 10-minute jam. In the end, Andrew won it with a frontside kickflip up and over the ledge to the flat. I was merely a spectator in the whole thing. We all went outside for a lengthy autograph session and got on the bus headed straight to Vegas.\n\nMany detours and missed turns later, we pulled up to the Hard Rock Hotel at 2 A.M. Our sleeping patterns are anything but normal with this schedule, so we all headed to the casino. A couple hours later, Andrew was up $1,000 from a streak of roulette winnings. I went to bed with a little more than I started with. We are here for two more nights, so things could get ugly....\n\n## JUNE 22, 2000\n\nAfter a pool session with Barry, I got dressed, taped up, and got on the bus headed to the demo. As we drove up, we could tell that the crowd wasn't going to be a problem. This venue got changed four days ago, so we were concerned that people wouldn't get the message. I guess the radio interview we did yesterday helped. The street course was very small, but it had enough elements to make things interesting. Andrew kickflipped off the top of the launch box straight to flat, and Ellis did a pivot-to-fakie on the huge vert wall. Rooftop almost killed himself on a blunt to fakie on a shaky fence way above a quarterpipe, and finally landed it in the end. We took a break and went to the vert ramp. It was the smallest vert ramp I've skated in a while, with more flat bottom than any other. Needless to say, it took a while to get used to. Thorne and I did some doubles, this time without incident. Ellis tried to bombdrop from an eight-foot-high platform. He tried it over and over, slamming onto his elbow and hip until he finally gave up. By the end, a collective wager was up to $600 for a make. We gave him part of it just for the effort and abuse. This park wasn't suitable for a Best Trick event, so we went straight into lengthy autograph session.\n\nWe all ended up in the casino where our invincible winning attitudes were shattered. By the end of the night, I lost everything I had won, and Andrew had three dollars to his name. There is a reason they give out free drinks while you sit at a casino gambling table: It impairs your judgment.\n\n## JUNE 24, 2000  \n _Las Vegas, Nevada, to Salt Lake City, Utah_\n\nI finally slept in for once. We spent most of the day in the hotel doing wrap-up interviews for the first week of the tour. We left at 5:30 P.M. for our scheduled demo at Real Ride Skatepark. The crowd was huge as we walked in and the street demo was exciting. Willy Santos flew in yesterday. He and I had a double-flip retro session during which I landed a double 360 flip for the first time in seven years. Andrew and Kris went through an encyclopedia of flip tricks over the course of an hour.\n\nI took a break and went over to the vert ramp. I've been sick since the start of the trip, and it's been taking its toll on my body. I struggled to stay on tricks that I could practically do in my sleep. I finally gave up after landing a 720 and went back to the bus, wheezing and hacking worse than ever. We did an autograph session and finally left the park at 10:30 P.M. We came back to the hotel, cleaned up the bus, and got packed **OUR FLIGHTS LEAVE EARLY, AND I CAN'T WAIT TO GET HOME FOR A FEW DAYS.**\n\n# THE EAST COAST LEG\n\n## JULY 8, 2000  \n _Jacksonville, Florida_\n\nI woke up at 8:30 A.M. and had breakfast with our new crew\u2014Danny Way, Brian Sumner, Alex Chalmers, Jason Ellis, Robert Earl, Sal Masakela, Rooftop, Bam Margera, and Anthony Furlong.\n\nThe crowd at Kona Skatepark could only be compared to one at a rock concert. They had presold 3,000 tickets and estimated that at least another 1,000 people showed up. Wading through the mob toward the street course was a challenge; autograph requests were literally shoved in front of my face while I was simply trying to keep track of Riley's whereabouts. We skated the street course for about forty-five minutes. Brian nailed the hardest tricks over the pyramid and Ellis did a backside nosegrind on the biggest extension. I was stoked on doing a crooked grind down the main handrail and not rolling my ankle again. Alex was trying to do a kickflip Indy 360 over the launch box as we neared the end. He finally tried to stick one and ended up folding his foot so that his toes touched the top of his ankle. This marked the end of our street session and the beginning of his rehabilitation.\n\nWe took a long break in the bus and the \"vert jocks\" (myself included) got to work. Jason, Anthony, Danny, and I joined the numerous locals for at least an hour-long vert demo. Danny had an idea for doubles where we would do McTwists on the same wall and then he would do a frontside 540 (Rodeo) underneath my frontside air. It seemed to work as planned, and it got a huge crowd response. I learned later that we were inches away from each other as we crossed, barely making it safely. I could tell that he was close, but I didn't think it was such a near miss. A collision would have sent us both to our backs.\n\n**\"there has been an ongoing dare with Sal to drop in on a vert ramp, and it seemed that this was the day\"**\n\nThere has been an ongoing dare with Sal to drop in on a vert ramp, and it seemed that this was the day. A collective $420 was raised for the bet, and Sal rose to the occasion. His first few attempts were hopeless (he wasn't really trying), so he went and warmed up on the miniramp. When he returned, he had the fire in his eyes. He started making it to the flat bottom using my board, but finally decided that my trucks were too loose. I keep my trucks tight, but I forgot about the approximate fifty-pound weight difference when I offered it to him. He finally got the hang of it on Danny's board and made one perfectly to a supportive crowd. The rest of the crew flanked him on the flat bottom and Sal left with a permasmile\n\n## JULY 9, 2000\n\nI woke up to a door knock somewhere around 9 A.M. Upon answering it, I found Bam, Morgan, Matty, and Rob waiting to get in. Bam wanted to jump from the top story of the hotel into the pool, and my room\u2014on the 6th floor\u2014was in the perfect place. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and set up my digital camera just in time to witness the stunt. Bam climbed onto our railing while yelling at Barry (who was in the shallow end of the pool) to \"Ice this!\" and jumped down to the 8.5-foot deep end. He landed and barely got his head underwater before emerging victorious. Erin stayed in the room the entire time, refusing to watch and worrying for his safety. Riley thought it was cool and mused about doing it himself. Yeah, right.\n\n## JULY 10, 2000  \n _Atlanta, Georgia_\n\nWe got our stuff together after breakfast and headed to our demo at the Extreme Sports Park in Duluth.\n\nThe place was not too crowded, which was actually a relief after all of these overwhelming turnouts. We found out later that they could only let four hundred people in due to fire codes and turned away anyone else that showed up. The street demo went very well, and the highlights included Brian doing frontside bluntslides and a kickflip to five-0 on the handrail. Riley did a backside 180 off a five-foot deck. As we were winding down, Danny tried a 360 method over the launch box, bailed, and badly twisted his knee. He took a break and realized that the damage was severe enough to get an operation. Brian's wife was also scheduled for surgery the following day due to pregnancy complications, so he and Danny caught flights home.\n\nAnthony, Jason, and I did a vert demo that seemed to go well, but was a little rough with so few people skating.\n\n## JULY 11, 2000  \n _Atlanta, Georgia, to Winston-Salem\/Wilmington, NC_\n\nAfter another night of less than four hours of sleep, I caught my flight to North Carolina, Barry had arranged a number of tests at a hospital in High Point, North Carolina (near Winston-Salem) to figure out my exact breathing ailment. We had a tight schedule and in a matter of seven hours, I had undergone X rays, an MRI, breathing tests, allergy tests, and blood tests. The verdict was enlightening: I have a number of allergies that I never knew about including grass, mold, mildew, and rug mites.\n\nBarry and I flew to Wilmington and arrived at 11 P.M., almost the same time as the tour bus, which was also carrying my family. We went to sleep somewhere around 1 A.M., only to be woken up by a screaming Sal in the hallway an hour later. Apparently Rooftop and Bam had dismantled his bed, putting his box springs in the bathroom, his mattress over the window, and all of his towels in the toilet. It was another sporadic night of sleep.\n\n## JULY 13, 2000  \n _Richmond, Virginia, to Hartford, Connecticut, to Providence, Rhodelstand_\n\nI spent all day riding on the bus and catching up on journal entries. I even got a little more sleep. At any given time, there is a crew watching a DVD, others playing THPS2, some sleeping, and a heated game of blackjack at the main table. This particular blackjack marathon went on for nearly eight hours with Trent acting as the casino\/house\/bank. This would normally be to his advantage, but we (peer pressure is rough) took him to the cleaners. At one point, Trent was out over $2,500, with most of it going to Rob, Sal, and myself. We started betting bigger hands out of guilt, assuming we would lose and still won. By the end, he was still down, but not by too much. We broke the bank.\n\nWe were then handed passes to a Foo Fighters\/Red Hot Chili Peppers concert and led backstage so that we could watch from the side. The Foo Fighters were great, and we mingled a bit after their show. They said that THPS is a major activity on their bus while on this tour.\n\nI guess the whole rock star thing got into our crew's blood. As we drove to Providence, DMX was blasting in the back room and it suddenly turned into a wrestling match\/music video. Everyone crowded around a camera and did their best gangsta imitations, which evolved into a giant pile-up with at least ten guys bouncing off the walls and each other. For some reason, the tide turned and everyone decided that I was their target of destruction. They grabbed all available shoelaces and attempted to hog-tie me for who knows what purpose. I managed to keep my hands free most of the time and caught a glimpse of my saving grace amidst the chaos: a bottle of Cheez Whiz wedged into the seat. Without anyone seeing, I squirted a handful and splattered it across the faces of my culprits. They were stunned, and I managed to hop away. I didn't get very far\u2014they caught me and covered me in my own weapon. At least it was closure to my abuse. I have to thank Kris for trying to save me from complete destruction. Trent walked away with a bloody lip, and we all left the bus at 3 A.M. smelling like a nacho cheese factory.\n\n**\"everyone decided that i was their target of destruction\"**\n\n## JULY 14, 2000  \n _Middletown, Rhode Island_\n\nAt Skater's Island, I did a few newspaper interviews and got padded up for the vert demo. Bucky was throwing rodeo flips over the channel and every heelflip possible. There was a rumor going around that Richard Lopez, a local vert pro, had recently landed a 900. He joined in, and there was an ongoing buzz from the locals that he would try it. As we winded down, he went for one. He had the fastest spin I've seen, like that of a gymnast. He spins more straight up and down, which I think makes it harder to compensate for a sketchy landing and forces him to spin more. After about five tries, I offered him $500 to make one. This started a 900 fund that just kept growing. Ron Semaio, ESPN's programming director, threw in $1,000, and almost every other skater from our tour pitched in. By the time he was getting close, the total was somewhere around $3,300. He took a big slam after a wobbly take off and just kept trying. He landed a couple on the wall, but was leaning a little too far forward to compensate for the flat bottom. After a valiant effort, his time was up. I believe that he has made it after seeing his technique and perseverance. The ramp was too small for me to try it, but I wouldn't have anyway. It was his moment, and I was stoked just to watch. ESPN gave him half of the money just for trying. The crowd loved it.\n\nThe East Coast leg is over and it was a huge success. I will be home for two days before heading to Japan. The notion of sleep consumes me.\n\n# SUSHI TOUR\n\n## JULY 20, 2000  \n _Tokyo, Japan_\n\nWe arrived last night for a whirlwind Adio\/Hawk Shoes tour. The crew consists of Bam Margera, Ed Selego, Danny Montoya, Jeff Taylor, Jared Prindle, Riley, and myself. We all passed out after arriving at our hotel last night somewhere around 7 P.M. Everyone was awake by 5 A.M. and ready to go into a city that was utterly closed. Some guys went skating around our hotel, but only managed to find rough sidewalks and streets. The stairs, rails, and ledges had potential, but the riding surface was always a problem. We finally left the hotel around 10 A.M. and headed to our first demo.\n\nAfter a drive that was originally estimated at an hour but turned into three (as is the case with driving anywhere in Tokyo), we arrived at the Oisin hotel\/resort right on the beach. It was a compound of swimming pools, water slides, high dives, and even a small FlowRider wave pool. There was already a street course and \"vert\" ramp set up in the parking lot. We did two short street demos where the MC would introduce us one by one, have us do a couple of tricks, and move on to the next guy. We were finished before we knew it. It was way too hot for any of us to complain about not skating enough, so we didn't say much about the obscure format. I moved on to the vert ramp, which was no more than nine and a half feet high and only twelve feet wide (some would consider it a miniramp). Bam put it best when he said, \"even quarterpipes are wider than twelve feet these days!\" I skated for about fifteen minutes and they decided that it was enough. Everything in our schedule here seems rushed, but that seems to be the way they want it.\n\nAfter our \"demos,\" we were on our way to the FlowRider when Bam took a detour by the high dives and decided to ollie off the top. It was one of the scariest stunts I've seen, and I can't believe that he kept the board under his feet until impact. The lifeguard was befuddled (and pissed off), but luckily I got the shot. We then went over to the FlowRider for a free-for-all session that resembled another demo more than anything, judging by the crowd.\n\n## JULY 21, 2000\n\nWoke up at 3:30 A.M. to my bed shaking violently. I first thought that Riley had risen too early and was trying to get me up as well. When I noticed that he was still asleep, I figured that I was on course for an exorcism. I finally realized that it was an earthquake and that we were on the twenty-sixth floor of the Keio Plaza hotel. Growing up in California, you get used to the occasional tremor but this was more than I've usually experienced. We found out later that it measured 6.7 on the Richter and did absolutely no damage to Tokyo\u2014they aren't kidding around about building codes here.\n\n## JULY 23, 2000\n\nWoke up way too early (again). We left the hotel at noon and drove for two hours to do a demo at a Japanese skate competition. At last...we were in our element and skating for skaters. There were about two hundred entrants and two thousand people watching. Because of the unexpected number of participants, we waited for our turn to skate. When it finally came, we were only allowed to session for twenty minutes\u2014just enough time to get warmed up. I was in the middle of trying rodeo flips over a spine ramp when the announcer said something about ending our demo. The crowd immediately rushed the course, making it completely unskateable. I guess we were finished at that point. They announced the winners of the competition while we signed autographs.\n\nAs the awards presentation finished, they tried to pull me away from signing stuff so that we could leave. I was frustrated\u2014I couldn't figure out why we came all the way to Japan to skate a couple of brief demos and not sign autographs or make ourselves available to the local skaters. I managed to ignore the constant requests to leave just long enough to appease immediate autograph and picture requests. We later learned that there was a miscommunication between the competition organizers and our distributor, leading to our hurried exhibition. Hopefully next time they will all understand the importance of catering to the hardcore skaters\u2014the ones who will keep the Japanese skate scene alive in the future.\n\n# THE BOOK TOUR\n\n## AUGUST 6, 2000  \n _New York City_\n\nI got in to New York City a little past midnight. I then had to wake up early this morning to do a newspaper interview. I had lunch with a few members of the publishing staff from ReganBooks, and headed over to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square for the signing. The security was tight and too overbearing at times. I was a little surprised that the crowd was smaller than yesterday's crowd at Borders bookstore in Chicago, but privately relieved. This is one of the craziest schedules I've ever followed in terms of nonstop commitments. My first commitment tomorrow begins at 8 A.M. and doesn't stop until I board a flight for Houston later that night.\n\n**BoOk _TOUR SCHEDULE (DAY 3)_**\n\n**HERE WAS MY PROPOSED SCHEDULE FOR AUGUST 7, 2000:**\n\n9:45 A.M. | Arrival | **MTV Radio (CBS Studios)**  \n---|---|---  \n10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. |  | **Radio satellite**  \n11:30 A.M. | Arrival | **CBS-TV**  \n11:45 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. | Meeting | **Late Show with David Letterman Meeting with producer to discuss plans for Tony's Letterman appearance on August 30.**  \n1:30 P.M. | Arrival | **NEW YORK TIMES**  \n1:45 P.M. to 2:45 P.M. | Interview | **Interview will be at the Omni Berkshire Place restaurant in the atrium. Interview will also include a photographer. Story will appear in the sports section. Run date to come.**  \n2:50 P.M. | Arrival | **PLATFORM NETWORK**  \n3:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. | Interview | **Interview will be at the Omni Hotel restaurant in the atrium and will include video for on-line streaming.**  \n4:30 P.M. | Arrival | **METRO CHANNEL**  \n5:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. | **Live Interview** | **Studio Y**  \n7:45 P.M. | Leave NYC\/La Guardia | **Continental Flight 1963**  \n10:37 P.M. | Arrive Houston | **Houston Intercontinental**  \n**Everything basically went as planned... there were a few minor details left out\u2014such as finding time to eat, designing a mini-skatepark to be built on David Letterman's studio roof, helping to edit our next ESPN Gigantic Skatepark Tour show (due to ESPN tomorrow and airing on Tuesday), a few conference calls via cell phone, a bitchy newspaper photographer, and a three-hour flight delay that put me into Houston at 2 A.M. Sleep, what sleep?**\n\n# THE 2000 SUMMER X GAMES\n\n## AUGUST 16, 2000  \n _San Francisca, California_\n\nErin, Spencer, and I were scheduled to fly here this morning so I could conduct an interview with the Wall Street Journal at our hotel before my book signing at 2:30 P.M. Our flight was two hours late thanks to United's recent business woes, and I had to do the interview hurriedly in the car on the way to the bookstore. **THE SIGNING WENT WELL\u2014IT WAS SCHEDULED FOR TWO HOURS AND I MANAGED TO GET TO THE END OF THE LINE IN THAT TIME WITHOUT RUSHING ANYONE.**\n\nFrom there I went to shoot a segment for ESPN about real street skating in San Francisco. Chris Senn, Kyle Berard, and Dayne Brummet joined us as we went to a huge ledge in Chinatown and then to the China Banks. I haven't been to the China Banks since shooting _Animal Chin_ in 1986, so I attempted to skate even though my ankle was swollen from practicing doubles with Andy yesterday. After trying to clear one of the benches going frontside, I came down the wall and stopped as my nose dug into the flat, sending me sprawling across the bricks. My ankle survived, but my wrist went numb. I did interviews with the skaters from that point on, asking them what the main difference is between this style of skating and competitive \"street\" skating laka \"park\" skatingl. Needless to say, there weren't any philosophical revelations in our conversations. The bottom line: you don't find perfect vertical quarterpipes and perfectly shaped ledges out in the street. We stayed at the banks until dark and missed an integral part of real street skating: getting kicked out of a spot.\n\n**\"my ankle survived but my wrist went numb\"**\n\n## AUGUST 17, 2000\n\nI woke up to the Spencer alarm clock this morning. I went to the X Games kickoff show where they presented me with an \"It doesn't get any better\" award. The girl from _American Beauty_ (Mena Suvari) presented it to me by reading the cue card as if she were being forced to do so. The crowd started chanting her monologue (since they were in view of the cards) just to get things moving along. I accepted the award and got congratulations from Andy Dick. Then No Doubt played a couple of songs.\n\nI went over to the vert ramp and snaked into the practice session partly to get a feel for the ramp and partly because I couldn't stay away. I then took off my pads and did some brief interviews with the skaters. Bucky placed first in the prelims while skating to our tour anthem\u2014\"Party Up\" by DMX.\n\n## AUGUST 18, 2000\n\nThe vert finals were amazing to watch\u2014Bucky was in the lead the entire time until Pierre-Luc Gagnon nailed a run that put him in first. It was all down to Bucky's final run\u2014the last one of the entire event. He made everything he tried, including a frontside heelflip gay twist (that he never made in practice). Colin McKay also ripped and placed third. I ran around doing interviews behind the scenes after each run while trying in vain to watch everyone else's performance.\n\nWe left and headed to a radio station where a few of us had semipermission to briefly take over the programming courtesy of Robert Earl. As we (Rob, Jason Ellis, Bucky, Rick Thorne, and Sal Masakela) entered the studio, the working DJ (Noname) was naked. We literally took over the airwaves by tying Noname to his chair and playing whatever we wanted (DMX, the Clash, and the Faction) uncensored. We would cut off some of the songs halfway through to scream nonsense and answer some of the many calls that were coming in. Since Noname was tied up, we couldn't figure out how to get the phone conversations into the broadcast. We ended up talking to the callers, but anyone listening could only hear our voices instead of a twoway conversation. I guess we should have planned better.\n\n## AUGUST 19, 2000\n\nWhen I woke up I headed straight to the vert ramp for doubles practice. Andy and I worked on our routines and ended up changing one right before the event started, which got us both confused. We decided to stay with the original plan at the last minute and placed first in the preliminaries. As the finals neared, the wind kicked in and made some of our combos nearly impossible.\n\nSean Penn was spotted in the stands, so Andy and I introduced ourselves. We wanted to let him know that there is a trick named after him (backside Madonna = Sean Penn), and he was very cool. I was tempted to throw some Spicoli lines at him, but I'm sure he's heard them all (just like when I get _Animal Chin_ quotes randomly yelled at me).\n\nAndy and I made our first run, and I was stoked that I didn't screw up while holding my board out as he did a frontside pivot on it (like I did a few times in practice). **OUR SECOND RUN GOT OFF TO A BAD START AS ANDY BOTTOM\u2014LANDED HIS FIRST SETUP AIR AND BAILED A VARIAL 540.** We started over and made it to the end of the run, but I had the same problem setting up for a 720, so our finale didn't come together. I was hoping we would make it to the end so that I could do a five-0 board transfer that we had worked on, but the wind got the better of us. In any case, it was a fun event\u2014I like seeing what new things we can come up with each time.\n\nI rushed out in order to make it to Erin's ten-year high school reunion in Santa Rosa. The drive took forever, thanks to ridiculous San Francisco traffic. I didn't go to my own reunion, since I knew practically nobody in my class. I knew even fewer at this one so fellow husbands TJ, Jason, and I lurked in the background the whole time. I forgot that the popular music from 1990 was so bad...\n\n## AUGUST 20, 2000\n\nI drove back to San Francisco to tape another show segment about the vert finals and skate during the Best Trick practice. I could see Bob trying a few crazy things, but waiting until the contest started in order to really try to make them. **THE CONTEST GOT OFF TO A SLOW START AS EVERYBODY TRIED THEIR HARDEST STUFF.** Andy made a few nollie heelflip variations and Tas Pappas made a kickflip varial Indy 360. He then tried to spin some 9s, but the wind was once again in effect. Bob turned the bench obstacle upright and made a rock to fakie on the makeshift eight-foot vertical extension. Andy made a lien to tail on it as well. As the contest wound down, Colin made a nollie kickflip backside tailslide revert. Bob dropped in next and made a fakie ollie to fakie frontside five-0 to kickflip on the raised bar above the coping. He had been trying it sporadically throughout the event and it was questionable whether he would make it. His board bounced off the bottom coping as it was still flipping and he was the most surprised out of anyone that he actually rode away. As if that wasn't enough, he started trying alley-oop backside tailslide reverts as the time ran out. It was an incredible event to watch, and I went back to the hotel fired up about learning new stuff.\n\nWe got a ride back with Danny DeVito and his son, and they couldn't stop raving about the event. He even invited us to dinner, but we had already made plans. It is amazing to see so many celebrities make the effort to experience the X Games, which was considered a goofy sideshow at its inception.\n\nI'm here until the twenty-second, doing Bagel Bites and book promotion, then (thankfully) I get to go home on the twenty-third.\n\n# THPS2 SHOWDOWN\n\n## SEPTEMBER 16, 2000  \n _Boardrider's Club: Seattle, Washington_\n\nFlew in this morning for a Quiksilver promotion and grand opening of their Boardrider's Club (Quiksilver retail store). After checking into our hotel, we headed straight to a new skatepark placed right under the famed Space Needle. Then we went to the Boardrider's Club, where one hundred winners got a chance to come in and hang out, get autographs, play THPS2, and discuss quantum mechanics theory. One kid kept hounding me to play against him in a one-on-one game of THPS2, claiming that he would \"take me out.\" I tried to avoid the challenge, mainly because we were still signing stuff, but also because I know how much time kids devote to playing the game (and I don't get nearly as much practice). I went over to show some of the employees a few secret areas and codes (nothing supersecret). The kid that was to take me out somehow materialized during my game, so I was stuck. He grabbed the other controller and we had a showdown. He talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk. He left the store after two games mumbling something about \"next time...\"\n\n# SWISS ACCOUNT\n\n## SEPTEMBER 23, 2000  \n _Freestylech: Zurich, Germany_\n\nI arrived in Zurich at 10 A.M. after a three-hour delay in Dallas. Texas. This is my fifth year in a row doing the Freestyle.ch, a huge event that includes a snowboard big-air event, BMX, freestyle motocross, a street course, and a huge vert.\n\nThey decided to have a formal vert contest this year, as opposed to the jam sessions we have had in the past. I was only scheduled to skate during the last day of the event, but I flew in a day earlier in order to shoot some photos for the Quiksilver Europe crew. They had Afiff Bellakdar\u2014one of the best skate photographers in Europe\u2014fly in from Paris for the day to take the pictures.\n\n**\"i arose to the dreaded wakeup call, gathered my composure, and went to the event site\"**\n\nWe had a scheduled time on the ramp for this particular shoot, and they didn't let any other photographers on the ramp. Some people were miffed at that request, but we just didn't want to have a good photo ruined by someone else's camera in the foreground. It was strange to be doing this sort of thing in front of a crowd\u2014usually photo shoots are more low-key since you're trying one thing at a time and not doing full runs. They also consist of a lot of bails when you're trying something hard. In any case, we managed to get some good sequences (alley-oop five over the channel, Indy 7, heelflip varial melon to fakie over the channel, and various air shots).\n\nAffif, Jared, Jasper (a Quicksilver Europe rep), and I left there and headed to the annual Freestyle.ch party, a warehouse-style club\/rave with three separate rooms with different styles of music (techno, hip-hop, and another that could only be described as drug-induced). Once we got in the car, I fell asleep for nearly two hours while Jasper and crew got lost over and over trying to find the place.\n\nWe finally got there and we all stayed way too late, mostly hanging out in the hip-hop room and the VIP area, where free food and drinks were hard to resist. Went back to the hotel as the sun was creeping up. I realized that I had to skate in less than six hours\u2014smooth move. My general sleeping pattern while in Europe is a series of two- to four-hour naps strewn in between obligations and festivities. I guess it works, for a little while.\n\n## SEPTEMBER 24, 2000\n\nI arose to the dreaded wake-up call, gathered my composure, and went to the event site. From there, I was pulled nonstop from interview to autograph session to skate demo to interview and over again.\n\nDuring the last demo, which consisted of Sandro Dias, Sasha Steinhorst, and myself, I was finally getting burned out. Sandro pulled a _huge_ alley-oop melon five over the channel, and it got me fired up. If there was ever a portable ramp ideal for spinning 9s, this was it. I tested a couple and they felt consistent. As long as I landed two good setup airs, the spin wasn't a problem. I tested it a few more times and started to commit to the landing. I shot out on one and landed right on my ass, burning a hole in my shorts and bestowing myself with nice hipper. The crowd was incredibly supportive, cheering louder every time I climbed the ladder to try again. I finally stuck one (albeit with a signature squat) and it felt great to finally make it again. After slamming at Encinitas and Woodward the last two times I tried it, my confidence level was suffering\u2014I started to feel like I was destined to get hurt on 9s from now on.\n\n# A 9 WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT\n\n## OCTOBER 1, 2000  \n _Rock-n-Air Festival: Denver, Colorado_\n\nFlew in from Vegas this morning after Mort's bachelor party and roughly two hours of sleep. The Red Bull Rock-n-Air event was a festival that included bands, snowboarding, and the Red Bull ramp (for skaters and BMXers) held at the famous Red Rock Amphitheater. Kid Rock was sitting in front of us on the plane ride, and I assumed he was going to the same event, since Pennywise (who were slated to perform) were also on our plane. Upon our asking, he knew nothing about the event but told us he was going to a wedding. It must be the season\u2014Mort's wedding is next weekend and Kris Markovich's is the one after.\n\nWe checked in to the hotel, grabbed some sandwiches, and went straight to the event. Our first demo was scheduled for two hours, which was optimistic at best. I met up with Sergie Ventura, Phil Hajal, Mat Hoffman, Rick Thorne, and Jamie Bestwick, and we all started riding. The Red Bull ramp is excellent as far as portable ramps go. We all burned out about an hour into our demo. I wanted to try a 9, since the ramp was set up at full width and there would be plenty of room. One wall was slightly over-vert, which actually worked to my advantage for getting around. I tried one, completely missed my board, but luckily came around without any major mishap. I tried a few more and they felt good. I finally set one down and shot out on the flat bottom \u2014but I came out standing up instead of squatting on my board. This was a first and I was stoked even though I slammed on the flat. I ran back up and did the exact same thing\u2014and it worked. I popped up on the other side in disbelief, expecting to fall backward at some point before I got there. I always hoped to land one properly and am thankful that Red Bull has the foresight to make such a big demo ramp for us to enjoy.\n\n# SCRAMBLE\n\n## NOVEMBER 4, 2000  \n _Home to Oallas, Texas, to Houston, Texas._\n\nWoke up at 5:30 A.M. in order to catch my 6:50 A.M. flight, Chris Miller and I were headed to Dallas for a quick store appearance before flying to Houston for the annual Make-A-Wish benefit. Our flight to Los Angeles was delayed (United strikes again), and we got there just after our Dallas flight took off. This put us three hours behind schedule and made us an hour and a half late for the shop signing. We could see the line all the way out of the mall as we approached. **I SAT DOWN AND SIGNED AUTOGRAPHS FOR FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT.**\n\nI wonder if people who wait in autograph lines actually believe that we are delayed by no fault of our own, or if they think that we are careless and lackadaisical with these types of commitments\u2014and late because we just don't care that much. I imagine that they picture us lounging poolside, umbrella drinks in hand, muttering \"They can wait a little more.\" In my defense, I can honestly say that I always get to the airport on time to make my scheduled departure. What happens from there is usually out of my hands. It's funny when people throw guilt-trip lines at you like \"We've been waiting here for three hours.\" If they only knew when my journey began just to be there...\n\n# THE NEW GUY\n\n## NOVEMBER 7, 2000  \n _Election Day: Hustin, Texas._\n\nI arrived last night for a day of filming for a new movie titled _The New Guy_. It's a high school comedy with adult-type humor. I am doing a cameo in a house party scene where I skate a miniramp in the front yard. We were scheduled to shoot outside all night, but the rain put everything on hold.\n\nA few of the cast members and I went out in downtown Austin to see the election mayhem, since George W. Bush was scheduled to give a victory\/consolation speech. The restaurants and bars were packed with people glued to TVs. They would cheer as Bush would win a state's electoral vote and cower as Gore kept up in the race. I didn't vote...not because of a disinterest, but because I got called to this movie at the last minute and didn't have time to mail in my ballot. I was down for Gore (or Nader), but that is not something you want to make public while in Austin during election night, especially with a bunch of drunk Republicans who aren't sure whether to open the Champagne or start brawling.\n\n## NOVEMBER 8, 2000\n\nI got picked up at 4 P.M. and driven to the set, where it was seriously cold and only getting colder. The \"ramp\" they had set up for me was a joke, since nobody in production consulted skaters (or me) when building it. They had two quarterpipes four feet high, four feet wide, with four-foot transitions, and a four-foot vert ramp that wasn't wide enough (or strong enough) to do anything. I got them to build two more at the last minute that were stronger and had bigger trannies. I couldn't do much except blunts and disasters.\n\nThey had a wedge ramp set up to the back of one of the quarterpipes for a motorcycle stunt. This formed a makeshift launch box, which I rode by being towed by a motorcycle since the street was too rough to push into it. The director seemed happy with this, so I did a few jumps for the cameras and tried a few 360s at the end. It was too hard to judge the speed from the motorcycle, and I ended up bailing five or six before setting one down and falling on the flat. If they do use any of the 360 shots in the movie, I don't claim to have made one. I finished another scene where they shot my reaction to the moto jump and then I was out at 2 A.M.\n\n# ONE MORE HAWK\n\n## NOVEMBER 9, 2000  \n _Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles, California, to San Diego, California_\n\nI caught my flight in a sleepless daze and slept all the way to Los Angeles. Got picked up by a Town Car and driven to Fox Studios to shoot _Turn Ben Stein On_ \u2014a new talk show starring the host of _Win Ben Stein's Money_...Ben Stein.\n\nI finished there and headed straight home just in time to get dressed and go to the San Diego Hall of Champions, where they put up a display of my pictures and memorabilia that will be exhibited through February. It is the first time they have recognized any \"nontraditional\" sport in their museum, and it was the best response they have ever had in terms of turnout. I was honored to have been chosen to represent skateboarding, and I have a feeling it will not be the first time they highlight a skater in their exhibits.\n\nTo add to today's craziness, we found out [during my one hour at home] that Erin is pregnant. We are all very excited.\n\n# WILLY'S MAYHEM\n\n## DECEMBER 3, 2000  \n _Willy's Workshop: San Diego, California_\n\nI agreed to do an autograph session at Willy's new shop to help him get things rolling. It was scheduled to be from noon to 2 P.M.\n\nErin has been bedridden with morning sickness since Thanksgiving, and luckily I have been around to help her. With this in mind, I had to make sure that this signing ran smoothly and didn't turn into a four- to five-hour ordeal. I asked the staff to assign someone to stand at the end of the line, so that as our time came to an end they could kindly tell people who weren't already waiting that the line had been cut off. Doing it this way allows the people who have already been standing in line the chance to get their autographs, and late comers don't wait in line only to get rejected when the time is up.\n\nAt 2:30 P.M. there was no end in sight, and whoever was supposed to be the end-of-liner didn't stick around to follow through with his task. Normally I can stay and try to push through, but Erin was home with severe nausea while trying to look after two-year-old Spencer by herself. The shop cut the line off at the front and people were not happy. I felt terrible about the situation, but I really didn't have a choice in the matter. Knowing how many kids waited for nothing made me almost as nauseous as my wife...\n\n# BILLBOARD (HEAD) BASH\n\n## DECEMBER 5, 2000  \n _Billboard Magic Awards: Las Vegas, Nevada_\n\nI was invited to be an award presenter at the _Billboard_ Music Awards. The producers allowed me to take four guests along for the trip, and provided them with an extra room and passes to every event. The 900 Films crew\u2014Morgan and Matty\u2014joined me. I left yesterday, but Erin was not sure about making it on a plane [or leaving the house, for that matter]. She said she would make every effort to fly out the day of the awards [today].\n\n**THIS MORNING I WENT TO THE _BILLBOARD_ AWARDS REHEARSAL WHILE EVERYONE SLEPT IN.** They asked us to be there by 10 A.M. to run through the entire event. As I walked in, *NSync was rehearsing a dance routine. There were cardboard cutouts of select presenters and performers in empty seats so that the cameras would know exactly where to find Britney Spears or Oscar De La Hoya if they needed a close-up. I waited while bands like Vertical Horizon and BBMak mingled in the aisles waiting for their turn onstage. After an hour and a half they called me to the stage to rehearse with Pink. I did not know who Pink was until I got here, but I learned that she was a hardcore skater and had even been to Woodward skate camp three summers in a row. She was very nice and we waited almost another half hour by the side of the stage while Destiny's Child kept restarting their number. The stage producer finally said that we didn't need to wait any longer as long as we were comfortable with our lines and positions at the podium. We left without hesitation.\n\nAs I was leaving, a woman handed me an invitation to \"The Lounge,\" which was a room full of mini-kiosks with different product manufacturers and distributors at each one. It was basically a fancy goody bag for the performers and presenters. I didn't realize the magnitude of this gesture until I walked in\u2014there were representatives from Palm, Canon, E-Bike [a hybrid multispeed bike and electric motorcycle], and assorted clothing companies. I was allowed to choose one item from each station and I ended up with an impressive goody bag for Christmas gifts. They were actually handing out Digital Elphs like they were Halloween candies. This was another example of free stuff for those who can actually afford to buy it.\n\n**\"it was a perfect way to end a Vegas getaway\u2014 bloody and broke\"**\n\nI left and headed back to the hotel and got ready for the event, which involved getting dressed and picking up Erin from the airport. It was the first time she had left the house since Thanksgiving, and she was struggling to keep her nausea at bay. There was a mob of still photographers in one area who would call out the names of celebrities walking by and ask them to stop. I got caught in the mix, so Erin and I stood perplexed while trying to appease various shouts of \"Look this way! Over here! To the right! Up here! Who is your friend? How do you spell her name? E, R, I...wait! There's Jessica Simpson! Jessica! Look over here!\"\n\nI was taken to the stage greenroom while everyone else went to a larger greenroom. **I SNUCK OUT AND JOINED THE OTHERS, MOSTLY TO BE WITH MY FRIENDS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THEY HAD FOOD IN THEIR ROOM.** The show finally started and I headed back to the stage holding cell (aka greenroom) where anyone about to go onstage was hanging out\u2014including Christina Aguilera (who was flanked by record execs), Oscar De La Hoya, L.L. Cool J, and Faith Hill. There was no place to sit, so I stood next to a monitor. I started talking to a guy who recognized me, and I learned that he was Christina's friend\u2014although he wouldn't elaborate as to the extent of their friendship. I asked if I could get a picture with her, but it was impossible to get through the posse of yes-men that surrounded her.\n\nIt was finally my turn to present with Pink. I started panicking that I wouldn't be able to see the TelePrompTer and begged Pink to let me look at her copy. We walked out onstage, pausing a couple of times because Pink's dress kept getting stuck on her heels. I looked up and the TelePrompTer was easy to read, so I went through my lines without stalling. As we opened the winner of Best Rock Artist, the crowd was chanting \"Creed\" before we even got to read it, so I said it as if everyone already knew. The band came up and accepted while I snacked on the giant fortune cookie that the winning envelope came in. We all walked offstage and my job was finished.\n\nAt the next commercial break, I found my seat next to my friends while following No Doubt down the aisles. We watched the rest of the show while being entertained by a famous rap star's sarcastic commentary (he was right in front of us). As Britney Spears accepted her award with a gushing speech about how this is all a dream and she never wants to wake up, we overheard the rapper snicker and say, \"Oh, you're gonna wake up\" under his breath. The rest of the show was pretty generic. The whole event is based purely on sales, so it's really just an excuse for a bunch of megamarketers to pat themselves on the backs for jobs well done throughout the year.\n\nAs the show finished, we headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel for the after party. I didn't stay long. Matty and I filtered out to the casino while Erin headed back to the MGM with her longtime friend Nausea. I returned to the room a few hours later with nothing more than a few silver dollars to my name. I tossed them on the bed and exclaimed that it was all I had left. Erin grabbed one, claiming that they were heavy and actually hurt when one landed on her. She threw it at me, aiming for my chest but hit me in the middle of my forehead. Blood instantly dripped down my face and I then believed that these coins could actually inflict damage. I had no choice but to laugh hysterically and fall asleep with a washcloth draped over my face. It was a perfect way to end a Vegas getaway\u2014bloody and broke.\n\n# [IN MEMORY  \nOF RAYMOND LANG](008-toc.html#c23a)\n\n## DECEMBER 17, 2000  \n _YMCA Skatepark: Mission Valley, California_\n\nAbout two weeks ago, a seventeen-year-old named Raymond Lang was skating with his friends in their neighborhood in San Diego. One of their neighbors, whose own son was also skating, came out, complaining that the kids were too close to his car. He had made the same complaint in the past and even threatened them with a BB gun the week before. This time he brought out a real shotgun and shot Raymond in the chest simply for skating in his own neighborhood. He then turned the gun on Raymond's younger brother and threatened him with \"more of the same.\" Raymond died shortly after, and the raging lunatic now faces trial. **THERE IS NO WAY TO EXPRESS THE SADNESS OF THIS TRAGEDY AND THE IMPACT IT HAD ON THE SKATING COMMUNITY, ESPECIALLY IN OUR HOMETOWN.**\n\nOzzie\u2014the director of the Mission Valley Y\u2014 took it upon himself to hold a fund-raiser for the family at the skatepark. The family is not well off and the funeral costs were another blow in an already impossible situation. Companies and skaters came out in droves for this cause and the event looked like something that had been planned months ahead of time. I showed up at 1 P.M. and started skating the vert ramp along with Bucky, Andy, Bob, Pierre-Luc, and Peter Hewitt.\n\nI skated for almost an hour, and then met Raymond's family\u2014his brother, mom, and stepdad. They were all wearing shirts with Raymond's school photo printed on the back. What can one say? Words cannot express this type of sorrow.\n\nI signed autographs for about an hour, but I couldn't shake the sadness of why this whole event came together. This tragedy speaks of issues regarding gun control and skate harassment more than any other. We can only hope that some good will come of this in the form of better understanding, tolerance, and justice.\n\nRuden Tapeda is serving fifty years to life.\n\n# [part 2] 2001\n# JACKASSED\n\n## JANUARY 14, 2001  \n _Jackass: Onlanda, Florida_\n\nI was invited by Jeff Tremaine, the _Jackass_ producer, to join the _Jackass_ crew to witness\/try a loop with Mat Hoffman. They had built a number of obstacles and launching ramps into and around a lake. They also built a sixteen-foot loop (two feet bigger than ones I have done) that curved to the right (I have only gone to the left, so this was frontside). We got there a little late, so Mat was already up on the starting ramp and the Jackasses themselves (Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, and Brandon Dicamillo) were preparing the crash pads.\n\nI immediately put my pads on in order to warm up and give Mat support. He had never tried a loop before and wasn't sure how to go at it. He came in with too much speed and fell into the ramp just past twelve o'clock. One of the hardest things to figure out about doing a loop is that it doesn't require as much speed as it seems. Too much speed forces you into the wall with no hope of standing up. After about a half hour of attempts, Mat started to figure out the speed factor but not the aim. He kept coming around and ending up back in the starting ramp instead of carving toward the exit. I was trying to warm up in the meanwhile, but my attempts weren't consistent. I would come around perfectly into the pads on one and totally flail the next.\n\nThey removed the pad that blocked the exit and Mat made it through without any problems. I also made it after a few tries. The plan was to have us both wear chicken suits, follow each other through the loop, and launch into the lake. I tried to make it around again before donning the costume, but I bailed about halfway through and came down straight on my shin on the edge of the ramp. My shin was shredded from my kneepad to just above my ankle and probably could have used some stitches near the bottom. Luckily, Barry Zaritsky came along to check out the action and was a big help with cleaning the wound. I decided to quit, since I had already made it once.\n\nMat and I then suited up in full chicken gear. My plan was to jump in the lake at the same time as him, after he went through the loop. There was a starting ramp next to the exit of the loop, so I waited for him to come out and then dropped in. He made it perfectly, so I went down the ramp and ended up launching right next to him just after he took off. We flew into the water like the flightless chickens we emulated. It was _cold_ , but I tried to play it off while swimming back to shore. I removed the damp suit, cleaned my shin one more time, got packed, and said good-bye. Riley and I had to catch a flight, since the next day was a school day. I fear for whatever shenanigans were in store for the crew once we left\u2014we'll just have to wait for the show to air. I guess it was worth yet another shinner to be part of the hijinks that have become standard _Jackass_ fodder, but it's really starting to hurt.\n\n# VENICE MEETS PARK CITY\n\n## JANUARY 19, 2001  \n _Sundance Film Festival: Park City, Utah_\n\nI was invited to the annual Sundance Film Festival to attend a screening of _Dogtown and Z-Boys_ , Stacy Peralta's documentary on the Dogtown skate team of the seventies. Vans financed the project and they brought it here in hopes of selling it to a major film distributor, which will allow it to be released widely in theaters. It is difficult to get a film into the festival since only a handful will get picked out of hundreds of entries. There was a huge buzz surrounding Stacy's film before it premiered, which is always a good sign.\n\nMorgan, Matty, Mort, and I arrived in Salt Lake City with enough time to check out a new skate park (huge and fun, but no vert ramp) before driving up to Park City. We pulled in with minutes to spare before the film started and the place was packed. The theaters here are generally hotel ballrooms or offices converted into screening rooms, so there isn't much room for a crowd. If you're not a bigwig studio exec or haven't set up tickets way ahead of time, it's not likely that you'll get into a screening of a decent movie here. Matty and Mort didn't have passes, but we managed to squeak by the doorman with the help of Steve Van Doren (president of Vans, Inc).\n\n**THE DOCUMENTARY IS TRULY AMAZING. NARRATED BY SEAN PENN, IT COVERS AN ERA OF SKATING THAT MOST SKATERS TODAY ARE UNAWARE EVER EXISTED.** It details a group of surfers from the streets of Santa Monica that changed the world of skateboarding\u2014Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Jim Muir, Jeff Ho, Shogo Kubo, and Stacy, to name a few. These guys began skating as it was being invented, and surfing inspired their styles and maneuvers. As the rest of the skating community focused on freestyle-based riding (360s, wheelies, handstands, and other flat-ground maneuvers), this unique and notoriously rowdy group chose to mimic their wave experience and ride empty swimming pools. Hence the birth of vert skating. It documents the group's rise to fame and subsequent breakup. I have a small interview in it, but I started skating just after this group disbanded, so I couldn't give a true fan's perspective. It is the most engaging documentary I've watched and it enlightened me on a revolutionary part of skating's history. It won two major awards at the festival, making it almost certain for theatrical release. All I can say is go see it if you have the chance.\n\n# MADTV\n\n## JANUARY 25, 2001  \n _Fox Studios: Las Angeles, California_\n\n_MadTV_ asked me to be on their show, so they wrote a sketch to include skating. The segment is an idea they have done before where a character named Will\u2014a teenage kid\u2014is always pestered by his little sister. He comes to see me perform and waits in line to get my autograph only to be embarrassed by his sister's insults. He tosses her aside and I \"refuse to give an autograph to a bully.\" She continues to come back until I see his point of view because she starts in on me as well.\n\nTHE ENTIRE SHOOT ONLY TOOK ABOUT TWO HOURS and it was seriously hard not to laugh during our takes\u2014theirs is a talented cast of comedians. I have had many offers to be on TV shows ( _Letterman, Leno_ , and the _Today_ show for example), but they usually back out because they never want to go through the expense or hassle of getting a ramp to skate, so I appreciate Fox Television's making such an effort.\n\n# THE WINTER X GAMES\n\n## JANUARY 31, 2001  \n _New York City to Mount Snow, Vermont_\n\nI had some meetings in New York City yesterday, and Frank B., who runs the Jones Athlete Team, just happened to be there with the Jones Soda RV so we decided we would drive up to Vermont together. Robert Earl and Morgan met up with us, because they convinced ESPN that there should be a feature on our \"road to X.\" It was more of an excuse for us to hang out together in the city, but it worked.\n\nLast night Rob and Frank got a craving for doughnuts so we pulled the purple, flame-covered RV up to a Dunkin' Donuts. Once inside, the workers looked tired and overworked. Rob asked them what time they got to go home, but they were stuck there all night or until all the doughnuts were sold. Being good samaritans, Rob and Frank bought _every_ doughnut in the store, which gave the workers an excuse to go home. They were so excited that they gave us gallons of milk and juice and all the plasticware we could carry. It cost a whopping forty dollars to shut the whole place down. We drove the streets of New York City giving doughnuts away to various pedestrians and homeless people until a group of kids started throwing them back at the RV. We declared war, and doughnuts were flying out of every window at our enemies. I hit one in the head with a jelly-filled just as we drove off. Needless to say, the RV was a mess at the end of the night.\n\nWe finally pulled into Mount Snow today around 10 P.M., shooting our faux segment all the way as we checked in.\n\n\"i did an interview about entering the pro ranks at a young age\"\n\n## FEBRUARY 4, 2001\n\nI woke up and ran to the host set, since I was late for my only scheduled obligation of the day. I did an interview with Shaun Palmer about entering the pro ranks at a young age\u2014we both turned pro when we were fourteen (Shaun White's age). They had old footage of us that they played in the background, which was entertaining and embarrassing at the same time. They also played our snowskate session from the first day out, which proved that Shaun White is the wonderboy of all board sports.\n\nWe were finished by 11 A.M., and I realized that all of my Winter X commitments were fulfilled. I've been here since the January 31. My flight home was scheduled for the next day and I was originally going to miss Erin's prenatal exam, but I scrambled to get my bags together and reschedule my flight to get home tonight. I pulled it off without a hitch thanks to United and made it home before midnight. I learned that a severe storm hit New England the next day and everyone else was stuck in Vermont for another two days. That would not have gone over well at home.\n\n# OLD-SCHOOL SKATE JAM\n\n## FEBRUARY 10, 2001  \n _Skatelah Skate Park: Simi Valley, California_\n\nWith all the buzz surrounding the Dogtown documentary, the owners of Skatelab Skatepark decided to invite all of the \"old-school\" skaters for a private session\/party. Mort, Riley, and I drove up early in hopes of beating the crowds that were expected to arrive. We skated about twenty minutes before they officially opened the doors to the rest of the invitees. The bowl was instantly swarming with faces that I had not seen in twenty years; many I had only read about in magazines. The session started getting dangerous as up to three guys dropped in at once, but everyone managed to survive. Tony Alva, Art Dickey, Steve Cathey, Doug Saladino, Mike Folmer, Brad Bowman, and Steve Olson were just a few of the recognizable skaters on hand. I saw Alan Gelfand walk by and I introduced him to Riley as the guy who invented the ollie\u2014I even got him to sign my board.\n\n**I JOINED IN THE BOWL MELEE AFTER IT CALMED SLIGHTLY.** Someone else dropped in on my first run, so I stayed in the shallow end playing the who-will-bail-first game. I looked up as I was doing an axle stall and realized that it was my childhood skating hero. Eddie Elguera, skating the deep end. I immediately stopped and watched with the same excitement as when I was twelve. In fact, the whole night felt like my younger days, since it was all the same guys that used to intimidate me, vying to get a run and snaking me in the process. However, it was much more fun to be in the mix this time around.\n\nRiley had a blast skating the street course with the local rippers until I finally had to convince him to leave for our long drive home. I tried to introduce him to most of the skaters I admired as a kid, but I don't think he really understood the importance of their generation. It's scary to think that in the not-so-distant future there will be an old-school gathering that will include all of the pros with whom I skate now. Riley could be there telling his friends about how he was inspired by this generation and showing us how much skating has evolved.\n\n# [HAWK SKATE STORE  \nGRAND OPENING](008-toc.html#c29a)\n\n## MARCH 17, 2001  \n _Garden State Plaza: Paramus, New Jersey_\n\nThe quest for autographs has gotten out of hand. I am beginning to get discouraged with public appearances that don't involve skating, simply because the demand for signatures is too big and I don't have the ability as a human being to fulfill them all. I now feel like I disappoint more people than I please at these events, which is the opposite of what I want to accomplish.\n\nCase in point: today was the official grand opening of the first Hawk Skate retail store.\n\nWe arrived at the mall on schedule, and I made my way to a stage where they were holding a raffle. **THEY WERE GIVING OUT A TON OF PRIZES, WHICH INCLUDED SHIRTS, DECKS, AND A CHANCE TO GET AUTOGRAPHS INSIDE THE STORE (TWO HUNDRED IN TOTAL).** I walked up to the stage to an amazingly vocal, warm welcome from the crowd and proceeded to answer various questions (half being requests to shake hands). I signed every raffle item and then made my way to the side of the stage, where things got ugly. I tried to sign the multitude of products pushed in front of me, but it started getting dangerous with smaller kids getting crushed in the front.\n\nThere was no way to give everyone a signature without staying all day and missing the chance to give them a skating demo. I believe that people would actually like to see live skating instead of waiting hours for the hope of one autograph. I may be misguided in that belief these days, but I'd still like to think that it's the truth. I gave up and made my way to the store. People kept shoving things in front of my face to the point where I literally had no room to even hold up a pen and sign the stuff. One of the security guards told me that he got hit in the head with skateboards three times in our short trek.\n\nAt the store, the raffle winners soon started to trickle in. I was still frazzled by the previous debacle, but I was quickly touched at the heartfelt joy these kids showed once they approached me. I signed posters and took pictures for about two hours with the excited winners. We left the store through a back door, and headed straight to RexPlex for what I hoped would be the main reason people came to our event\u2014to see some skating.\n\nWe got there and the place was packed. I thought it was a great demo...except that I couldn't make a kickflip Indy for the life of me (I haven't missed that many since I learned them). Richard Lopez and I attempted some 900s, but I finally gave in to the fact that the ramp is too small for such a feat.\n\nThere was a large grouping of kids (and their parents) standing by the stairs asking for autographs every time I bailed and walked back up the ramp. They were standing in an area where they could see absolutely no action, begging for signatures for at least an hour. If I were to stop and sign their goods, I would have been surrounded by countless others and not been able to skate anymore. At one point I asked some of them if they realized that we were skating\u2014and even trying 900s\u2014on the very ramp that they were standing behind. None of them seemed to care. Have autographs (or merely the prospect of getting one) replaced the excitement of live demonstrations? It was never so apparent, and I don't understand this philosophy. Has it always been there, and I didn't notice because it was never on this scale? Are these die-hard autograph seekers only trying to make a profit on eBay? There may be no easy answers to these questions, but I feel the need to reevaluate. I would much rather skate than sign autographs, because that is what got me here in the first place\u2014it is where I feel comfortable and in control. The whole autograph thing has become too important in the eyes of some fans and it is disheartening, mainly because it is impossible to please everyone. I don't mean to dwell, but something has to change and I'm not sure where the compromise lies.\n\n# WHERE'S BAM?\n\n## APRIL 2, 2001  \n _Adin Tour: San Juan, Puerta Rica_\n\nWe got here at 3 A.M. after an eighteen-hour nightmare trip. Our flight from San Diego was supposed to leave at 6:30 A.M. Kevin and I showed up with a half hour to spare (or so we thought) to find out that the flight had already left. I stood there arguing with a United representative that we still had time to make the flight until Jeff Taylor, the Adio team manager, came over to clear things up\u2014we forgot about the time change. Duh. The saddest part is that out of the three of us, nobody accounted for it until it was too late. A very helpful woman at the check-in went out of her way to get us on another flight\u2014a much later one\u2014that still got us in with enough time to make our scheduled appearances. Bam was flying out from Los Angeles, and I just knew that he would run into the same problem. When we finally got into San Juan, Kenny Anderson and Jeremy Wray had arrived as scheduled (because they are much smarter than we are), but no sign of or message from Bam.\n\nWe arrived at the first shop to a buzzing crowd and a lot of cheering. The first kid came up to get signatures and asked, \"Where's Bam?\" This became the question of the day, to which we had no answer. We signed stuff for an hour and the line never seemed to get shorter. We finally had to leave in order to make it to our other appearances. Kids surrounded our van as we left the parking lot and pounded on the windows until I was convinced that they were going to shatter.\n\nThe next two shops were also in a mall-strangely, in the _same_ mall. The distributors didn't want to leave any account hanging, so they committed to both for a half hour each. The first shop was the definition of chaos. The waiting crowd was pushed up right against the shop's window (about twelve feet high by twenty feet wide) and it started to bend from the pressure. It was a calamity waiting to happen. **NEEDLESS TO SAY, THIS WAS ANOTHER AUTOGRAPH SESSION THAT GOT CUT SHORT.**\n\nAs we pulled out of the mall parking lot with hordes of kids chasing our vehicle (and nearly getting run over), there was finally a message from Bam. He had to stay overnight in Houston because of the time-change fiasco and catch another flight. He had arrived in San Juan and had been waiting at the airport for nearly three hours. His cell phone was broken, and that was where he had all of his contacts stored (exactly why we hadn't heard from him). We pulled up to the baggage claim to find him sitting on the curb after his thirty-three-hour journey.\n\n## APRIL 4, 2001\n\nWe drove to a nearby military base on which there was a seemingly misplaced skate shop in a residential neighborhood. We exited the van to another vocal welcome and went straight to the autograph table, our second home. It was hectic.\n\nOne of the most amusing aspects of being on tour with Bam is that so many people know him from MTV instead of recognizing him as a pro skater. Kids would yell, \"Do _Jackass!\"_ everywhere we went. Huh? What exactly does that mean? I suggested that if he stuck his finger down his throat and puked on them and it could pass for \"doing _Jackass.\"_\n\nThere was a rumor about a good swell hitting in the morning and I would feel cheated going to Puerto Rico for the first time without surfing at all.\n\n## APRIL 4, 2001\n\nThe rumors were true. Juancarlos, our tour organizer, and Rick, Danny Montoya, and I grabbed surfboards and paddled way out to an empty reef break. It was a good wave, but we had to take off right near some big, exposed rocks, which made things intimidating for me. You don't find many spots like that in Southern California. I caught a few waves before finding myself washed up on a shallow reef after one closed out on me. Luckily, I didn't hit anything sharp and paddled back out before another set wave pushed me farther into the danger zone. I caught a couple more before paddling in. Then we were off to our demo.\n\nWhen we got the skate shop, the plan was to do a street demo before hitting the vert ramp, but that plan was crushed as soon as we pulled up to the site. The abundant crowd spilled over into the surrounding streets, covering the designated street course area. So we moved to the vert ramp.\n\nWe skated for an hour and everything went well. Bam even \"did _Jackass_ \" by jumping into a nearby tree from the deck of the ramp. He nearly fell onto his head on a cement wall about five feet below when the tree swung back from his weight. He held tight as it swung around, and was released onto his feet on the other side of the tree. The crowd instantly surrounded him and it looked like a killing scene from a _National Geographic_ \u2014I was waiting for him to be eaten alive and left for vulture scrap. It was genuinely scary, and I suggested that Jeff go pull him out of harm's way. After grabbing him we made a beeline to our cars. Bam tried to close the sliding door of our van, but there was a girl in an SUV next to us with her door open, intentionally blocking our door so it could not latch shut. Our van was surrounded by this time and it was looking like we were trapped. Bam tried to shut it again by slamming it harder, but only did more damage to the girl's door. He started yelling at her to close her door, but she stood there stoic and indifferent to our situation. Finally, Jeff realized he could back up and leave our nemesis's blockade behind.\n\nWe finally got back to our hotel\u2014tired, hungry, and flustered, Kevin Staab, Bam, and I had to leave the next day in order to make it back for the ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards in L.A. No... sleep... till... Carlsbad.\n\n# (LIFETIME) ACHIEVEMENT AWARD\n\n## APRIL 7, 2001  \n _ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards: Los Angeles, California_\n\nThe powers that be at ESPN took it upon themselves to create the first big televised awards show focusing exclusively on skateboarding and other \"action\" sports (formerly known as \"extreme\" sports). The date was set long ago to accommodate the many conflicting schedules of the honored athletes. When they first told me about the event, they said they wanted to present me with the first \"action sports lifetime achievement award.\" They later omitted the \"lifetime\" part, as it suggested that my career (and future honorees' careers) had come to an end. Besides, I always picture lifetime achievement awards going to fragile old men who are barely able to read their own acceptance speeches and who stopped performing their craft long ago. The decision to change the title wasn't mine, but I was secretly relieved.\n\nWhen we got to the venue, I was extremely nervous, knowing that my award could be up at any minute and that I would have to give an acceptance speech. I had a list of people to thank and I had a looming paranoia that I was going to forget someone important.\n\nThe moment came and Tom Green introduced my award. I was thankful that he took a break from editing his movie (the week before its release) to come and do this. Matty and Morgan from 900 Films had produced a special video segment that they wouldn't let me see until this event, but I didn't really get to see it even then due to the drunken skaters filling the aisle next to me, wanting to reminisce with me about old times. There were production people trying earnestly to make them move because I was supposed to get up and accept my award at any second, and a fight nearly ensued during what was supposed to be a happy occasion. **I FINALLY MADE MY WAY TO THE STAGE, SHOOK TOM'S HAND, AND STARTED IN ON MY THANKYOUS.** I was suddenly stricken with the worst cast of cottonmouth, and felt compelled to continually lick my lips to keep them from sticking to my gums. I struggled through the names on my list, glancing down once in a while in hopes of not leaving anyone out. It is frightening to be alone on a stage like that, knowing that it is your one chance to give gratitude to the people who have influenced your life. I finished and walked offstage with Tom when it dawned on me: I forgot to thank my mom. She was on the list! I swear! In fact, she was the first name in my list of family, I guess I didn't look at my list enough, or maybe it was the chatty aisle-dwellers, or maybe I needed a drink of water, or maybe I was too nervous, or maybe...I just blew it.\n\n**LUCKILY, I HAVE TWO OTHER AWARDS SHOWS TO ATTEND IN THE NEXT COUPLE WEEKS AND GOOD CHANCES FOR REDEMPTION.**\n\nI made it back to my seat and my mom was sitting next to Erin. I apologized in hopes that they hadn't noticed my acceptance speech faux pas, but of course it was already a topic of discussion before I even returned. If there is one mom who would not be fazed by such a thing, it's mine.\n\n**MY PREPARED SPEECH (NOT WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID):**\n\n\"I would first like to thank ESPN for giving skateboarding so much recognition and support over recent years, and for giving us a medium to display our talents. I would also like to thank them for no longer using the word 'extreme.' On a personal level, I wish to thank everyone that has believed in me over the years\u2014my ever-supportive family (Mom, Steve, Pat, Lenore), my beautiful wife and hottest MILF around (Erin), my sons Riley and Spencer. Everyone at Birdhouse and Blitz; Sarah Hall Productions; Brian Dubin and the crew at William Morris; Jared, Ray, and Kevin at THI; Morgan and Matty at 900 Films; Activision; Neversoft; Stacy Peralta; and the Chin Brigade. I would like to thank the fans of skateboarding everywhere, but thanks most of all to my father, who could have never imagined that driving his son to the skatepark every day would amount to this. This one's for you, Dad.\"\n\n**\"this one's for you, dad\"**\n\n# THANKS, MOM!\n\n## APRIL 10, 2001  \n _Blackhuster Awards: Los Angeles, California_\n\n'Tis the season for awards shows, and L.L. Cool J is at every single one. The Blockbuster Awards were originally reserved for movies and their popularity based on number of rentals. They stretched it this year to include categories such as video games, which is where I fit into the picture. They wanted me to present an award, and introduce me as the winner of all three video game categories: favorite PlayStation, Dreamcast, and Game Boy games. They also wanted me to jump through a large sheet of paper for my entrance, which I rehearsed a couple days in advance.\n\nThey were going to project skate and game-play footage on the paper and wanted me to come through it at just the right time. I was to go straight to the podium and accept my awards from Frankie Muniz (Malcolm from _Malcolm in the Middle_ ). None of this was a problem until I got backstage for the real thing and realized that I was wearing my dress shoes.\n\nIn the rush of getting ready, I forgot about my skating obligation on the show and didn't even bring my skate shoes. Luckily, my Prada shoes are not the dressiest and have fairly sticky soles. I rolled around backstage minutes before my scheduled entrance, practicing ollies and destroying the side of my new shoes. They worked okay, but I wouldn't have wanted to try anything else in them.\n\nThe time came and I busted through the \"screen\" on cue. I realized later that if I had bailed and my board shot out, it would have taken out one or more of the following celebrities in the front row: Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, Tom Green, Dustin Hoffman, Annette Bening, or any member of *NSync.\n\nI accepted my award and opened my speech by thanking my mom. Ahhh...redemption.\n\nI went back to my seat, when a frantic stage producer asked if Dustin Hoffman could borrow my skateboard. Huh? Things are very strange lately. Dustin was presenting the World Artist Award to his good friend Warren Beatty, and he wanted to skate onstage. Having no idea if he could even skate, I was now convinced that someone from *NSync would go home with a bloody lip from my board hitting him. Dustin came out and it was obvious that he actually could skate, but he was trying to act like he couldn't. At one point, he almost fell back and shot the board out, nearly making my boy-band-bashing vision a reality. For the record, Dustin Hoffman pushes mongo-footed. He and Warren signed my board when they were finished.\n\n# CHOCOLATE MONSTER\n\n## APRIL 21, 2001  \n _Nickelodeon Kids'Choice Awards: Los Angeles, California_\n\nThe Kids' Choice Awards is an annual Nickelodeon event where kids vote for their favorite people in various categories. I was up for Favorite Male Athlete (along with Shaq, Kobe Bryant, and Tiger Woods\u2014whoa!) and Favorite Video Game. They asked if I would skate out to the podium and present an award with Ray Romano.\n\nWe had to arrive early, because they wanted Riley to skate out with me to the podium and we needed to rehearse the timing. It was a setup for Ray Romano to do a gag with his kids as well. When we got there, I was informed that I won both categories (I still find it unbelievable that I received more votes than the other athletes did) and I would need to give an acceptance speech before doing the bit with Ray.\n\nWe spent time between rehearsals in the greenroom taking advantage of the bountiful snacks. Spencer was particularly excited, because we usually keep him away from candy. He was pouring cupfuls of M&Ms into his mouth between bites of brownies and lollipops. I noticed that he was having a hard time swallowing these gigantic mouthfuls of chocolate, as brown drool oozed from the corners of his mouth. Suddenly, I saw him running to a nearby table where there were a few members of the Baha Men who were acting like he was holding a grenade. I went over and realized that he had barfed chocolate all over himself, wiping it with his hands and smearing it all over his face and shirt. People were scattering to get away from him and he thought it was a game, so he went running wild chasing them, laughing the whole time. Erin tried to catch him, but it was like trying to corral a muddy piglet at a wedding reception. She finally caught him, which only made him laugh harder. Luckily, we'd brought a change of clothes for the chocolate monster and managed to keep the black goo off anyone else. It was one of the funniest chase scenes I've ever witnessed.\n\nRay and I did our \"routine\" and then presented the award for Favorite Male Singer to Lil' Bow Wow, who was born for show business. After the show ended we made our way upstream (against the masses) to the backstage area and the after party.\n\nSpencer was falling apart from his sugar-induced jitters, and I was immersed in signing autographs while trying to calm my inconsolable two-year-old. It was not an easy walk to the exit. We finally found everyone and headed home\u2014Spencer instantly passed out in the car. **THE KIDS HAD A BLAST\u2014NICKELODEON KNOWS HOW TO CATER A SHOW AND PARTY TO THEM.**\n\n# [THE (INTERNATIONAL)  \nGIGANTIC SKATEPARK  \nTOUR](008-toc.html#c34a)\n\n## APRIL 25, 2001  \n _San Francisco, California, to London, England_\n\nWe arrived last night after a six-hour flight delay in San Francisco. Almost everyone was on the flight from San Francisco to London (Kris Markovich, Bucky Lasek, Morgan, Matty, Rooftop, Jason Ellis, Sal Masakela, Ian Votteri, and the production crew), so I felt sorry for the flight attendants. Some of our crew even managed to sneak into business class halfway through the flight.\n\nDoing a European leg of the Gigantic Skatepark Tour was a difficult project to get approved. We made a skimpy schedule (three stops total) in hopes that the cost would not be an issue. We still didn't know if it was on as of two weeks before our departure date, so we were pleasantly surprised when our double-decker bus pulled in to the airport to pick us up. Bam Margera, Steve Berra, and Mat Hoffman were already onboard after flying straight here from the Louisville B3 event.\n\nWe left the hotel in the bus and went to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace\u2014true tourists on a mission. We shot some _Reservoir Dogs_ group shots in front of each landmark before our next excursion: paintball wars. I have never played with paintball guns before, but I have seen the welts that getting shot can produce on your skin.\n\nIt took nearly two hours to get there, and it was the first time l'd slept for more than an hour since arriving in England. We divided into two teams (mine consisted of Ellis, Hoffman, Bam, and Rick Thornel and went out to a wooded area with various forts and barricades to hide in\/behind.\n\nWe played three games, each in different areas where the object was to capture the other team's flag. If you get shot anywhere besides your head, you are out. We won the first game by default because Thorne was the only soldier left without getting hit. I got hit in the shoe, so I avoided the dreaded sting. I was not so lucky on the second outing\u2014I peaked my head out from over a wall only to see \"bullets\" coming at me. One hit me in the goggles so I decided to take cover, but it was too late. Another hit me on the side of my head right below the safety mask we were required to wear. It seriously hurt. I sat on my knees in the mud cursing this whole idea. I went out and managed to hit Bucky in the leg before getting tagged in the back by Rooftop.\n\nThe last game put our team on the offense, trying to capture the other team's flag from a fortress. I snuck around the side and got into a back-and-forth gunfight with Bucky, who was hiding behind a barrier and managed to fit his gun barret through the slats, I heard his gun firing empty shots after a while, and I realized that he needed to reload. I took the chance and ran into the middle of the fortress, thinking that the flag was near the flagpole and I could go in commando style. I should have surveyed the location from the front because the flag was nowhere in sight and I was a sitting duck firing wildly at no visible enemies. I got tagged on both hands, neither of which were covered and it stung like hell, and numerous times in the face mask. One bullet exploded right on the air holes of the mask, and I could taste paint shooting into my mouth. Bad idea. As I walked out in surrender-position, I saw the flag lying right at the entrance. It could have been so easy. Ellis tried a similar move to mine, but he slid out in the mud right as he reached the flag and got pelted too many times to count. **OUR TIME WAS UP AND WE WERE THE DEFEATED TROOP.**\n\nAs the other team was firing victory shots in the air, I snuck up on Robert Earl and nailed him in the calf. I was suddenly a fugitive desperately looking for the border (exit), as their entire army (Rob, Rooftop, Bucky, Sal, Berra, and Frank) chased me through the woods. I was shooting backwards in hopes of hitting anyone during the chase. I only got hit a couple of times, once in the back and once on my butt. One of my blind shots got Rob, so it was a worthwhile effort. After getting hit that many times in exposed areas, I understand all the fuss about getting stung. Those little balls of paint actually break skin.\n\n**\"we shot some Reservoir Dogs group shots in front of each landmark\"**\n\n## APRIL 26, 2001\n\nI woke up early to do our first of many interviews for the tour. I then went to a radio station across the street (it was BBC 1,2,3...or 7, I can't remember) to do a taped interview. I sat in an empty room after being told to put on the headphones and did an interview with the voice being piped into my head\u2014I never saw anyone, except the person who showed me into the room. I was then supposed to meet a newspaper reporter at a nearby sushi restaurant, but I got lost trying to find it. Never try to give a Yankee directions around a city like London. I grabbed a cup of soup to go and made it back to the hotel right at 2:30 P.M., just as our bus was leaving for the skatepark.\n\nWe actually got to the park on time. I still can't get used to going to a skatepark cold turkey and being expected to perform at a top level. We cruised around the abundant street course for a few minutes, figuring out what it had to offer and how to get speed on the rough asphalt surface.\n\n**I WAS LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO SKATING WHEN I TWISTED MY BACK ANKLE.** After landing another trick to fakie, I tried to do a cab melon over the only spine there. I misjudged the landing, went to the flat, my foot came off the board, and I ran over it. It was a substantial sprain, but not as bad as I have done to my other ankle many more times. I had to make a quick decision as to whether or not to persevere and continue skating or submit to Barry and the endless icings he inevitably would require. Getting treated meant missing the rest of the street demo and making it to the vert demo if I was lucky. Even Barry agreed that I should continue skating and pay the price later. I kept going but it was a struggle\u2014my ankle was tightening up by the minute, and I was quickly losing all of my pop. I managed to tailslide a decent-sized ledge and make a few other transfers before cutting out and confronting the Ice Man.\n\nMy ankle was already noticeably swollen when I got into the bus. Barry wrapped it in ice for nearly thirty minutes and then taped it to the hilt. I could barely move it when I finally got to the vert ramp (the demo already in progress), partly because of the sprain, but mostly because of the precautionary taping Barry had provided. **THE RAMP WAS SMALL, BARELY TEN FEET, MAKING FOR A VERY CHALLENGING DEMO.** I managed a few good runs between lots of ankle pain-induced bails. There was some seriously good riding going on, namely by Bucky, Ali Cairns (who made a guest appearance), and Simon Tabron (world-class BMXer). Simon pulled a perfect 900 on the less-than-perfect ramp and Ali made his signature cab to five-0 to backside tailslide to revert. Bucky started trying nollie kickflip to backside tailslide (his latest invention), so I decided to go for a frontside gay twist body-varial (my newest). Either the ramp was too small or my ankle was too jacked, but it wasn't working. I opted to try a 360 varial gay twist, but it was still a struggle. The demo came down to Bucky and me flailing our chosen vices, until I finally gave up. I ended with a 540 run (doing different variations), and tried to finally make the 360 varial gay twist at the end. I caught it, threw it on the wall, squatted through the flat, and slid out on the other wall. Good enough, I guess. Bucky made his super-tech trick a few tries later, and then made another on the same run for good measure. It was a great ending and the crowd was going off. I limped my way through the autograph seekers and finally got on the bus. Barry was right there, ice in hand.\n\n**\"i still can't get used to going to a skatepark cold turkey and being expected to perform at a top level\"**\n\n## APRIL 27, 2001  \n _London, England, to Paris, France_\n\nWe spent the entire day on the bus (with the exception of two hours on a ferry) driving to Paris. For nearly eight hours, Barryiced my ankle every forty minutes for twenty minutes at a time. Everyone else got into their old tour-bus habits by playing blackjack and watching movies. I got to play a few hands with Trent, our tried-and-true dealer, but icing my ankle was Barry's focus and there was no rest for the wicked. We arrived at the Paris Hilton (located right next to the Eiffel Tower) around 11 P.M. This was just the beginning of the night for many of the crew, but my day had been long enough.\n\n## APRIL 28, 2001  \n _Vano Big Air: Paris, France_\n\nWe spent most of the day driving around Paris (in the rain) and getting our tourism on. We did intros for the show right in front of the Eiffel Tower before going to Bercy Stadium for the annual Vans Big Air event. This is my fourth year in a row doing the event, but this year they did a cross-promotion with the tour.\n\nWe pulled up to the stadium where there are some good-sized ledges and a huge grass hill that was dangerously steep\u2014perfect obstacles for our crew. Kris and Rooftop wanted to conquer the biggest ledge, but there was a small car in the way of the landing. The larger half of our posse bounced it out of the way. They tried it, but the takeoff and landing were a little too wet.\n\nWe went in, and I started to worry about what I would be able to do with a stiff ankle on a ramp that I have never skated, with no warm-up, in front of ten thousand people. At least we were scheduled for two demos throughout the night, so there was a chance to get used to the ramp. I struggled through the first demo, and it was not fun. I should have at least made time to skate the ramp earlier in the day to figure out the transitions and coping before going out cold turkey. One wall was over-vert and would pitch you out to the flat if you weren't prepared for it. Bucky didn't seem to have any of these problems and was killing it. I was just starting to get used to it and my ankle was feeling looser when they shut off the lights on the vert ramp, indicating the motocross big air event was underway.\n\nWe hung out backstage for an hour while they did the moto stuff and pom-pom dances (by cheerleaders in illegal outfits). We went out again and the ramp was feeling better, but I was still bailing on stuff that I usually have wired. I did an Indy 360 on the ominous wall without compensating for the over-vert, landed way too low, and went straight to my elbow and hip. When it rains it pours in regard to my injuries. I stayed by the side of the ramp feigning that it didn't hurt that much, but my elbow was pounding. This kind of thing only pisses me off and makes me want to skate harder, so I went back up to the ramp. I did a couple of decent runs and decided to chuck a 900 attempt for the crowd. The over-vert wall was actually an advantage on a ramp this size, since it pitched me out enough to spin all the way. I tried it again and missed the grab, but I have learned recently (the hard way) not to worry about where my board is and just get around to my knees. I heard my board hit the ramp very near my head as I was sliding. I tried a few more and started getting a good spin.\n\nSuddenly the spotlights moved away from the ramp and the motorcycles came out. I guess the organizer's schedule had to run like clockwork. There was still enough light on the ramp, so I kept going. They had turned the ramp announcer's mike off, which meant he couldn't explain to the audience what was going on. I tried a few more, nearly squatted one out, and finally made it standing up. The crowd's reaction was deafening; I didn't know it at the time, but the moto guys had stopped riding and came over to the ramp to watch. Anyway, I was stoked to redeem myself after a less-than-impressive demo. The main organizer asked me to give a speech to the crowd, so **I THANKED EVERYONE IN MY BEST FRENCH AND WE BAILED OUT.**\n\n## APRIL 29, 2001\n\nSpent most of the day redoing the rainy intros and tourist stops for the cameras. We took a riverboat around the city with everyone piled in. I felt sorry for the innocent bystanders and passengers as Ellis took a megaphone and gave his own guided tour of Paris. I felt even more sorry for the couple we caught making out under a bridge, as all twenty of us\u2014skaters, bikers, and production crew\u2014heckled them from a boat only twenty feet away.\n\nIt was the mellowest night we'd had until Rooftop got an idea involving the megaphone. He had been sharing a room with Barry and had countless complaints about Barry's tidiness, so it was payback time. He wanted to turn the microphone's siren function on as Barry slept, and wake him as if there was a fire in the hallway. Suddenly, most of our crew congregated in the lobby, bored of being in their rooms and too used to our schedule to go to sleep. We formulated a plan that involved everyone: As Barry woke up in a haze and opened the door, he would see the rest of us running through the hallway (many half-dressed) and freak. We even had a random guy in the bar join in on the joke, since he was familiar with our tour shows (he's a skater's dad from Lake Tahoe). Berra and Thorne stripped down to their underwear for a convincing effect. **ROOFTOP SET UP TWO CAMERAS IN THE ROOM AND TURNED THE THING ON. THERE WERE ABOUT TWELVE OF US IN THE HALLWAY RUNNING IN A PANIC, AND I WATCHED BARRY AS HE LOOKED OUT THE DOOR, ASSESSED THE SITUATION, AND MADE A BEELINE FOR THE STAIRS (WHERE EVERYONE WAS WAITING). HE SAW MY FACE FIRST AND REALIZED IT WAS A JOKE.** He turned around with a dazed smirk on his face, nodded in defeat and went back to his room. The funniest thing, which I only realized later, was that Kris and Bam came out running in their underwear and were never in on the joke. Kris opened his door to check out the commotion, saw our ringer (the guy from Tahoe) and was convinced that this was for real. We all went to Bucky's room and checked the footage\u2014hilarious. Faking a fire drill is a federal offense in the U.S., so I wouldn't recommend it. I'm not sure what the case is on the other side of the Atlantic, but luckily nobody else was awakened by our scheme.\n\n## MAY 1, 2001  \n _Frankfort, Germany._\n\nAfter a full day of driving, we arrived at our hotel in Frankfurt. We checked into the hotel and headed to the demo earlier than expected because of Mayday protests and potential riots or roadblocks along the way. The crowd at \"Railslide Hall\" (how Euro) was smaller than predicted\u2014there were fire code issues with the skatepark, so only a certain number were allowed in. The street demo went off with Steve, Bam, and Kris utilizing every obstacle. It is the best-designed street course l've seen in Europe, and would rival most U.S. parks. I spent most of the time on the side of the course with bigger (read: vert) stuff, feeling very squirrelly for some reason. About twenty minutes into skating, just as I was losing the shaky feeling. I did an impossible up and over a bank-to-deck transfer. I landed it, but started leaning too far to the edge of the box. I decided to drop off instead of bailing even though I was turned a little sideways. It would have worked out fine, but I forgot that the floor was very slippery. Instead of landing on the ground and adjusting my angle, my board slid out unexpectedly. I could feel my front foot folding as I fell to my side and the awful truth set in: I had sprained my other ankle. When it pours, it floods.\n\nMy right foot is more prone to sprains, since I have sprained it much worse and more times than my left. Right away I could tell that it wasn't too bad. I probably could have kept skating, but I felt like I had done everything I wanted to on the street course and didn't want to risk making it worse. I spent another street demo finale in the bus with ice on my ankle, trying to get motivated to skate vert.\n\nI went up to the ramp with both ankles taped up and started warming up with Bucky, Jason, Mat, Thorne, and a few locals. We were all having trouble with the ramp because it was deceiving\u2014it had big transitions, a good surface, and everything you'd expect from a good vert ramp... except enough vert. Skating a 13-foot ramp with less than two feet of vert is similar to skating a miniramp because you hang up on every air, and every trick requires a huge ollie. We were bailing left and right on very basic tricks because of the lack of vert. The crowd was unusually quiet during the street demo and their disposition didn't improve with our vert struggle. Bucky and I got the loudest cheer with a short doubles routine. We then moved the crowd away from one side to try a vert-to-miniramp transfer that was about twelve feet across. I did it in a few tries because it was frontside for me, which is much easier to see the landing. Ellis tried it a few times (backside), but couldn't get the right take-off angle. Bucky and Mat made it a few tries later, officially marking the end of our European Skatepark Tour.\n\nThe street guys skated another two hours for their own pleasure. This crowd wasn't overwhelming, so it was the first time on this year's tour that I came out for an autograph session. We finally dragged Berra from the street course and went back to the hotel. Most of the guys fabricated a blackjack table in one of the hotel's conference rooms, but I'd had enough on the bus and called it a night.\n\n## MAY 2, 2001  \n _Frankfurt, Germany._\n\nThe plan for our one day off in Frankfurt was for go-karts. This place was serious, with electronic lap timing and thirty minute rallies. I was just behind Mat, Ellis, and Thorne for most of the race. Thorne took the litle in the end, but Ellis got the most respect for spinning out twice and still managing to almost win. I finished fourth, less than a second behind Mat \"The Condor\" Hoffman.\n\nThis was by far the most successful outing of our Gigantic Skatepark project and it barely came together. Thanks to the powers that be for finally approving our global vision for the tour and to the crew that sacrificed skin, sleep, and family for coming along. It was a blast, and it has only just begun for this year. Next, we go to Texas on May 21 to start the West Coast leg of the Gigantic Skatepark Tour.\n\n# [KEEGAN WESLEY ANSON  \nHAWK](008-toc.html#c35a)\n\n## JULY 18, 2001  \n _Scripp's Memorial Hospital: La Jolla, California_\n\nOur skatepark tour happened earlier this year because Erin was due with our second child (my third). She was only four days overdue, but I was on high alert because her previous labor was only four hours from start to finish. The time came, but getting her to leave the house might have been more labor for me than what she was about to go through. Her water had already broke and she wandered around the house tidying up and collecting various \"necessities\" for the hospital. We were way too clich\u00e9, speeding down the freeway in the midnight hour with her breathing through contractions. Some dude in a slick car thought I was trying to race him and made every effort to weave around slower traffic for his ultimate victory. If he only knew what was happening in his \"opponent's\" car...\n\nWe got to the hospital and Keegan was born less than an hour later. No anesthesia, just lots of humming, groaning, and tears. I now have three sons... and some extended time at home. I've caught up on sleep, so I'm ready.\n\n**\"if he only knew what was happening, in his 'opponents' car\"**\n\n# MORE AWARDS\n\n## AUGUST 12, 2001  \n _Teen Choice Awards: Los Angeles, California._\n\nThis is the third year in a row I have been invited to attend the Fox Teen Choice Awards, but the it's first time I was not on tour during the date of the event. I won the Choice Extreme Athlete award last year, but never got the chance to see what the show was about. They wanted me to present the award for Choice Male Action Actor, in addition to accepting my award for this year's Choice Extreme Athlete.\n\nA few days before the show I was faxed a copy of the script they wanted me to read, and I actually rejected it. They wanted me to say that summer action movies were \"as much fun as a McTwist in a halfpipe.\" I thought it was cheesy, so they rewrote it and ended up giving me minimal lines. It's fun to think that I could refuse to say something that people were paid exorbitant money to write. The big buzz was that Ben Affleck won the award, and he was emerging from rehab to accept it in person. They'd stamped TOP SECRET across my script like it was a CIA document.\n\nAfter getting through the red carpet mayhem at the awards, I went backstage. I always like to see who I can snag pictures with behind the scenes, and I've been trying to get Britney just because she's always so aloof. She is never in the greenrooms or backstage, and rarely even in the audience. When she is around, she's flanked by at least four huge men who form an intimidation barrier. They don't want anyone getting near (or even looking at) the teenage idol. Two guys from *NSync walked by, and I assumed that they would be way too annoyed\/busy\/pompous to pose for a photo, but I asked anyway. Surprisingly, they were really stoked and even got one for their own collection. One of the guys supposedly dates Britney, so I guess that's the closest I'll get for now.\n\nErika Christensen, the girl from _Traffic_ , and I were led to the stage, where I was to accept my award and we were to announce the winner. **I WAS TOLD TO KEEP IT SHORT, SO I DID. WE THEN PRESENTED BEN WITH HIS COVETED SURFBOARD TROPHY. HE BARELY ACKNOWLEDGED US, GAVE A SPEECH, AND WALKED OFFSTAGE.**\n\nI found my seat after getting a glimpse of J-Lo preparing to go on. There were two people doing her makeup and another primping her dress as they called her to the stage. It's amazing that they didn't follow her out just in case something happened to her hair while she walked to the podium.\n\nThe rest of the show was pretty straightforward, with a few musical acts and the usual set of winners. It was good to see David Spade again. I haven't talked to him since we worked together on _Police Academy 4_. He was an avid skater in the eighties, and he still keeps up with what's happening in our world of four wheels.\n\n# 2001 SUMMER X GAMES\n\n## AUGUST 16, 2001  \n _First Union Center: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania._\n\nI arrived late last night and spent every waking moment trying to hook up my PS2 to the hotel DSL line. I've been testing THPS3 online with the Neversoft crew almost every night lately because the game is due very soon. (The online part of THPS3 is insane, by the way.) All of my efforts were in vain\u2014I think I forgot one adapter.\n\nI met up with many of the other vert skaters in front of athlete registration at 8 A.M. to resolve a brewing conflict. There was a clause in the standard ESPN release form, which we all sign every year, that now gives them the right to use footage of us in an upcoming IMAX feature film about the 2001 X Games. Many of the skaters (including me) considered this unfair and thought that there should be separate deals or contracts for being included in a movie. **A FEW SKATERS WHO HAVE AGENTS MANAGED TO WORK SOMETHING OUT BEFOREHAND SO THEY'D GET PAID SEPARATELY, BUT MOST WERE LEFT TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES.** Max Dufor and Andy Macdonald seized the issue and formed the United Professional Skateboarders Association (UPSA) in hopes of finally getting some unity among the pros so they can bargain as a unit when it comes to some of the longstanding conflicts between the skaters and competition organizers. There was basically a forty-minute standoff involving a lawyer representing UPSA and various X Games representatives. The efforts were finally successful, and they removed the clause regarding the IMAX film from each skater's release form. This means that if the filmmakers want to use someone's performance from the event, they would have to cut a separate deal with that skater. It was a milestone in our sport to have a group of pros stand together and actually provoke change.\n\nLater, I watched the rest of practice from our commentators \"perch.\" then headed over to Philadelphia City Hall for a presentation. The mayor wanted to bestow onto me Philly's version of the key to the city: a liberty bell and a proclamation that August 17, 2001, would be commemorated as Tony Hawk Day in the city of Philadelphia. The driving force behind this event was to help the politicians understand the need for a public skate park in their city. They've banned skating altogether at Love Park, but still haven't provided a place for kids to go. There is a small group\u2014the Franklin's Paine Skatepark Fund\u2014that has been lobbying city officials for some time, and they felt like this was the perfect opportunity to be heard. I was happy to oblige, but I really didn't expect a day to be named after me in the process. I also made a donation through my recently formed foundation in hopes of getting something going. The mayor was very cool, entering and exiting the room on a motorized scooter (he's recovering from a knee surgery).\n\n## AUGUST 18, 2001\n\nI woke up and went straight to a Hot Bites autograph session. I spent the next two hours at the Verizon Wireless store trying to resolve cellular problems. If it's not the phone, then it's the service that causes me eternal grief. They ended up replacing my phone after all that time, but I left to find that the roaming service was not set up properly. I couldn't stand to sit in the dungeon-esque service room any longer, so I gave up and decided to survive the week sans Motorola.\n\nThe first controversy for the skate events reared its ugly head when Renton Millar got injured and was unable to compete in the finals. World Cup (the skate event organizer) have allowed the next qualifier in previous contests to replace the injured skater so that they'll have a ten-man final, but set a precedent earlier this year by only allowing those who qualified. This was to insure that the absent skater still gets tenth place and is considered a finalist. Neal Hendrix (the eleventh-place qualifier) offered to take his eleventh-place prize money if he would be allowed to skate in the finals, regardless of whether his placing improved at the end. They decided to stick to the rule book for the sake of consistency. The rules have been bent in the past and they did not want any more complaints of favoritism or selective enforcement. Nine skaters in the finals\u2014case closed.\n\nThe vert finals got off to a slow start, with almost everyone bailing on his first two runs. The third runs were a different story\u2014highlights include Tas Pappas's incredible five-trick combo of kickflip Indy \/ varial kickflip Indy \/ varial kickflip Indy 360 \/ 720 \/ frontside 540. The rest of his run was not as technical, but solid. He apparently didn't like his score and gave an interview of three words to Jason Ellis: \"The judging sucks.\" Andy Mac had a jam-packed run, pulling off a varial five, a barrage of nollie heelflips, and a nollie frontside five. I felt the scoring was especially low for him, because every wall of his run was a difficult trick. Bucky made an all-time run, only falling on a switch five at the end. Bob Burn-quist was the last skater and he did what only Bob can do\u2014possibly the best vert run ever, including a switch kickflip Indy, switch kickflip Indy to fakie (grabbing dark side by accident and flopping it over), switch hurricane, half-Cab to frontside blunt, and a blunt kickflip to fakie as a cherry on top, I was so fired up that my headset fell off while I was jumping around and I had to retrieve it just to yell into the microphone. \"Blunt kickflip to fakie! Blunt kickflip to fakie!\" It was the run of a lifetime. Even if Tas had scored higher, I think he would still have ended up in third just behind Bucky and Bob.\n\n**\"the mayor was very cool, entering and exiting the room on a motorized scooter\"**\n\n## AUGUST 19, 2001\n\nAndy and I always try to skate together for at least a couple of days to work out lines for the doubles event. But then we always decide to change it the day of the event because the ramp might be different or because we figure out something that works better. The hardest thing is distinguishing the lines from each other, and not forgetting where to be on what wall. **ONE SLIGHT MISTAKE COULD MEAN A NASTY COLLISION, AND WE'VE HAD OUR SHARE. WE WORKED OUT OUR LINES FOR TWO HOURS AND SEEMED TO GET THEM DIALED.**\n\nJust as we were to get started, another controversy came up to bite World Cup. Bob had chosen Jen (his girlfriend) as his partner, but the rulebook (dating back to 1998) states that both competitors must be qualified for the X Games. Everyone thought it was cool that they were going to skate together, but there were grumblings that some skaters would have picked other partners knowing that they could choose someone outside the list of prequalified skaters. For the sake of consistency, World Cup stuck to their guidelines and did not allow them to skate in the event. They were allowed a \"demo run\" before the contest got started, but were not scored. It should be made clear that these are not issues with ESPN, but with the appointed event organizers. ESPN will honor what the World Cup panel decides\u2014they have no advantage either way. I hoped they would allow Bob and Jen to skate officially, for the sake of getting some girls in the mix, but I understood the precedent.\n\n**\"we had an idea to try some sort of transfer where I did a 900 over Andy if things were looking good at the end\"**\n\nEverything went well for Andy and me\u2014we made both runs exactly as planned. We had an idea to try some sort of transfer where I did a 900 over Andy if things were looking good at the end. I spun a few just before our last run, trying to get a feel for it. Our last run was exactly what we wanted it to be, so we paused on the deck and decided to go for it. I was pretty winded, but I thought I could muster up the energy for one last trick. I was doomed from my first setup air because I landed too low, so I tried to force it. My spin didn't make up for the lack of height, but I tried to put it on the wall anyway. I ended up shooting out and falling straight on my hip, but I was happy to get that close. Other highlights were Chris Gentry and Mike Crum making up a line during practice and pulling the whole thing when it counted, and Bucky and Matt Dove skating as the \"Baltimorons\" with their helmets on backward.\n\n## AUGUST 20, 2001\n\nAgain, went straight from bed to the venue for the \"park\" event (formerly known as street). By the time it got started, I realized that my commentating gig during this event was going to cut into my practice for best trick (which I decided to enter just before heading to Philly), so I only helped announce the first runs.\n\nI only had two tricks planned for best trick\u2014if I could make them both early on, then I was going to try some kickflip fives. I wanted to do a 360 ollie to boardslide (which I recently learned) and a varial heelflip lien 360 (which I've only done twice) before trying anything else. The format was supposed to be a twenty-minute jam, but we convinced them to extend it to thirty (and hoped to get more if something was going down). I pulled the first trick after a few tries, just after Bob landed a fakie to fakie heelflip Indy 540. Tas tried a few 900s, but was nearly hanging up on the coping every time. Matt Dove was wearing a shirt that read EXTREME $ PROFIT NETWORK (for ESPN). He evidently was having a bad experience in Philly with regard to ESPN and wanted to make a statement about small prize money and better treatment for the skaters. Anyway, Matt spent the entire jam trying Indy varial 720s. My second trick was giving me more trouble than I had expected, and I tried it up past the thirty-minute mark. Dave Duncan, old-school skateboarder\/skateboard judge\/announcer\/skatepark designer and builder, announced that we could have a few more minutes, and I ended up making one. **BOB ALSO PULLED A SWITCH KICKFLIP INDY 360, WHERE HE CAUGHT IT HALFWAY AND ROLLED IT ONTO HIS FEET IN TRUE BOB FASHION. IT WAS THE BEST TRICK BY FAR.** I started trying something that I had just thought of in practice (a frontside fakie to fakie varial five), but it seemed like it was going to be too much effort and there was not enough time to see it to completion. I distinctly heard Duncan count down the event and thank all of the pros for giving it their all. I decided to try a 900 to appease the forty thousand-plus spectators, many of whom expected to see me do it. I knew the contest was officially over, and didn't want to try to re-create the 1999 event, anyway. I was happy just to try it for the audience. Soon after, Matt landed his trick and I assumed it didn't count. I tried to stick a 900 and came down _hard_ on the same hip I'd injured the day before. It hurt a lot. I got up and my leg was stinging from my hip down, but I had enough to give it another try. I refused to fall again the same way, because it would have definitely taken me out of commission. I spun faster than ever and nailed a good one to an appreciative audience. In my rejoicing, I noticed a drama start to unfold on the flat bottom.\n\nMatt Dove had been informed that his trick did not count within the time limit, and that Bob was going to be awarded first place. There was some confusion as to whether the time was extended up until the end, but I definitely heard them count it down beforehand. Matt was under the impression that because he'd worn the anti-ESPN shirt and had chosen to speak his opinion, he was being singled out and would be excluded from the programming of the event. He went and stood on the winners' podium, claiming that he should have won and that not allowing his trick to count was another example of all the favoritism and improper tactics employed at these events. What he was failing to realize was that the issue was not with ESPN, but (again) with World Cup sticking to their rules. After 1999, they decided that tricks landed after the official time limit expired were not to be counted. I never expected them to count my 900 that year, but the skaters unanimously decided to give it to me. Matt was claiming that he would have never kept trying it if he knew the time was up. **I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT HE ENJOYED PUSHING THE LIMITS AND WANTED TO LAND ONE FOR HIMSELF\u2014THE VERY REASON MOST OF US CHOSE SKATING IN THE FIRST PLACE.** In fact, most of us wanted Matt to make it during the time frame and take the win properly. I went down and tried to explain to him that although he had some valid points\u2014about the need for bigger prize money and more equitable treatment for the athletes\u2014they had nothing to do with this particular issue. He then told me that if certain \"other\" skaters had landed a trick after time, it would definitely count because they are the bigger names and the ones ESPN likes to cover (meaning Bob, Bucky, and me). They would bend the rules if we played nice, so to speak. I told him that they certainly didn't do Bob any favors by prohibiting Jen and him from skating doubles, and I saw a glimmer of reasoning in his face, but not for long. He was convinced that ESPN would \"lose\" the footage of him landing the trick just to sweep it under the rug. I knew this wouldn't be the case\u2014he had one of the best tricks and they would definitely want to show it on the air (even if it didn't count).\n\n**\"i got up and my leg was stinging from my hip down, but I had enough to give it another try\"**\n\nSuddenly there were cameras surrounding our argument, and I was feeling like he wanted to make an example out of me when in reality I simply wanted to point out that this was a separate issue from the one he was initially protesting. World Cup decides the winner, not ESPN. It was very sad to see such a great display of skating soured by misguided frustration. Surprisingly, World Cup decided to give him the medal. Ironically, this was the first time that World Cup bent their rules during the entire X Games\u2014exactly what Matt was supposedly protesting\u2014perhaps because he wouldn't leave the winner's podium. This was my final comment on this situation: I pulled a varial 720 before I made the 900 in the 1999 X Games Best Trick competition. The judges considered a 900 the \"best trick\" out of the two. If Matt's Indy varial 720 at this year's contest counted after the jam had ended, then why wouldn't my 900, which I made just after Matt made his 720, also count?\n\nThe saddest part of the whole situation is that Matt has some valid points about prize money and treatment of the athletes, and I totally agree with him on those. But this was not the forum for those complaints. I don't think it was an effective protest and actually made the programming worse for what could have been a great event to see on television. The fans missed out in the end.\n\n# POST 9\/11\n\n## SEPTEMBER 15, 2001  \n _Shaqtacular: Los Angeles, California._\n\nLess than a week after the day of terror, tragedy, and unforgivable acts of evil, Shaquille O'Neal had the courage to carry on his annual fund-raiser: Shaqtacular, a benefit for AEFK (Athletes and Entertainers for Kids). I had wondered if it would still be held, privately hoping all along that it would. Terrorism cannot stop us from living our lives, and it must not stop us from helping our children. I was invited early on in the planning of this event and I refused to cancel my participation because of looming fears of more attacks. I had no idea what to expect, but I imagined the mood would be somber.\n\nJohn, my nephew and trusty celebrity-event companion, joined me for the drive to Universal City-Walk and managed to tolerate my sudden addiction to AM news radio (to hear updates on the terrorist probe). We arrived on time, got shuffled through a random kitchen, and ended up in a check-in room. I didn't recognize anybody there, but John could pick out at least half of the guests as television personalities. I don't get to watch too much network TV these days, so I'm out of the loop. As we emerged into the \"playfield,\" I recognized a few guests: Damon Wayans, David Arquette, and Tom Arnold. I was assigned to a team of four \"athletes\" consisting of Malik from the latest version of _The Real World_ , and a girl and a guy, both of whom appeared to be actors. We were so rushed into the opening ceremonies that we didn't have time for formal introductions.\n\nThe concept of this fund-raiser is to have eight teams of four participate in fabricated activities that combine traditional sports and random obstacles. There were points given for making it around each obstacle and for number of goals scored. Shaq was the captain for the Vons\/Coca-Cola team, and it was obvious that he was determined to take his team to victory (mostly by cheating and disrupting other teams' performances). Money is raised by charging huge ticket prices a thousand dollars each) for spectators to get close to the celebrities and witness their antics. There were also food kiosks and autograph booths if the paying public got bored of the pseudo-sporting events.\n\nThe event began with short speeches by the organizers and major contributors, and then the big guy grabbed the microphone. He called for a moment of silence to remember the victims. I realized that up until that point, the event had been relatively joyful and not the awkward grief-stricken gathering that I had envisioned. With that, he thanked everyone for their participation and introduced Jessica Simpson, who belted out a heartfelt rendition of the national anthem. Her tight sweatpants were on the verge of falling down toward the end of her performance, forcing her to keep pulling them up with one hand. I can guarantee that almost every guy there was watching her underwear as it made a brief cameo onstage. She finished without (major) incident, and the guests were called onto the court\/stage\/field to participate in a TaeBo warmup session led by Billy Blanks, the self-proclaimed master of the latest exercise craze. He led the group as if we were all regulars in his class, and I now believe that he was on a mission to humiliate as many celebrities as possible. I kept up as best I could, and even broke out in a sweat near the end. Whatever the intention, we were warmed up by default.\n\n**THE \"GAMES\" BEGAN WITH THE SOCCER RELAY AND QUICKLY MOVED TO OTHER WACKY EVENTS, SUCH AS THE FOOTBALL FRENZY AND THE BASKETBALL BATTLE.**\n\nAfter the terrorist attacks back east, we need events like Shaq's to help each other and to distract ourselves from worrying too much. I will never stop asking why these recent tragic events took place, but getting out and returning to some sense of normalcy made me realize that life must go on and we should embrace it, now more than ever.\n\n## NOVEMBER 6, 2001\n\nI was originally flying to New York City on November 7, but couldn't pass up the offer to hitch a ride on a private jet with Bobby Kotick\u2014Activision's CEO. It is an incredible experience\u2014no check-in, no gates. no disgruntled employees, and no risk of terrorist activities (OK, very little). The plane picked me up at the Carlsbad airport, where I literally drove onto the runway to meet it. A crew of three (pilot, copilot, and Citation representative) greeted me, we got on, and that was it for the boarding process. The pilot looked back from the cockpit, asked if we were ready, and we were off to Van Nuys to pick up Bobby. I feel eternally spoiled for air travel from this point on\u2014it feels more like carpooling than mass transit. After a half-hour \"layover\" in Van Nuys, Bobby and his father-in-law joined us and we were off to the Big Apple. On the way, I learned that the Citation jet we were riding in is the fastest private jet available\u2014the pilot said he's made it from Los Angeles to New York in less than four hours with good tailwinds. It's not the roomiest\u2014there were only eight seats\u2014but they were plush. **IT WAS LIKE A COZY LIVING ROOM. THERE WAS A BOOMING AUDIO\u2014VIDEO SYSTEM AND CATERED FOOD. I FEEL LIKE I WAS OFFERED A PEEK INTO A DOORWAY OF EXTRAVAGANCE THAT I DON'T WANT TO CLOSE.**\n\n## NOVEMBER 7, 2001  \n _New York City_\n\nThis was the day I was originally supposed to fly in, so I didn't have too many commitments. I vowed to visit Ground Zero at some point in the day, so I had lunch with Renee (my book editor) and made my way toward Soho to visit Sarah Hall Productions and get closer to the damage. It was starting to get dark as I walked toward the financial district and The Smell began to hit me. It is a combination of dust, must, ash, and the unspeakable. I passed dozens of people in surgical and gas masks and realized that they have been working in this environment every day. I finally came to numerous barricades and fences surrounding the area of the former Twin Towers. The crews have done an incredible job of containing the damage of the two collapsed 110-story buildings and blocking the general public from all of the mayhem. I saw the remnants of a few buildings\u2014barely standing with seven stories of destroyed furniture, paperwork, and walls piled in between. The television coverage does it no justice\u2014it is a massive, chaotic, dangerous graveyard that looks impossible to clean or make any sense of.\n\n**TO A VISITOR, NEW YORKERS SEEMED TO BE BACK IN TERMS OF OPTIMISM AND WORK ROUTINES.** Staying uptown, you'd never know that anything happened. Until, of course, you pass a fire station and see the hordes of flowers, messages, and prayers that adorn their entrances and honor their fallen brothers. CNN can't provide the emotional impact of being there and seeing it for yourself. I tried to sort through the many feelings that I had encountered on my pilgrimage, but never came to any conclusions.\n\n**\"I tried to sort through the many feelings that I had encountered on my pilgrimage, but never came to any conclusions\"**\n\n## NOVEMBER 9, 2001  \n _New York City to Houston, Texas_\n\nWoke up early to make a morning meeting with ESPN to discuss the Gigantic Skatepark Tour for summer 2002. If we do it, it will probably be the last one\u2014I don't want it to become stagnant and too formulaic. I really want to take it beyond the mainland United States, to places like Hawaii or Alaska, or even international locations like Australia or Brazil. This, of course, will be determined by the budget we are allowed and will be decided at a much later date. At least I got to plant the seed.\n\n# HAWK STORE #2\n\n## DECEMBER 8, 2001  \n _Hawk Store Grand Opening: Salt Lake City, Utah_\n\nAfter much debate, I finally convinced Erin to take a trip with me\u2014she has refused to fly since September 11, but this short trip was the perfect reintroduction to air travel. I scrambled to make overnight arrangements for Spencer, and Aunt Lolo, thankfully, came to the rescue. We (Erin, Keegan, my sister Pat, and Jared) landed in Salt Lake City just before 2 P.M. It seems that they are quickly trying to give the city a facelift in time for the highly anticipated 2002 Winter Olympics crowds. The Gateway Shopping Center is further proof of this update\u2014a new, sophisticated mall with plenty of shops to please the younger crowd (Bebe, Abercrombie & Fitch, J. Crew, Barnes & Noble, California Pizza Kitchen, Ruby's, and a Mega-Plex Theatre), Included in all of this is the second Hawk Skate store, located right next to a Boardrider's Club. The store had already been open for a while, but they wanted to have it running smoothly before doing an \"official\" opening.\n\n**THE STORE HAD A RAFFLE WITH THREE HUNDRED WINNERS SO THAT THE CROWD WOULDN'T GET OUT OF HAND AS IT DID DURING THE NEW JERSEY OPENING.** I made it through the line in about two hours, and signed for another hundred or so people who just showed up (nonwinners). Erin and Keegan braved the ferocious winter cold (OK, so we're from Southern California) and managed to do some much-needed Christmas shopping while I sat and signed away. Keegan experienced his first flight and first encounter with snow in the same day.\n\n## DECEMBER 9, 2001\n\nOur original plan was to hit a local skatepark before our flight home, but the weather had covered all the outdoor parks in snow and the indoor park sounded too chilly. Jared and I took up a snowboarding offer and headed to Park City. It was the best conditions they've had in years. I rode until my legs were too wobbly, managing to find some short, untracked powder runs near the top. It was the best day of riding I've had in a long time, and it required the least amount of preparation.\n\nWe headed down the mountain in time to meet Erin and Keegan, check out of the hotel, get some food, and make our flight home. The one crowd we didn't encounter during this trip was the one we expected most\u2014at the security checkpoint. The airport looked to be running like it did before September 11 (which may not be a good thing) but we were early to the gate for a change. Our short flight seemed much longer, as Keegan was not happy most of the way unless one of us was walking the aisle while holding him. The journey from the front of the plane to the rear and back again gets old fast.\n\n# Acknowledgments\n\nThanks to Erin, Riley, Spencer, and Keegan; Morn and Eric; Lenore, Dick, Greg, and John; Pat, Alan, Hagen, and Emily; Steve, Pamm, Will, and Cameron. All at THI, SHP, WMA, Slam, Blitz, 900, Hawk, Quik, Atlas, Activision, Neversoft, BSP, Rebel Waltz, TWS, Big Brother, Slap, ESPN, Redline, Heinz, TSG, Arnette, Mainframe, Nixon, Apple, and all my friends that will hopefully forgive me for not listing them.\n\n**ALSO BY TONY HAWK**\n\nTONY HAWK: PROFESSIONAL SKATEBOARDER  \nHAWK: OCCUPATION: SKATEBOARDER\n\n# More titles from\n\n**HAWK  \n _Occupation: Skateboarder_**\n\nISBN 0-06-095831-6 (paperback)\n\nIn his bestselling adult autobiography, Tony Hawk, a.k.a \"The Birdman,\" shares the events that have influenced his life, skateboarding's history, and his rise to becoming a skateboarding legend. His story is a touching tale of perseverance and determination. Despite the ups and downs in his career, his dedication has made him a skateboarding god and a hero to Generation X.\n\n**\"All the raw tales about bodily functions, smashing junk cars and setting oneself on fire that you might expect from a veteran skateboarder.\"** \u2014 _Wall Street Journal_\n\n**TONY HAWK  \n _Professional Skateboarder_**\n\nISBN 0-06-009689-6 (paperback)\n\nTony Hawk has rewritten his autobiography with his younger fans in mind. A gifted, hyper, supercompetitive \"demon\" child who found peace while on a skateboard, Tony was teased by classmates and harassed by his competitors. Instead of looking to violence or finding comfort in drugs, he practiced even more. Tony's story offers young adults inspiration to stand up for what they believe in, and illustrates that sometimes the \"losers\" can finish first.\n\n**\"An inside look at the molding of a great role model\u2014there's so much more than just the 900!\"**\n\n\u2014Bob Burnquist, world champion skater\n\n  **Regan Books** Available wherever books are sold, or call 1-800-331-3761 to order.\n\n# Copyright\n\nAll photographs are courtesy of Tony Hawk unless otherwise credited. Photographs pages 6-7, 88-89, 104, and 128 \u00a9 Affif. Photographs pages 15 [top], 26-27, 42, 47, 58-59, 63, 74-75, 76, 80, 103, and 108 \u00a9 Jeff Taylor. Photograph page 21 \u00a9 Miki Vuckovich. Photographs pages 36-37, 62, 81, and 86 \u00a9 J. Grant Brittain. Photograph page 79 \u00a9 Dan Bourqui. Photographs pages 140 [top], 149, 152-153, 154 \u00a9 EXPN.\n\nBETWEEN BOARDSLIDES AND BURNOUT. Copyright \u00a9 2002 by Tony Hawk.\n\nAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.\n\nEPub Edition \u00a9 2002 ISBN: 978-0-06-200422-2\n\nFIRST EDITION\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nHawk, Tony.  \nBetween boardslides and burnout: my notes from the road\/by Tony Hawk.\u20131st ed.  \np.cm.  \nISBN 0-06-008631-9  \n1. Hawk, Tony\u2013Journeys. 2. Skateboarders\u2013United States\u2013Biography. I. Title.\n\nGV859.813.H39 A29 2002  \n796.21\u2032092\u2013dc21  \n[B]\n\n2002068105\n\n04 0 5 06 QW 10 9 8 7 6 5 4\n\n# About the Publisher\n\n**Australia**  \nHarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.  \n25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)  \nPymble, NSW 2073, Australia  \nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au\n\n**Canada**  \nHarperCollins Canada  \n2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor  \nToronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada  \nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.ca\n\n**New Zealand**  \nHarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited  \nP.O. Box 1 Auckland,  \nNew Zealand  \nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz\n\n**United Kingdom**  \nHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  \n77-85 Fulham Palace Road  \nLondon, W6 8JB, UK  \nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk\n\n**United States**  \nHarperCollins Publishers Inc.  \n10 East 53rd Street  \nNew York, NY 10022  \nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n# ALSO BY ROBERT A. WILSON\n\nA BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GREGORY CORSO\n\n1966\n\nA BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DENISE LEVERTOV\n\n1972\n\nGERTRUDE STEIN: A BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n1974\n\n# Modern Book Collecting\n\n# A Basic Guide to All Aspects of Book Collecting-What to Collect, Who to Buy From, Auctions, Bibliographies, Care, Fakes and Forgeries, Investments, Donations, Definitions, and More\n\n# Robert A. Wilson\n\n# Nicholas A. Basbanes\nCopyright \u00a9 2010 by Robert A. Wilson\n\nAll Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.\n\nSkyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fundraising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.\n\nwww.skyhorsepublishing.com\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.\n\n9781602399853\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\nTo NORRIS M. E R B,\n\nwho many years ago, on a hot summer's day,   \nhad the courtesy and patience to explain   \nto a curious thirteen-year-old boy   \njust what a first edition was,   \nthereby planting a seed,   \none of the fruits of which   \nis this book\n\n# Table of Contents\n\nALSO BY ROBERT A. WILSON  \nTitle Page  \nCopyright Page  \nDedication  \nINTRODUCTION  \nFOREWORD  \nPREFACE  \nCHAPTER ONE \\- WHAT TO COLLECT  \nCHAPTER TWO \\- HOW TO BUILD AN AUTHOR COLLECTION  \nCHAPTER THREE \\- STARTING WITH AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR  \nCHAPTER FOUR \\- IT'S NEVER TOO LATE  \nCHAPTER FIVE \\- DEALERS AND COLLECTORS  \nCHAPTER SIX \\- BUYING AT AUCTION  \nCHAPTER SEVEN \\- OTHER SOURCES  \nCHAPTER EIGHT \\- COLLECTOR'S CONDITION  \nCHAPTER NINE \\- HOW TO IDENTIFY FIRST EDITIONS  \nCHAPTER TEN \\- BIBLIOGRAPHIES  \nCHAPTER ELEVEN \\- A BOOK PRODUCTION  \nCHAPTER TWELVE \\- THE CARE AND PROTECTION OF YOUR COLLECTION  \nCHAPTER THIRTEEN \\- FAKES, FORGERIES, AND FACSIMILES  \nCHAPTER FOURTEEN \\- INVESTMENT  \nCHAPTER FIFTEEN \\- DONATING OR SELLING YOUR COLLECTION TO AN INSTITUTION  \nCHAPTER SIXTEEN \\- DEFINITION OF TERMS  \nAPPENDIX ONE \\- LIST OF BOOK AUCTION FIRMS HANDLING BOOKS OF INTEREST TO COLLECTORS  \nAPPENDIX TWO \\- SOURCES FOR MODERN FIRST EDITIONS  \nAPPENDIX THREE \\- CLUBS FOR BOOK COLLECTORS  \nAPPENDIX FOUR \\- THE FIFTY MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE PUBLISHED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II  \nAPPENDIX FIVE \\- RESOURCES FOR ANTIQUE BOOKS  \nINDEX  \nACKNOWLEDGMENTS  \nA NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR  \nA NOTE ON THE TYPE\n\n# INTRODUCTION\n\nThirty years is a pretty long time for a work of contemporary nonfiction to retain its edge as a work of continuing interest and relevance, especially when the subject is book collecting, for which changes in fashion are endemic to the pastime, and about which there is a bountiful bibliography. One of the many beauties of Robert Wilson's Modern Book Collecting, first published in 1980 and as fresh and perceptive today as it was back then, is that it makes no pretension to clairvoyance. Rather, it is precisely what it purports itself to be\u2014a learned guide \"on how to collect books in the modern world\"\u2014something it does in a most engaging and agreeable way.\n\nWhen I got my first copy of this book\u2014I think we can safely say now that time and widespread approbation have together proven it to be a classic\u2014I was just completing my first year as the literary editor of a good-sized newspaper in Massachusetts. It came to me several weeks prior to its official release, direct from the publisher, a review slip laid in. I still have both in my possession\u2014the first edition and the review slip\u2014though truth be known, I was not a collector then. I certainly was a bibliophile, however, with borderline symptoms of bibliomania, and a professional critic to boot\u2014and I had common sense enough to recognize worthwhile things when they came across my desk.\n\nThe short of all this is that I took to Wilson's book in a heartbeat, and I did so at a time when I knew next to nothing about issue points, variant copies, or the value antiquarian booksellers place on dust jackets, let alone the special alchemy involved in identifying first editions. I was simply someone who had a deep-seated passion for literature and reading, and someone whose work brought him in constant contact with notable authors. Toward the end of the decade, when I began work on what in 1995 would become A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, I drew on Wilson's sage advice as a useful resource for my own investigations, and appreciatively listed it in my bibliography.\n\nSeven years later, when I was invited to write a little guide of my own about the nuts and bolts of book collecting\u2014I knew I was onto a good thing, and called the effort Among the Gently Mad\u2014I appended a highly selective bibliography of books I thought especially worthwhile, and had this to say then about Modern Book Collecting: \"Now more than twenty years old, this is still the best primer for beginners who plan to buy what are generically known as modern first editions, a field that probably applies to most book collectors today. Respected as the owner of the legendary Phoenix Book Shop in New York, Robert Wilson brought a keen sense of the market to his examination, and his sections on author bibliographies and ways to determine if books are first editions make the work must-reading in its own right.\"\n\nI see no reason to change a word of that assessment in 2010\u2014other than to note that with this edition, Wilson's fine book is available once again to a new generation of readers\u2014and a new generation of collectors.\n\nNICHOLAS A. BASBANES\n\n# FOREWORD\n\nThis book on the collecting of modern firsts is a welcome addition to the large literature that exists on book collecting. Recent years have seen an enormous growth of interest in this field and the appearance, sometimes transitory, of many new dealers. I can think of few people, whether collectors, librarians, or booksellers, better qualified to write on modern book collecting than Robert Wilson.\n\nBob Wilson is a literate and bookish man: he reads books, he writes books, he publishes books, he collects books, and he sells books. He is unusual in that he has successfully managed a long career in the book trade, as proprietor of the Phoenix Book Shop in New York City, while also achieving success in the related fields of bibliography and bibliophily. His collections of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, and Edward Albee are superb and are well known throughout the collecting world\u2014his Stein collection, in particular, is probably the finest in private hands. The bibliography of Gertrude Stein, which he compiled on the basis of his own collection, is an authoritative one; in addition to Stein's, he has also compiled bibliographies of Gregory Corso and Denise Levertov.\n\nThese bibliographies, along with those of Michael McClure by Marshall Clements, Ed Dorn by David Streeter, and Charles Olson by George F. Butterick and Albert Glover, are in the series of \"Phoenix Bibliographies\" published by the Phoenix Book Shop. Small, handsomely printed editions of contemporary poetry are also published by Wilson under the Phoenix Book Shop imprint \"Oblong Octavo Series\" and include Marianne Moore, Howard Nemerov, W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, W. S. Merwin, Richard Wilbur, Allen Ginsberg, Louis Zukofsky, LeRoi Jones, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Galway Kinnell, James Merrill, and Elizabeth Bishop. In addition to the series of bibliography and poetry, the Phoenix Book Shop has also issued occasional publications, the latest of which is a memoir of Greenwich Village by Djuna Barnes. The catalogs that Bob Wilson issues from his book shop, with their recurrent and familiar typos and their home-drawn covers, have paraded the book shop's riches over the years with a characteristic flourish and liveliness.\n\nEach of the manuals, guides, and introductions to book collecting that have been published over the years has contributed something special to the accumulated knowledge about the subject. Some have done so better than others, but all have something to offer, and even those that are outdated present us with important historical perspective and a picture of what was fashionable among collectors of their time. What the good ones have in common is the expression of a new and fresh point of view about their material. Bob Wilson's Modern Book Collecting is in this tradition. The lessons learned from his own experiences and achievements, as well as the rules and principles of the past, are gathered together in this book on collecting the moderns. It is a personal and contemporary book, as the best of such books always have been, reflecting the knowledge, flair, integrity, and taste of a fine and individual bookman.\n\nJ. M. EDELSTEIN\n\nWashington, D.C.\n\n# PREFACE\n\nA great many people, over a great number of decades, have written essays, pamphlets, whole books even, to justify the collecting of books. This seems to me to be an unnecessary exercise. If you are predisposed to collect books, you don't need any ex-post-facto justification for having done so. And on the other hand, if you are not convinced before you start, the chances are that no argument is going to win you over. Therefore, this book will focus on how to collect books in the modern world, with particular reference to twentieth-century authors, not why. There are, of course, a great number of books already in existence on the subject of book collecting, some of them excellent. But most of them are rather general, and many seem to be addressed solely to the wealthy collector, going into great detail about the pleasures of collecting incunabula, first editions of Dickens in the original parts, and other such rarities, which, however desirable, are usually far beyond the reach of beginning collectors. This work will concern itself solely with the so-called moderns, a group of writers beginning with such figures as Henry James, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane close to a century ago.\n\nAs might be expected, this book would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of a number of people. To list them all would be impossible, but it is only polite to mention especially Charles Elliott, without whose insistence this book would never have been written. Others who contributed greatly, in various ways, include Jordan Davies, Marshall Clements, Herman Abromson, Kenneth Doubrava, William S. Wilson III, J. M. Edelstein, Timothy d'Arch Smith, George Bixby, Arthur Uphill, and Nicolas Barker.\n\n# CHAPTER ONE\n\n# WHAT TO COLLECT\n\nA true book collector knows whether he is one or not, just as the old saying has it about being in love. A genuine bibliophile is born rather than made. Thus \"what to collect\" is a question that answers itself. A collector collects what fascinates him. The fascination, in fact, comes before the collection, because most collectors do not begin to collect deliberately. The first step, inevitably, is buying books that reflect one's interest in a subject or in an author in order to read them. Whether or not they are rare or hard to get is secondary.\n\nMy own experience is a case in point. I have a complete collection of Gertrude Stein books; I began to buy them in the first place simply because I wanted to read them. Virtually none were in print. In fact, as recently as 1960, before the intense revival of interest in her work began, only one of her more than sixty titles was available. Anyone who wanted to read Gertrude Stein was forced to seek out copies wherever they could be found\u2014generally in the form of first editions, because only four or five of them had ever existed in any other form. I became deeply involved in the search, and the result is my Stein collection. Nowadays all but two or three of those books are in print again and can be purchased with relative ease. But no matter. In the course of things I had discovered my love of book collecting and the joy that the search can bring.\n\nOnce the line between reader and collector has been crossed, there is usually no turning back. There is no cure for the virus. But a distinction should still be made between the collector and the investor. If the acquisition of a rare, long-sought-after book gives you pleasure, a glow, a lift, just because you finally own it, with little or no thought that you may be able to sell it at a profit, then you are undoubtedly a collector and are liable to remain one for the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you buy a book and immediately think, \"Aha, I can double the price at X's,\" then you are primarily a dealer or an investor. It's really as simple and basic as that. (However, as both a collector and a dealer myself, I can testify that the conditions are not mutually exclusive.) In recent years a great many people have begun to collect books as an investment, spurred on, no doubt, by numerous articles in newspapers and magazines written in a breezy, offhand manner and emphasizing the profit motive to the exclusion of almost everything else. Of course, everyone likes to make a profit, and it is normal and human to be pleased when a book you bought a few years ago at publication price or a modest markup starts a price climb in dealers' catalogs or at auction. But the true collector would sooner die than part with his treasures. Many literally skip meals, wear threadbare clothing, are in arrears on the rent\u2014in short, do almost anything to hold on to their books. Once in a while, a collector gives way to the temptation of an enormous profit. In my experience, which stretches over nearly four decades, in every single case the seller regretted the move almost immediately and forever after.\n\nMost book collecting in this century is done in the field of literature, primarily novels, poetry, and plays. There are, of course, other popular fields such as the sciences, biography, criticism, travel, and so on. The literature of chess is particularly popular. The New York Public Library has one entire room devoted to a collection relating solely to tobacco and smoking (although, ironically, the library's rules forbid smoking even in that room). The Black Liberation movement of the sixties and seventies gave tremendous impetus to \"black\" collections, among white as well as black collectors. Your own taste will dictate what you collect. Some people follow trends and fashions, collecting what is most popular at any given time. But to my mind, these people are not true collectors, but faddists\u2014or, even worse, speculators.\n\nMany factors determine what you can collect, not the least of which is the question of cost. Very few collectors starting today can hope to form a collection of Elizabethan literature, much less of Shakespeare. Cost aside, most of the great pieces of Elizabethan literature have by now gravitated into institutions. For example, all known copies of the first edition of Romeo and Juliet are in institutional libraries, so no new Shakespeare collection could ever be complete. Even the great eighteenth-century books, while perhaps slightly more available, are for the most part four-figure items. Important early-nineteenth-century books, particularly those of the Romantic poets such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats, are now fetching prices beyond the reach of the average collector. This has had much to do with the rapid and seemingly endless growth in popularity of modern authors. The term \"modern\" is bound to be an imprecise one, the meaning of which depends in large measure on one's own age. To some it means only those authors who came into prominence during the twenties and their successors. However, because of the enormous interest in certain late-nineteenth-century American authors, many dealers and collectors start the modern period with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in poetry and Henry James and Stephen Crane in prose. This book uses \"modern\" in the latter sense.\n\nAnother factor, equally as important as price, is availability. If the books are all but unavailable, with only an occasional title surfacing here and there at long intervals, sometimes years apart (as with Shakespearean firsts), there will not be enough activity to keep the collection\u2014and your interest in it\u2014alive. On the other hand, if everything is too easily procurable, if you can expect to gather all the items in a comparatively short time, there will also be little or no excitement. As in almost all other hobbies or sports, the chase is at least half the fun.\n\nThe most widespread type of book collecting is undoubtedly the building of author collections, that is, the gathering of all the work of any given author. It can vary from a simple collection of first editions of each book published by the particular author to an intensive, in-depth collection composed of every edition of every book, as well as appearances by the author (with prefaces or the like) in books other than his own, original appearances in magazines and periodicals, recordings and photos of the author, books about him, and so on. There is almost no limit to the boundaries of an in-depth collection.\n\nApart from author collections, collections are often formed on the basis of preestablished guidelines such as those set by \"high spot\" or category lists. In 1929, for example, Merle Johnson published the first of his lists of important American books, calling it High Spots in American Literature; a great many collectors set out to get copies of all of the books listed, a vast undertaking, and for many years catalogs regularly noted when a book was a \"Merle Johnson high spot.\" Prior to that, in 1903, the august and prestigious Grolier Club, whose membership is composed exclusively of book collectors, published a catalog of an exhibit modestly entitled One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature. This list was made up of what could reasonably be called the one hundred finest examples of literature in the language, and even today, decades later, there are still collectors who try to assemble the books on this list. It is not uncommon to see a listing of one or more of these titles in dealers' catalogs referred to as \"one of the Grolier Hundred.\"\n\nA few years before his death, Cyril Connolly, an extremely avid collector of first editions as well as an author whose first editions were sought after by fellow collectors, wrote a book entitled The Modern Movement, in which he listed and discussed the one hundred books he believed were influential and crucial in the establishment of twentieth-century literature. He did not restrict his list solely to works in English, but also included important French works. This group immediately became known as the Connolly Hundred. At least one institution, the Humanities Research Library at the University of Texas, set out to gather a complete collection of the books named on this list, many of which it already possessed. With the enormous resources at its command, the library soon assembled the entire group and placed it on exhibit, accompanied by a superb illustrated catalog which has in itself become a collector's item, since a great many letters and inscriptions were published in it for the first time.\n\nStill another group of books favored by collectors are those that appear on the list of Pulitzer Prize winners, especially in fiction, drama, and poetry. A collection based on this list is far more difficult to complete than might be imagined. While certain famous books, well loved over many decades\u2014Gone with the Wind or The Bridge of San Luis Rey\u2014will appear regularly in catalogs, the Pulitzer Prize, in the inscrutable wisdom of the judges, has gone over and over again to authors who subsequently sank into deserved obscurity, along with their works. As a result, these books can be difficult to find, since most dealers, understandably, are loath to stock a book that may remain on the shelf for many years before a Pulitzer Prize collector happens along.\n\nTo my way of thinking, it is far more interesting, and considerably more fun, to determine your own area of endeavor, in spite of the satisfaction to be found in achieving a widely recognized standard. Your goal can be challenging despite not being widely recognized or even popular. It can be as simple\u2014but limitless\u2014as making your own list of high spots, especially for the post-World War II period, where very few such guidelines have as yet been published. Indeed, for collectors who are not drawn to the idea of an in-depth collection, this is an excellent field in which to work, since it is flexible enough to admit any item you like and does not force you to acquire anything in which you are not interested merely for the sake of that tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp \"completeness.\" A couple of years ago I prepared my own list of what I thought were the fifty most important and influential books published in the field of American literature after the end of World War II, a date that provided a clear-cut line of demarcation between the literature of the two halves of this century. (This list, along with comments on my reasons for including particular books, will be found as Appendix 4).\n\nA representative group of little magazines. From the author's collection.\n\nAnother collecting area that is wide and utterly fascinating is little magazines. There are two guidelines: Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich's The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography (Princeton, 1946), covering the period up through World War II, and the just published The Little Magazine in America by Elliott Anderson and Mary Kinzie (Pushcart Press, 1978), covering the postwar period up to the present day. This is also a field that is not overcrowded. I do not mean that such a collection is easy to form\u2014on the contrary. Many dealers will not take the trouble to stock magazines and periodicals with the exception of an occasional outstanding issue or a complete run of a classic, such as The Little Review, transition, The Dial, Broom, and Hound and Horn, all of them seminal periodicals of the between-the-wars period. \"Little\" magazines have been an important part of the literary scene for some time, and there was a burst of feverish activity in this area in the 1950s and '60s, coinciding with the \"beat\" movement. It was caused in part by the classic stimulus behind the existence of such magazines\u2014the inability of the young members of the avant-garde to get their work accepted for publication in the more established literary periodicals of the day. But in this period, a new factor entered the picture\u2014the widespread availability of duplicating equipment, particularly the mimeograph, which heretofore had not been generally available to the average citizen. It was now easy to rent or even purchase a relatively inexpensive model, and such a flood of little magazines appeared from these duplicating machines that one writer on the subject, Kirby Congdon, has termed it \"the mimeograph revolution.\" Naturally, very few of these productions were submitted for copyright; many were not for sale, but merely given away to contributors and their friends. Even those that were placed on sale had a relatively limited circulation and almost always a very short life span. Hence they are for the most part extremely scarce and generally very hard to locate. Most institutional libraries were not even aware of their existence until many were already defunct, and few universities were interested in acquiring them even if they were aware of them. While a large majority of these magazines published little work that rose above the mediocre and were often issued mainly to serve the editor's vanity, a surprising number of them contain considerable amounts of worthwhile and important material. In fact, many of the early writings of authors who are now well established\u2014for example, Olson, Duncan, Creeley, Kerouac, and Levertov\u2014first appeared in such magazines. The few people or institutions with the foresight to collect them as they were issued now have collections not only of great monetary value, but also of incalculable historical and research importance.\n\nPrivate presses have long been a favorite area for collecting, in part because of the great beauty of most examples of their output. Here again, your own taste can set the limits. It is possible to spend much money, time, and effort in trying simply to gather a copy of every book produced by one or more of the famous little presses. Equally interesting and challenging would be a collection of one or two examples from each of the great private presses. There have been many famous private presses in the past, from Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill and Benjamin Franklin's Passy presses in the eighteenth century to William Morris' magnificent Kelmscott Press of the late nineteenth. More attainable for today's average collector, however, are the products of some of the presses of the twentieth century. These include the Doves Press and the early Nonesuch Press (before it was absorbed commercially), both British, and in the United States, the Mosher Press, operated in Portland, Maine, by Thomas Mosher at the turn of the century.\n\nDuring the twenties, when most of the young British and American avant-garde writers flocked to Paris, a number of superb little presses sprang up to meet the need for avant-garde publication in the English language. Many of these books have for collectors the double advantage of being not only finely printed, but also rare and important first editions of some of the twentieth-century literary giants. This, of course, doubles the demand for them, since they are wanted both for press book collections and for author collections. Among these presses of special note, the Black Sun Press is perhaps the most famous of all. Operated by Harry and Caresse Crosby, in the brief span of four years it produced a staggering number of books that are now landmarks of twentieth-century literature. These include Hart Crane's The Bridge, as well as significant titles by Joyce, Pound, Lawrence, MacLeish, Boyle, and others, at a time when most of these names were very little known.\n\nOther presses of this period include the Black Manikin Press of Edward Titus, the Contact Press of Robert McAlmon, Harrison of Paris, Nancy Cunard's Hours Press, Plain Edition (run by Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein and publishing, naturally, only books by Stein), the Seizin Press, operated by Robert Graves and Laura Riding from a wide variety of locations, and William Bird's Three Mountains Press. Further details concerning these presses and their products can be had by consulting Hugh Ford's excellent study of them entitled Published in Paris. While all this was going on in and about Paris, Leonard and Virginia Woolf were operating their now famous Hogarth Press, with Virginia actually setting the type for many of the early titles.\n\nIn the United States there have been several fine presses whose work is actively collected. These include the Grabhorn, Cummington, and Banyan presses, and recently the Windhover Press, the Perishable Press (whose operator, Walter Hamady, even makes all his own paper, the size of the edition of any particular book being determined largely by the amount of paper resulting from the specific paper-making operation), and the Gehenna Press, founded by the artist Leonard Baskin.\n\nAnother fascinating and challenging scheme for a collection is first books of prominent authors. Most authors' first books are among their rarest, since very few books by untried, unknown authors are ever issued in large quantities, particularly in the case of poets, where the entire edition may be only a hundred copies or even fewer. The first books of Ezra Pound (A Lume Spento, Venice, 1908) and William Carlos Williams (Poems, Rutherford, 1909) were privately published in editions of only one hundred copies each. But of these very few have survived (in Pound's case twenty-six copies have been located; in Williams', approximately a dozen). Allen Ginsberg's first book (aside from loose mimeographed sheets of an advance portion of Howl), entitled Siesta at Xbalba, consisted of only sixty copies, mimeographed on board a Coast Guard cutter anchored off Icy Cape, Alaska. This little pamphlet is thus one of the rarest titles in twentieth-century poetry. While the three examples cited just now are among the most extreme rarities, a first-book collection can be assembled, although it is in all likelihood the most difficult of all modern book collecting ventures.\n\nOne could go on at great length enumerating other fields, but I shall not. Suffice it to name just a few more: books illustrated by famous artists (many such contain original lithographs or etchings); juveniles, or \"children's books,\" another field presenting extreme difficulties because of the heavy wear and tear most such books are subjected to by their young readers; books in series, such as the books issued by the Limited Editions Club, or signed limited books in a distinct series, as for example the Woburn Books in England in the 1920s or the distinguished Crown Octavo series issued by the House of Books, Ltd., in New York; and also collections of fine bindings. In this latter field the collection can legitimately extend far back into the sumptuous bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as more modern fine bindings.\n\nA group of \"first books\": THREE LIVES by Gertrude Stein (1909)\u2014this copy has one of only three known surviving dust jackets; LE FOU by Robert Creeley (1952); POEMS by Marianne Moore (1921); HEAVENLY CITY, EARTHLY CITY by Robert Duncan (1947) ; JUNKIE, written by William Burroughs under the pen name William Lee (1953); and JIM'S BOOK by James Merrill (1942). From the author's collection.\n\nThere is one final area of collecting which calls for more extended discussion. I refer to an extremely small group of authors\u2014the innovators or ground breakers, the ones whose work made such an impact that the entire course of English and American literature was altered ever after. A careful scrutiny of book prices over the past century will reveal one incontrovertible fact: that is, theirs are the works that stay in demand, whose prices continually rise, regardless of the fashions in collecting. The books of these writers may not necessarily be the finest flower of an era or an epoch: as Picasso once said, \"All creation is ugly the first time\u2014after that any fool can make it beautiful.\"\n\nIn the first half of the twentieth century there have been three such undisputed innovative giants whose works changed the entire course of literature in English. Such innovators are invariably regarded as crackpots or charlatans at first, sometimes for their entire lifetimes. People who buy their books at the time of publication are usually regarded with amused tolerance at best. Yet once the importance of their work is established\u2014and it sometimes takes several decades\u2014there is virtually no interruption to the rise in demand and prices for their books, especially the crucial early ones. The three giants of whom this was true are James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. Of the three, Joyce was the first to be recognized, although as recently as 1960 the price of the signed, deluxe edition of Ulysses (of which only one hundred copies were issued, not all of which have survived) still had not reached $1,000. But shortly thereafter, a rapid increase in demand for anything by Joyce began, and this chef d'oeuvre became one of the most sought after of all twentieth-century works. Even now there seems to be no slackening of demand. In fact, one collector I know of who has collected Joyce for many years began a few years ago to buy up all possible copies of Ulysses as an investment. His decision seems to have been an extremely astute one. The value of copies of this important book has risen at a far greater\u2014and steadier\u2014pace than that of any stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, or any other form of investment of recent years.\n\nEzra Pound also came very late to widespread collector popularity, partly because of his long period of incarceration in a mental hospital in Washington pending a possible trial for treason. He had enjoyed a good bit of popularity with collectors of avant-garde work prior to World War II, but for a long while after it most of his books could be had at nominal prices. This period terminated in 1958, when Pound was released as unfit to stand trial. A policy of forgive and forget had already begun to manifest itself, although prices of his books still remained low. Two examples should suffice. The Black Sun Press edition of Imaginary Letters was selling for only $8 a copy in one Park Avenue bookshop in 1962, with multiple copies available. Now, of course, it is much sought after both for Pound collections as well as for Black Sun Press collections. At the time, I bought all they had at that price, including the signed limited copies which were thrown in indiscriminately with the regular unsigned copies. The other example is his first book, discussed previously, A Lume Spento, one of the rarest and most wanted of all twentieth-century books. In 1960 a signed copy that had three manuscript corrections in the poet's hand, with a Christmas card bearing the first separate appearance of one of the poems laid in, appeared for sale in a catalog issued by the Gotham Book Mart at $185. At the first session of the Goodwin sale in 1976, an inscribed copy of A Lume Spento fetched $16,000, still the highest price on record for a modern American book.\n\nGertrude Stein was the last of this group to be admitted to sainthood. Scorned and derided by a large part of the literary and academic world during her lifetime and for the two decades after her death in 1946, interest in her work among collectors did not blossom to any significant degree until the early 1970s. It has most certainly still not peaked. As with Pound, as late as the end of the 1960s virtually any title in her large canon of work could be obtained for under $100. (The single exception was A Book Concluding with As a Wife Has a Cow a Love Story, published in 1926 in an edition of only 110 copies. The high price for this book\u2014whose title is almost as long as the entire brief text\u2014can be explained by the presence in it of four original lithographs, one in color, by Juan Gris. Art dealers cannibalized a large part of the edition by removing the individual plates, framing them, and selling them, quite legitimately, as original Gris lithographs, thereby causing this title to be even rarer than its colophon would indicate.)\n\nIn the period after World War II, an entire new generation of writers emerged, and it was only natural that new areas and forms for literature would be explored. Once again, the ground breakers found acceptance difficult. Following the classic pattern, they were scorned by academics and accepted only by disciples and a knowledgeable few until the validity of their revolutionary techniques began to be recognized. The major postwar revolutionaries were Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, and William Burroughs. These three men have obviously exerted an enormous influence on the generation of writers succeeding them. The impact of Allen Ginsberg's Howl on modern poetry is undeniable. It is the great watershed in American (and probably also British) poetry in the second half of this century. It has undoubtedly had as great and decisive an impact on all subsequent poetry as did Whitman's Leaves of Grass in 1855. I do not intend by any means to claim that Howl is as great as Leaves of Grass (although there are many who feel that such a case could be made). But it is a fact that the entire course of American poetry, even poetry written by \"academic poets,\" was significantly altered when this poem appeared.\n\nAn even more controversial figure than Ginsberg is William Burroughs. It is probably too soon to determine how lasting his influence may be, but he is the only prose writer in English since Joyce to introduce a totally revolutionary technique\u2014the so-called cut-up method. Many scholars, critics, and readers maintain that this is not art, or even a technique, but merely an exercise with scissors and paste. This is possibly so, but at least many writers in the two generations since the publication of The Naked Lunch\u2014which drew praise from such diverse authors as Norman Mailer and Robert Lowell\u2014have modeled work on his methods. At any rate, for collectors with a flair for inexpensive gambling, Burroughs presents a perfect opportunity. Virtually everything is still available, at modest prices. As of 1979 nothing had reached $100. He is still alive and often available for signing and inscribing books, and he has produced a relatively large body of work, with several items of oddball and interesting formats.\n\nIn poetry, one cannot escape consideration of Charles Olson, the most influential American poet since Ezra Pound, whom he parallels on many levels, especially in being acknowledged the paterfamilias of a large literary family. He was the founder of the now famous Black Mountain School of poetry, named for the college where he taught and expounded his theories. Many of those who flowered after World War II acknowledged their indebtedness to Olson, both publicly and by showing his influence in their work. These poets include Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Joel Oppenheimer, John Wieners, and Paul Blackburn, to mention only the most famous of them. The fiction writer Fielding Dawson was also a member of the group studying with Olson.\n\nObviously, truly revolutionary ground breakers do not often come along, but when they do, it is important for the collector to recognize them and to acquire their early work without delay.\n\nBeginning collectors, in the first burst of enthusiasm, often tend to dissipate their energies (to say nothing of their funds) in buying without any direction or point of view, on a hit-or-miss basis. It is advisable, when beginning to collect, to lay down some sort of limits or guidelines, no matter how wide or general they may be. I remember, in my beginning days as a book collector while I was still in college, buying anything I could afford by any author I had ever heard of. The result was a hodgepodge of single titles, or at best a dozen common ones, by a great many different authors who had little or no relation to one another. For example, there was a minor play by Coleridge, a political tract by Carlyle, a minor book by John Greenleaf Whittier, a gift annual with an original contribution by Poe, two second-rate novels by Booth Tarkington (those were ex-lending library copies to boot!), a magazine appearance by Shelley, a rebound Byron, along with a few books each by Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Erskine Caldwell, long rows of unimportant titles by Tennyson and Browning, and several books by H. L. Mencken. It was a collection in which I took some pride at that point, since none of my acquaintances had anything like it. Of course, the fact that none of them collected first editions didn't matter to me. But I soon learned the folly of trying to encompass all of British and American literature. Such an ambition requires a millionaire's income. A beginning collector must try to work out a reasonable area of activity, and even though he may wish to collect more than one author, he should think carefully about the systematic acquisition of items. If you are not going to have an in-depth collection of your author or authors, you should set some arbitrary limits. Most author collecting is limited to the primary works, that is, those that would appear in the \"A\" section of a bibliography. (See page 21.) Try not to be diverted by things not germane to your collection. Unless you have virtually unlimited funds (as well as unlimited space) you will find your collection filling up with unrelated items that are not only taking up room but also eating up your book budget, often making either difficult or impossible the purchase of a much needed item that suddenly appears on the market and may not be seen again for a long, long while. A systematic program is essential.\n\nNow, manifestly, one cannot decide to acquire books in \"proper\" order, waiting to buy the book listed as A-4 in the author's bibliography until one has acquired A-3. You have to be ready to buy anything you need for your collection whenever it is offered. But for this very reason it is important not to stray too far afield. High-spot collectors are less troubled by this problem, as are those assembling a first-book collection, since their aims are already by definition limited.\n\nIncidentally, don't ignore any bibliography on your author that may be available. From even the poorest of them you will gain valuable clues about possible variant editions as well as about unusual, elusive, or ephemeral materials that might otherwise escape your attention.\n\nMany reasons are constantly being put forth to justify the collecting of books, especially first editions. They strike me as quite unnecessary. Scholarly values, investment possibilities\u2014these are all side issues. There is, when you come right down to it, only one basic reason for collecting anything, be it first editions, stamps, coins, Indian arrowheads, baseball cards, or whatever else you like\u2014that is, that it's fun. If you collect for other reasons, all well and good, but you are probably missing out on the best part. All you need is patience, which is necessary for any truly great love affair. Which is exactly what collecting books has always seemed to me\u2014an ongoing affair that never palls, and one that is constantly offering new delights with the arrival of every book, every author.\n\n# CHAPTER TWO\n\n# HOW TO BUILD AN AUTHOR COLLECTION\n\nMost first-edition collecting is author-oriented. If you collect the work of only one author or a small handful of authors, you can go into far greater depth than if you collect many authors or try to cover a wide area. In my experience, very few collectors are able to limit themselves strictly to a single author, but the author collection is the base type of most important accumulations of books.\n\nAs I have said, any collection usually starts before you realize you are actually collecting. You read a book that you especially admire, and then, when its writer publishes a new book, you buy it at once because you are anxious to read it. Chances are that it will be a first edition, particularly if you have purchased it right after publication. This may happen with two or three successive books and, without realizing it, you have the nucleus of a collection\u2014two or three first editions. By then you may be interested enough in your author's work to search for his earlier writings, but when you start looking for them you are disappointed to find that they are o.p.\u2014out of print. Your regular bookseller cannot supply them. So you turn to the used, or secondhand, dealers, and probably find to your surprise that they are also unable to supply any of the titles, particularly if your author is one who has attracted some notice. One of these dealers may suggest that you try a first-edition specialist.\n\nYou go to one of these and discover, with mixed emotions, that, indeed, there on his shelves are those elusive early books. Marvelous! But then comes a slight shock when you learn that you will have to pay a premium for them, anywhere from double the original price on up to lord knows what, depending upon the popularity of your author and the scarcity of the book. You gulp, but take the plunge and buy one. And there you are. You're now a first-edition collector, and life will never be quite the same again. If the experience is as heady a one for you as it is for most people, you will find it so satisfying, so stimulating, that you will most likely return for another expensive title before you've finished reading the first one. The race is on.\n\nAt this point, a sensible move is to consult a bibliography of your chosen author, assuming there is one. (See Chapter 10.) It is now standard bibliographic practice to categorize literary material in terms of its character and the author's involvement with it, and understanding the way items are listed in an author bibliography will help you set up your collecting priorities. You have begun with books in the so-called A section. Here are listed all works by an author in their first appearance in whatever format he and his publisher decided to employ\u2014a hardbound book, a paperback, a small pamphlet, or even a single sheet called a broadside. Section A of an author bibliography also includes works that are joint efforts by two authors, but not books to which an author has merely made a contribution. For example, at the very beginning of Gertrude Stein's career, while she was still in medical school at Johns Hopkins University, she cooperated with a fellow student named Leon Solomons in writing a scientific article entitled \"Normal Motor Automatism.\" This eventually appeared in book form under the title Motor Automatism and is thus listed in my Stein bibliography in the A section. Another example of joint authorship to be found in the A section of a bibliography is The Nature of a Crime by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer (who later changed his name to Ford Madox Ford).\n\nHowever, books that contain the work of several authors, such as the annual \"best poems\" or \"best short stories\" collections, appear in the B section. For example, there appeared in Paris in 1925 a volume called The Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers. It was published by the Contact Press to give a boost to the careers of such comparatively unknown and struggling young writers as Hemingway, Joyce, Djuna Barnes, William Carlos Williams, and Gertrude Stein. Since each contributed only a few pages and did not work with the others on any of the contents, this is a B section item in bibliographies devoted to any one of these writers.\n\nWith anthologies, incidentally, a great deal of care must be taken to ascertain whether the contribution appears in the book for the first time, or if it is merely being reprinted from a previous book appearance. Generally, reprinted items have little value or interest to collectors unless the author has altered the text for the new edition. Certain authors never go back and revise, while others seize every fresh opportunity for making revisions. Among recent poets, Marianne Moore and W. H. Auden were notorious for altering poems every time one was reprinted, thus making the establishment of a definitive text virtually impossible for scholars and providing collectors with either a headache or a field day, depending on your point of view. In fact, Auden once declared \"a poem is never finished\u2014only abandoned.\" In the B section you will encounter a great deal of interesting material that may never find its way into print in any other form, even in collected editions of an author's work. This is particularly true of forewords and prefaces to other writers' books, and variant forms of poems that poets sometimes either forget about when issuing a new volume or prefer to suppress.\n\nThe third category in an author bibliography\u2014and in a definitive author collection\u2014is the C section: appearances in magazines, journals, and periodicals. The search for such publications presents the collector with much more of a challenge than the search for books, since many dealers do not take the trouble to carry them. But with a few exceptions, they are not unduly expensive, particularly if you are looking for the work of a current author. Here the aid of a bibliography is virtually indispensable. Yet lacking a bibliography (and many contemporary authors have not been made the subject of a bibliography), there are, fortunately, other sources of information. During the past few decades prior publication information has appeared on the copyright page of a book. In the case of volumes of poetry, it has become common practice to credit the individual magazines where certain poems first appeared. While the specific issues or dates of these magazines are not mentioned, you usually have a definite span of years in which to search, bounded by the date of issuance of the current book and the date of the poet's previous volume. Usually all of the poems in the new volume will have been published between those two dates. You can then check complete runs of the named periodicals to pin down specific issues. Libraries in the larger cities and universities usually have magazine files with either the actual bound copies or microfilms.\n\nAnother source of information is the Periodical Index. While this does not cover every little magazine, it does index the major periodicals rather thoroughly, and a quick check under your author's name will suffice. This index is issued quarterly, and can be found in the reference department of most major libraries.\n\nFor a few authors, there are also newsletters, usually edited by one or more avid fans. These newsletters often act as centers for the dissemination of news concerning appearances in periodicals and magazines. Menckeniana, the magazine devoted to lore by and about H. L. Mencken, even prints long lists of references to Mencken appearing in newspapers and magazines. Your first-edition dealer will, in all probability, know about the various author-oriented newsletters and may even carry them in stock.\n\nMany collectors feel that periodical appearances give a truer picture of the era in which a particular work was produced than the actual book itself. Certainly a good argument can be made for this proposition, especially in the case of poets. Individual poems are more likely to appear in magazines than are sections of novels, although it is of course true that novels are sometimes serialized before appearing in book form, and in some cases an entire book will appear in a single issue of a magazine. Two notable examples of this are John Hersey's Hiroshima, which filled an entire issue of The New Yorker, and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which appeared complete in a single issue of Life magazine. Sometimes the magazine version will be revised considerably by the author before book publication, as was Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. The text that appeared in four successive issues of The New Yorker differs considerably from that of the Random House edition.\n\nThe contents of an issue of an old magazine may show some surprising literary conjunctions. For example, transition, one of the classic little magazines, is almost universally thought of as the more or less official house organ of the Paris expatriates, publishing as it did Joyce, Stein, Williams, Hemingway, Boyle, MacLeish, Crane, McAlmon, H.D., Bryher, et al. It may come as a distinct surprise to find in the later issues such writers as James Agee, Muriel Rukeyser, Randall Jarrell, and Dylan Thomas sharing space with Joyce, Beckett, and others who are generally thought of as belonging to entirely different generations and traditions.\n\nSmall but illuminating sidelights are the advertisements in the magazines, which usually give the flavor of the period more immediately and more graphically than the mere printed words. One gets also an instant perspective on the literary standing of the author at any particular time by observing the placement of his piece in the magazine. William Faulkner contributed many of his best stories to The Atlantic Monthly and to Harper's Magazine in the 1930s. In those days the covers of both magazines carried the table of contents, listing titles and authors, in some semblance of what the editors thought was the proper order of importance. Most of the time Faulkner's name did not appear on the cover at all, and when it did it was in the \"also ran\" category, a catchall in small type at the bottom of the page, usually reading \"Also stories by John Doe, Jim Smith, William Faulkner,\" etc. The important names were such now-forgotten giants as William Beebe, George Davis, and Gerald Johnson.\n\nThe next category of an author bibliography, the D section, is customarily devoted to foreign translations of an author's works. Many collectors ignore these on the grounds that they cannot read them, although this seems unwise if you are aiming for a truly complete author collection. It is a field that will provide some surprises, both as to what languages your author appears in, and also as to which of his works have been translated at all. This is another area in which precise information is hard to come by without a bibliography for guidance. There are, however, a couple of aids of great value. Beginning in 1948, the United Nations required its members to report on the issuance of translations of works by citizens of the other member nations. These reports are published annually by Unesco and, happily, are indexed by author. Most large libraries have this volume, catalogued under the title Index Translationum. Of course, locating the actual copies of the translations presents another problem, which can be tackled in a variety of ways. First, and easiest, is your specialist first-edition dealer. Many of the more advanced dealers travel a good bit and pick up such titles for their stock simply as a matter of good business. Many major American cities have foreign language book-shops that carry translations from English. Finally, it is possible to write directly to the publishers in the various countries. The Unesco volume gives their names. It is surprising how many items can be obtained this way. When Truman Capote's In Cold Blood became a worldwide sensation, it was translated into at least forty languages. By writing to the publishers of all those that I could learn of, I was able to obtain copies of virtually every one. Only one publisher failed to respond; possibly my letter never reached him.\n\nForeign editions of Edward Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? in French, Norwegian, Italian, Danish, German, and Dutch. From the author's collection.\n\nSome of the larger nations of the world, particularly England and France, also issue an annual volume listing all books published in those countries each year, a book similar to the American Library of Congress Register of Copyrights. These volumes will also yield information on foreign editions. The British volume is entitled The British National Bibliography.\n\nAnother form of foreign publication\u2014which incidentally appears in the A section if the bibliographer is astute enough to note it at all\u2014has sprung up. It causes problems for the authors and their publishers as well as for collectors. These are the notorious Taiwan book piracies. During the last twenty or twenty-five years a number of printers in Taipei have developed a flourishing business of pirating American (and British) books. They are not meant to compete with the American or British editions in their own countries; in fact, it is illegal to import them into the United States on a commercial basis. They are therefore somewhat hard for collectors to come by. Their primary purpose is to satisfy the enormous demand for books in English among students and readers in the Far East at a price that the local buyers can afford.\n\nTo produce these, an actual copy of an American book is reproduced by photo offset, printed on cheap thin paper, and usually bound in cloth. There is generally no attempt made to duplicate the original bindings, but the dust jackets are invariably photocopied, although not always in the original colors. Whatever one may think of the ethics\u2014or lack of ethics\u2014surrounding the issuance of these piracies, the books do exist and provide a colorful sideline for any collection. Since the entire operation is outside the law so far as the Western world is concerned, it is difficult to get dependable information on what has been issued, and you must be guided by examples appearing on the market here. Taiwan piracies of collected American authors include books by Baldwin, Bellow, Capote, Cheever, Didion, Doctorow, Gardner, Heller, Jong, Kosinski, Merton, Pynchon, Roth, Rexroth, Salinger, Snyder, Updike, Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and Faulkner, and Burgess, Fleming, Lessing, and Auden among the British\u2014in fact, most authors of importance.\n\nBibliographic listings now often include musical settings of an author's work. These will usually appear in the E section of a bibliography, the section devoted to miscellaneous items. Most common is the setting of poems to music. The composer Ned Rorem has virtually made a career of writing music for modern poetry. Here again it is difficult to discover just what has been given musical treatment. Help is available from at least two sources. The Performing Arts division of the New York Public Library, located at Lincoln Center, maintains an extensive collection of sheet music, conveniently catalogued both by composer and by author; a check of card catalog entries will reveal most of the modern musical settings of contemporary authors. The Lockwood Poetry Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo is another repository of such settings. In fact, this library, devoted exclusively to poetry, and especially that of the twentieth century, displays the greatest strength in its chosen field of any library in the United States. Its resources are unrivaled.\n\nA Taiwan piracy (left) of Capote's IN COLD BLOOD compared with the regular first edition (right). From the author's collection.\n\nIn the past three decades many recordings of authors reading their works have been issued. Prior to World War II, when only 78 rpms were available, comparatively little spoken-word recording was done. The boom began with the advent of LPs. Yale University was particularly active in this field at one point, and has issued recordings of well over one hundred modern poets. Now, with the development of tapes and cassettes, even more recordings are being made, and the older ones are being reprocessed and reissued on cassettes. Caedmon and Spoken Arts are the two principal firms engaged in this field. With few exceptions not more than one or two recordings of any particular author exist, but even one recording is of inestimable value. It is always interesting to hear an author's own voice, and particularly enlightening to find out how he emphasizes and interprets a given line or passage that may be obscure or in dispute as to meaning. How many Shakespearean problems could be solved simply by being able to hear the Bard read the line himself! Or try to imagine Keats reading the \"Ode to a Nightingale\" or the \"Ode on a Grecian Urn.\" What wouldn't one give for an hour's tape of Oscar Wilde's conversation, acknowledged by all his contemporaries to outshine his written works? But of course we must be thankful for what has been preserved, even small fragments or short passages. My own two favorite ladies, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, were each recorded once. The Stein recording was made at the time of her triumphant return visit to the United States in 1934, and is, happily, still in print on the Caedmon label (TC 1050). Her voice is likely to come as a distinct surprise. It is a rich, colorful contralto, which she uses with great skill and modulation, to such an extent that had she not chosen to communicate in writing, it is easy to imagine her as an actress of distinction, at least on radio. The Alice Toklas record was not made until very late in her life, and may be less of a surprise than an absolute shock. From her diminutive size we might expect a chirping, birdlike voice. Instead, what comes across on the record is something resembling a bass-baritone. But what is also revealed are speech rhythms that closely approximate those of the famous Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Plainly this work was not wholly Gertrude Stein's invention, but a faithful, almost uncanny reproduction on the printed page of the actual speech pattern and modulations of Alice herself. This record (Verve MG V 15017), alas, was given very little publicity at the time of its release in 1961, and very few copies were sold. In nearly fifteen years of searching, I have never located a copy apart from the one I was lucky enough to buy when it first appeared.\n\nThe E section of an author bibliography can be a real grab bag. It contains all the things not classifiable in any other category, including what are called \"ephemera.\" In today's usage, particularly among book collectors, the term has come to mean a variety of oddball objects. Not all will be listed in even the best bibliography. One collector who specializes in ephemera insists that the true definition today is something that was intended to be thrown away after having served a temporary purpose. This definition comes about as close as any, and to tell the truth, I've failed to find any sort of ephemera that would not meet this definition. Yet many of the most fascinating items in a collection will fall into this category, and most of them can pose a huge challenge to the collector. Apart from their intrinsic interest, in some instances they provide valuable information no longer available from any other source. For instance, when Hugh Ford was gathering material for his book Published in Paris, a detailed account of the little presses that printed most of the work of the expatriates in and around Paris in the 1920s, a group of publishers' fliers and announcements relating to books by Gertrude Stein served as a unique and valuable source of information for publication dates, prices, sizes of editions, and so forth for several of the presses being studied.\n\nThis is a virtually limitless collecting area. It can range from tangential material such as reviews of the author's books (and other newspaper or magazine articles about him) through posters for readings; announcement fliers for forthcoming books; original photos of the author, his home, his family, his pets, and so forth; personal calling cards; even some of his personal possessions. In this latter area some judgment must be exercised. From time to time bits of clothing belonging to an author are offered for sale. Since there has been as yet no recorded instance of any of these relics' performing miracles in the manner of saints' relics, they have, it seems to me, dubious value, especially as there is seldom any way of authenticating their provenance. And in any event fabrics have a tendency to deteriorate at a far more rapid pace than books.\n\nThere are some items that help liven up an exhibit where an unbroken run of books, no matter how rare, may furnish dull viewing. Some bibliographies list some of this ephemera, and while such items are often the most difficult things in the entire collection to acquire, they are generally the most fun to search for. Some authors have been schoolteachers for brief periods. Eliot, Pound, and W. H. Auden served in this line, and issued mimeographed syllabuses for their courses, as well as exam papers. Many authors have been physicians; and one collector of my acquaintance prizes very highly a prescription made out by Dr. William Carlos Williams. Eliot comes to mind again for a quatrain he wrote to be printed on the back of a souvenir postcard depicting Thomas Hardy's home. Many authors have written texts for art exhibition catalogs: Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, and among more recent writers, Donald Barthelme, the poet John Ashbery, and novelist Donald Windham. Gertrude Stein, as usual going everyone one step better, composed a verse to be printed on the wedding announcement of one of her prot\u00e9g\u00e9s. (Even then, back in the 1930s, long before she was as widely collected as she is today, the demand for this item was so great that the newlyweds had to keep reprinting it to satisfy the demand from friends and admirers. As a result a total of five variants exists. The groom was enough of a bibliophile to recognize the necessity of making some distinction among them; yet this bit of ephemera, in any variant, is among the rarest of all Stein items.) In the 1930s a major New York department store sold a rug for a child's room based on illustrations from the first edition of Stein's immensely successful children's book The World Is Round. And in 1977 there appeared on the market a \"Stein stein,\" i.e., a beer stein in the shape of what was supposed to be Gertrude's face, with a diminutive Alice perched on the handle. Any absolutely devoted Stein collector would be delighted to have these. (The less devoted are welcome to be skeptical.)\n\nEzra Pound, always interested in music, very early in his career translated groups of songs from the Proven\u00e7al and other languages. One group was produced specifically for Yvette Guilbert, the chanteuse immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec. Pound's bibliographer Donald Gallup went so far as to list this item in the B section of his book. Later on, Pound organized concerts in Paris and Rapallo, and many of the programs for these contain texts by the poet. During the war, wall placards were issued in Italy with texts by Pound.\n\nA sampling of literary ephemera: Gertrude Stein's wedding poem for Bobchen Haas; Ezra Pound presidential leaflet; an invitation to W. H. Auden's birthday party; paper napkin from Marianne Moore; and a set of poem-playing cards by Michael McClure. From the author's collection.\n\nYeats, with his Celtic interest in things occult, wrote two anonymous pamphlets in 1901, entitled Is the Order of R.R. & A.C. to Remain a Magical Order? and A Postscript to an Essay Entitled \"Is the Order of R.R. & A.C. to Remain a Magical Order?\" Miscellanea surely\u2014and among the most difficult of all Yeatsiana to find.\n\nOdd items about an author\u2014as opposed to publications having texts by him\u2014can be even more varied. A pamphlet in my collection promotes Ezra Pound for President, using the slogans \"Ez for Prez\" and \"Let's Have a Round Pound,\" while he was still incarcerated in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington under indictment for high treason! A greeting card issued by James Thurber contains a drawing by him depicting the moment of shock when an unusually well-endowed male makes his first appearance in a nudist colony.\n\nPoets are especially fond of writing and publishing their own verses as Christmas cards. Most modern poets have issued some of these, usually privately to their own circle of friends. However, Hallmark cards issued one of Auden's commercially, as did the United Nations UNICEF program, which offered pamphlets of eight to ten pages to use as a card, with a verse by Denise Levertov. With Robert Frost, the cards became an annual commercial venture after the first few years. With the proper connections, it was possible to order a supply of the current year's Robert Frost Christmas pamphlet with your own name imprinted thereon. There are thirty-five such Frost Christmas pamphlets, some with as many as twenty different imprints.\n\nI could go on citing specific examples of fascinating ephemera, but I'd prefer to suggest some general areas for consideration when adding ephemera to a modern collection. First of all, with most modern books, especially those from little or private presses, there will be advance fliers or blurb sheets, or perhaps small catalogs listing or announcing these works. These can become an extremely valuable source of information to future researchers or bibliographers. Major publishing houses send out a varying number of review copies in the hopes of gaining favorable reviews or acceptance by a book club, thereby stimulating sales. These copies quite often have a photo of the author laid in, which the publishers hope will be used to illustrate the review. These photos alone are an area for specialization.\n\nA group of poet's Christmas pamphlets: TWO DREAM SONGS by John Berryman; ELM-BURNING by Barbara Howes; AS NOW IT WOULD BE SNOW by Robert Creeley; THE WOOD-PILE by Robert Frost; and TWO QUATRAINS FOR FIRST FROST by Richard Wilbur. From the author's collection.\n\nNowadays, the more popular authors give public readings. This is especially true of poets. There are usually posters or announcements for these readings, some of which may have a photo of the author, or in some cases, a few lines of verse by him or her.\n\nIn the case of a novelist whose books are transferred to the screen, a large number of items become desirable. Easiest of all to find are the 8\" x 10\" stills from the picture, along with theater cards (the colored scenes from the film that are usually displayed outside the theater). For a major film there are publicity brochures put out by the studios, including sample ads for use by theaters in local papers. Most desirable of all, but the hardest to come by, is the script for the film version of the book. Sometimes scripts have been written or worked on by the authors themselves, sometimes by studio hacks, and in rare cases by major authors who are under contract to do scriptwriting. When times were hard, F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner worked as scriptwriters in Hollywood; so did Dorothy Parker, Anita Loos, Tennessee Williams, Terry Sothern, Christopher Isherwood, and Truman Capote, to mention only a few. As I have said, scripts by such people as these are most desirable, and perhaps don't strictly belong in the ephemera category, although they were certainly not designed to be used again after having served their initial purpose. Studios guard these zealously, and very few leak out into the trade, but enough do appear to make this a much sought-after category, with prices usually in three figures.\n\nSometimes novels are adapted to stage performance, usually before being turned into a film. Programs for such productions form another category of association items. They are particularly rare if the stage version is short-lived, as was the Broadway version of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. It lasted fewer than ten performances, automatically making a program for it very rare and consequently very high priced.\n\nRecently the passion for illustrated T-shirts has led to several literary imprints; in some cases the authors themselves have had them made up. Poet Anne Waldman recently presented me with one bearing the cover design of her most recent book (which featured a glamorous photo of herself). This may be a sign that things are getting out of hand (the aforementioned Stein stein is another) but you will have to draw your own lines. Luckily, book collecting is not like stamp collecting, where the printed albums, with definite spaces to be filled, leave no leeway for personal judgment.\n\nOne very nice thing about ephemera is that most of it will cost very little. In fact, some of your most delightful items may even come free. A number of dealers do not want to be bothered cataloging or handling such relatively insignificant items. Many a charming item has been presented to me as a goodwill gesture by a dealer who knows of my interest in a particular author. If you have established a good relationship with a dealer, he may well do the same; after all, he hates to throw any item away, and he knows that you will like it. And keeping a customer happy is simply a matter of good business, if nothing else.\n\n# CHAPTER THREE\n\n# STARTING WITH AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR\n\nFor the beginning collector with a modest budget who cannot aspire to the gems of the twenties and thirties\u2014now reaching price levels that only the richest collectors and the most heavily endowed universities can afford\u2014modern book collecting may look like a discouraging field. Few people seem to realize that every author whose work is now highly esteemed and correspondingly high priced was, at one time, relatively unknown and unappreciated\u2014and uncollected. It is here, among the unknowns of today, that the new collector can operate to greatest advantage, financially and in terms of pleasure.\n\nThe requirement here is good taste in literary matters. It is essential to read the authors you collect, and not simply assemble copies of their books. Gertrude Stein commented on this in 1933 when The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas brought her worldwide fame after nearly twenty-five years of publishing in relative obscurity, and people started collecting her books avidly. She wanted, she said, \"to be read, not collected.\"\n\nThe only way to spot emerging talent is to read. Read, and keep reading. A good deal of such reading of new writers will of necessity have to be done in magazines, for few if any writers have a book published until they have been published in journals for several years. Once in a while something comes along like Gone with the Wind, which had neither antecedents nor successors, but this is the exception. Poets particularly are likely to publish in periodicals, because their output is usually not of sufficient bulk or quantity to make a book until several years after they begin. After nine years of publishing poems in magazines, Marianne Moore had only enough to make a pamphlet of twenty-six pages\u2014her first book, Poems, published in 1924. Robert Frost's first book, A Boy's Will, was published in England in 1913 after Frost had been writing for nearly a decade. So to begin, one must read little magazines with a finely tuned ear. How to develop such an ear can be argued endlessly\u2014and pointlessly. I can only repeat what the opera diva Zinka Milanov told a gushing admirer who asked her how she managed to produce such lovely high C's. Madame Milanov replied succinctly, \"Dolling, either you got the voice or you don't got the voice. I got the voice.\" Yet even if you \"don't got the ear,\" your taste can still be cultivated to some extent. It takes time and patience, but with any degree of sensitivity at all, you will soon be able to discern the good from the bad. Once you have savored quality, mediocrity will never again suffice.\n\nFrom then on, it is simply a matter of following your chosen author's career. Naturally, some authors\u2014poets particularly\u2014start off brilliantly and then seem to diminish in vigor, strength, and interest. If this happens with one of your choices, you will very likely not have spent an inordinate amount of money\u2014although you may have invested a good amount of reading time. You will almost certainly have found some enjoyment. But all this pales into insignificance when one of your early choices keeps on improving and turns out not only to be an extraordinary poet, but also a writer who is widely recognized and acclaimed. Then you will have an almost proprietary feeling about the author you spotted long ago as a \"winner,\" a feeling confirmed by your own superb collection of his books, with all those early titles, now impossible to find, perhaps even inscribed to you. It may take ten or twenty years, but in the meantime you have been relishing the books, perhaps even getting to know the poet personally, and deserve to feel superior to those collectors who hadn't the courage or taste to decide for themselves which authors were worth collecting.\n\nIf you are truly convinced from the beginning that your poet is worthwhile, I'd recommend buying two copies of each of those early works, or even more of some of them if, as is often the case, they are inexpensive pamphlets. In purchasing one you will be forming your own complete collection, one you are unlikely to want to break up later even when market demand rises. Therefore, if you have set aside two or three copies at publication, for a couple of dollars or so, you are in a position to part with them quite happily when they begin to fetch tidy sums. You can use them for bartering for expensive items otherwise unobtainable.\n\nI spoke of the possibility of having the author's early books inscribed to you. Within the existing framework of book collecting, there are several gradations of desirability. At the bottom is an ordinary unsigned copy of a book. One that the author has signed is definitely a notch higher in the scale, while one that bears some writing in addition to the mere signature is even more desirable. At the top of the scale is a presentation copy\u2014that is, one actually given by the author to someone, with an inscription in his hand attesting to this. And within this top category, there are still further refinements. Copies inscribed to other well-known authors are particularly desirable, as are copies inscribed to mothers, wives, or lovers. The ne plus ultra is, of course, the dedication copy, i.e., the copy inscribed to the person to whom the book is dedicated. Obviously there can be only one such, and therefore it achieves top rank in desirability.\n\nA group of inscribed books: THESE ARE THE RAVENS by William Everson (Brother Antoninus); FIRST POEMS by James Merrill; A DRAFT OF XXX CANTOS by Ezra Pound; LITTLE FRIEND, LITTLE FRIEND by Randall Jarrell; and MARRIAGE by Marianne Moore (published as Manikin #3). From the author's collection.\n\nNeophyte authors are always particularly anxious for recognition. This is especially true of poets, to whom fame, fortune, and recognition come much more slowly than to novelists or playwrights. They are usually extraordinarily grateful when anyone evinces any interest in them at all. A simple letter to a young poet telling him how much you have enjoyed his work, and asking, at the same time, if he would be willing to inscribe your copies of his first two or three books seldom fails to succeed. In many cases the gesture can be the foundation of an interesting and fruitful acquaintance. Quite often poets will have printed some little pamphlet or broadside for their personal use, and they may be willing to give you copies of these if you simply ask about them. More often than not, inscriptions made in the early days of a poet's career, before he is chastened by fame, will be either lengthy or charming, or both. A good example of just what can happen if you develop an interest in a young poet's work early in his career is exemplified in my collection of James Merrill, the American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. Merrill had been publishing poetry ever since his undergraduate days at Amherst, and had his first regularly published book issued by Alfred A. Knopf in 1951, a volume entitled simply First Poems. In the succeeding years he published several volumes of verse, as well as two novels, one of which bore on its dust jacket high praise from Truman Capote, an author generally not given to lauding a competitor's work. Merrill had over these years a substantial reading public, enough to justify reprintings of many of his earlier books of poetry. While he was collected to some degree, he was never strongly sought after. However, the Pulitzer Prize award, as it sometimes does, changed all that, and now he is widely and eagerly collected. The prices for his early books double and triple every few months, it seems. Collectors now know that First Poems was not, in fact, his first, book, but his third. The true first, entitled Jim's Book, was a substantial hardbound affair, privately published by his father for the family and close friends. It is a book of poems and short stories, all juvenilia, published in 1942 when the author was only sixteen. The work shows talent, but the poet himself considers it immature, prefers to ignore its existence, and is reluctant even to reply to inquiries about it. Since it was a privately published item, intended as a surprise for the author, never for sale, it is of extreme rarity.\n\nMerrill's second book, which appeared some four years later in Athens, was a long poem entitled The Black Swan, again privately printed, this time by the poet himself in an edition of only one hundred copies. Since then he has personally published at least one other such long poem in pamphlet form for his personal use, as well as an amusing quatrain on a small card for his mother's use in acknowledging congratulations on his having won the Pulitzer Prize. None of these was ever for sale, and while some of them eventually work their way into dealers' catalogs, it is always an isolated copy that appears on the market, for which there are always many customers. If you become friendly with the poet, there is a chance that such items will be given to you. One of these little pamphlets in my own collection bears a poignant inscription: \"For Robert Wilson, my faithful, perhaps only reader, from James Merrill.\" I bought those extraordinarily rare first two books from another book dealer at a time when Merrill was still not very actively collected. The price was nominal, and the dealer seemed glad to be rid of them\u2014despite the fact that Jim's Book was nothing less than the dedication copy! (Late in 1978, the only copy of Jim's Book to have appeared in a dealer's catalog thus far was priced at $4,000.)\n\nIn my experience, even world-famous and well-established poets can be generous with their time. Two of the very biggest names in twentieth-century poetry, W. H. Auden and Marianne Moore, rarely if ever refused any request they could grant in the way of signing books. They were cooperative even when the signing request involved many volumes, and they invariably invited the importuner into their homes, thereby giving up even more time. A few poets are totally reclusive; Wallace Stevens would not allow even his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, into the house, but entertained him on the lawn. But such extreme cases are rare. When having books signed by an author, if possible provide the pen yourself. Preferably, if you can find one, use an old-fashioned fountain pen with ordinary ink. A cartridge pen can be used in a pinch. The use of ball-point pens or felt-tip pens is fraught with several dangers. The ink of felt-tip pens tends to fade quickly, and the pressure needed to make a ball-point pen work usually makes deep grooves or impressions on the underlying pages. Especially on soft book paper, felt-tip ink may spread or bleed through adjoining pages. I learned this the hard way when William Burroughs generously inscribed a group of books for me. Being in a breezy mood that day, he employed four different colors of felt-tip pens. I was delighted at the time, since the multiple colors made a brilliant display on the various title pages. But when I went to show these inscriptions to another collector only a few months later, I discovered that the colors had bled through as many as eight pages on either side of the inscription, rather diminishing my joy. Many authors will have their own pens, but if you have your pen ready, most of them will accept it. And not a few will absentmindedly make off with it as well, so it's best not to offer an expensive model. If you are getting books signed after a reading or other public appearance, try to remember that many other people also want books signed, and an author's time and patience have their limits. Generally speaking, two or at the most three books is as many as one should ask to have signed at a time. Sometimes the author is anxious to leave promptly and will suggest that you deliver or send the books to his residence. If you do this, be careful to make the process as convenient as possible for him. Provide a return address label, fresh gummed tape for resealing the parcel, and of course, sufficient postage for the return journey. After all, authors need their time for writing. Try not to be another person from Porlock.\n\nSome poets who become aware of your devotion to their work will send you advance information or announcements of their forthcoming books. Some even send complimentary copies, and it is not unknown for a poet to bestow work sheets or manuscripts upon really earnest enthusiasts.\n\nThe consequences of using a felt-tip pen for autographing\u2014bleed-through in ink on a copy of William Burroughs' THE EXTERMINATOR. From the author's collection.\n\nPaying attention to a rising poet or author for many years may bring about events that you could scarcely have foreseen. Once it becomes known in the book-collecting world that you are particularly interested in a certain author, dealers will often offer you special items in advance of putting them in a catalog. Conversely, dealers will also begin to ask you for specific information on bibliographical fine points or variants with which they are personally unfamiliar, especially where no bibliography exists. Thus, by degrees, you may begin to gain a reputation for expertise on your author. You may be the expert. This has been known to lead the collector to produce a bibliography of the author in question. It should be noted in passing that bibliographies are generally not moneymakers, particularly if you count the time expended in gathering the necessary minutiae. But at some point or other, it is almost inevitable that you will wish to set down and codify the mass of information that you have gathered in the course of collecting. It may be merely from a sense of self-preservation, to stop the repeated demands on your time to explain odd details; it may be out of frustration at seeing false information repeated over and over in catalogs; or it may be simply that you feel you have to do it. Here again, if you have established a relationship with the author, he may well be willing to help out with the bibliography so far as he can, although in my experience most authors have seldom been able to hold onto copies of their works (which are usually given to their friends or, worse, stolen by them), especially the earlier pieces. Moreover, authors generally have a hazy knowledge at best of publishing details, since this aspect of the creation of a book is after all not their prime concern.\n\nIn a few cases friendship with the author and his work may bring still closer involvement. It is not unknown for a fan to become either a part-time or even a full-time secretary to an author, and in a couple of notable instances, a lifetime companion, as witness Clara Svendsen's long association with Isak Dinesen. Alice Toklas began her relationship with Gertrude Stein as a part-time typist of Stein's voluminous longhand works. And recently, a young professor, cocompiler of a bibliography of one of the century's major poets, found himself gradually moving into a closer relationship with the poet, eventually editing his later volumes of prose, and after the writer's death winding up as his literary executor. Now none of these things is guaranteed to happen (and you may not even want any of them to happen) but experience shows that they are entirely possible.\n\nW. H. Auden's last book, with an inscription to the author. From the author's collection.\n\nIn my own case, a friendship with W. H. Auden grew out of a simple request to have him sign my copies of his books, which at that time numbered perhaps a dozen titles. He was kind enough to invite me to bring them to his apartment on St. Mark's Place, in New York's East Village, at teatime. Tea turned out to mean cocktails\u2014very strong martinis, in fact. Emboldened by his agreeableness, I applied to him again, a year or so later, when I had added further titles to my collection. Again he was lavish with his time. As the years went on, this became a ritual, and I would see him every six months or so. We eventually reached the point where, when I mentioned that I had never been able to find such-and-such a title, he would invariably offer to give it to me if he could find it. Finding it, of course, was the problem; search as he would he could rarely locate the book on his shelves, even though he often looked assiduously. Auden lived in a shambles that had to be witnessed to be believed. His furniture was dilapidated to the point where the springs had burst through the worn fabric of both the sofa and the single easy chair; the padding was oozing out of vital spots in both pieces of furniture, and the end of the sofa was held in place by some tall panels from a packing crate. Piled everywhere were disorderly accumulations of phonograph records, books, magazines, and working drafts of manuscripts. On one unforgettable occasion, he did manage to turn up one of the rarest items in the canon of his work, a tiny pamphlet entitled simply Poem, published in 1935 in an edition of only twenty-two copies. He gave it to me.\n\nIn 1972, when Auden finally decided to leave America and go back to England, our friendship was firm enough for him to ask me, as a dealer, if I would be interested in purchasing the portion of his library that he did not want to take with him. Of course, I agreed immediately. He then said, \"Mind you, I don't have any first editions. I'm not a collector.\" I agreed nevertheless, realizing that even though his attitude toward books as objects was as far from a book collector's as it is possible to be, there would, of necessity, have to be some first editions\u2014and lord knows what else.\n\nEventually the time came for him to start the immense task of transplanting himself. When I arrived he had sorted out the books he wanted to keep, piling them in heaps on the floor. Everything else was still on shelves and tables, in every one of the four rooms of his apartment. I looked around and said that it would take me about a week to give him an estimate of what I could pay for the library. He looked a bit surprised. \"My good man,\" he said, \"I don't want an estimate. Just get the stuff out of here so that I can start packing. Take it away and send me whatever you think proper.\" It took the better part of two weeks simply to pack up and move the books. During the course of this work I gained enough courage to ask him why he had chosen me, when any dealer in the world would have jumped at the opportunity. His reply was very matter-of-fact. \"Because you're the only one who has taken a personal interest in my work.\" Needless to say, his library contained, along with what he described as \"the world's largest collection of terrible poetry\" (wished on him by aspiring poets), some great plums.\n\nNor was this the only instance of such a happening. I acquired Marianne Moore's library through a similar chain of events. I had made her acquaintance before I met Auden, and long before I had any ideas about becoming a professional book dealer. She was one of the first poets I ever asked to sign books for me. She apparently liked me well enough to allow me to come back from time to time over the years, and once even prepared a memorable, if peculiar, luncheon for me, composed of all the leftovers in her refrigerator. Toward the end of her life, when her family forced her to move back to Manhattan from the disintegrating neighborhood in Brooklyn where she had resided for a quarter of a century, she allowed me to buy several shopping bags full of items she no longer wanted. They ranged from back issues of magazines up through presentation copies of rare books by H. D., William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot. Later, I was entrusted with the job of placing her archive in an institution. As with Auden, this enviable opportunity came about because I had collected her books and ventured to have them signed.\n\nWhile it is certainly enjoyable and even thrilling when one of your authors rises to immense fame, it is not necessarily disastrous when it fails to happen. A forest is not composed solely of giant trees. It takes all grades and types of writers to make up a literary milieu at any given time. Many authors of less than monumental importance are nonetheless interesting, even if their works are not major landmarks of literature. The giants of course attract the lion's share of the attention with collectors, both private and institutional, but eventually the time comes when scholars and collectors begin to see the charm and importance of some of the lesser lights. One example of this can be seen in the complete exhaustion of possible discoveries in the work of the expatriate authors of the twenties. Hemingway and Fitzgerald have been worked over to the point where there are few finds to be made. But as late as the mid-1960s, the books of Harry Crosby, published by his own Black Sun Press, were literally going begging. I saw stacks of them in a New York bookshop at $4 per copy\u2014with no buyers. And while half a dozen years ago there was some interest in Djuna Barnes, Robert McAlmon, Mary Butts, and others of the period, most of their books could be found easily and were not expensive. Today interest in all these secondary authors is extremely keen, with virtually no copies available of any title. When the occasional copy does surface, the price is high and the demand brisk. So don't be disappointed if your author does not become a giant. As long as there is true literary quality in his work, the collection will always be of interest and value. In fact, because it is focused on a less-collected author, you may find that an institution is much more interested in having it than in acquiring yet another collection of the works of one of the more famous names. It probably already has the latter books\u2014likely in multiple copies.\n\n# CHAPTER FOUR\n\n# IT'S NEVER TOO LATE\n\nSeveral times thus far I have emphasized the advisability of beginning early on an author collection. While this always makes sense both financially and in terms of availability of material, a late start is not necessarily impossible. Some of the choicest items turn up after an author has become popular with collectors, sometimes because the popularity has driven prices up. People are often willing to sell for a substantial sum things that they wouldn't have wanted to bother selling when prices were low. It is almost a commonplace that an enormous, sudden price rise in an author's work, or of a particular book, almost invariably brings copies out of the proverbial woodwork. A few years ago I discovered in an out-of-the-way shop in upstate New York a dull-looking little pamphlet entitled 12 Occupations by Jean de Bossch\u00e8re and dated 1916, with a few pages of woodcuts and some lines of text. A bell rang in the back of my mind. I remembered reading that title and author's name somewhere. So I bought the little pamphlet, and back in New York I was able to confirm the vague memory. The book was a scarce early pamphlet whose text had been translated anonymously by Ezra Pound. I had never seen a copy in a bookseller's catalog, although by this time interest in Pound had already begun to reach fanatic proportions. I priced it at $100, and sold it immediately, with numerous disappointed would-be customers. My suspicions about its real rarity, in both the market as well as in institutional and private collections, were confirmed. To my amazement, five or six additional copies were subsequently offered to me. Several people had owned copies all along, but had not thought them worth selling until the $100 price appeared.\n\nGertrude Stein's first book, Three Lives, one of the most important landmarks in American realism, was privately published in 1909 in an edition of approximately five hundred copies. It has always been a scarce book, and copies have always been extremely difficult to locate. Since the late 1960s, Stein's prices have escalated to a point where a reasonably good copy of this book will fetch several hundred dollars. As a result, more copies are appearing on the market now than when a copy brought less than $100. It thus sometimes becomes easier, albeit more expensive, to find a book once a higher price range has been established.\n\nThe collector should realize that it is never too late to start on his chosen collection, despite the fact that everything worth having may seem to have been bought up or to have gone irretrievably into institutional holdings. This is especially true in the manuscript field. An important American museum\/library had officially defined its area of collecting interest as ending with the nineteenth century, in spite of having acquired, at the Quinn sale in 1924, the manuscript of what is now generally regarded as the greatest single work in English literature in the twentieth century\u2013James Joyce's Ulysses. In the late 1960s, this institution decided that perhaps the twentieth century had developed a few authors worthy of its attention. Dylan Thomas and Marianne Moore were named as sufficiently \"safe\" and important to add to the library's impressive holdings. Miss Moore was still alive, but Dylan Thomas was already dead, and the great period of enthusiasm for him had long since peaked among collectors. The director of the library confided to me his decision to move into the twentieth century, but added, wistfully, that he had been advised against starting on Dylan Thomas because everything worth having was already gone. Without knowing precisely why, perhaps guided by some lucky genie, I encouraged him to go ahead with Thomas, promising to look out for items of interest, all the while thinking to myself that his adviser was probably correct. Within a few weeks the miracle happened. One of the best-known British dealers, on a visit to New York, casually asked me if I might be interested in the handwritten manuscript of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. Trying not to let my enthusiasm show too much, I allowed that I might be, asking for an option for two weeks. The dealer was rather startled, and probably a bit disgruntled, by my response, since I suspect that he had been boasting rather than genuinely offering the manuscript to me. But now he could not back out. I telephoned the library director immediately, and he soon secured the approval of his board of trustees for the purchase. So off to London I flew to bring the treasure home. There was a cloak-and-dagger aspect to the trip, because another American dealer\u2014himself the agent for another (and famously omnivorous) institution\u2014had also got wind of the existence of the manuscript and had likewise flown to London to buy it. I had taken the precaution of sending an advance deposit, however, and had the pleasure of finding that though Mr. F. had been there an hour ahead of me, offering a higher price, the firm of Bertram Rota, Ltd., was honorable in the best traditions of the trade. They politely but firmly told Mr. F. that the manuscript had already been sold. Thus I was able to bring it back in triumph, though not without some difficulties both in taking it on board the plane as hand luggage (it was in a large leather case about three feet square) and again in clearing it through customs on Christmas Eve. The customs officials cared nothing about the manuscript but were intent on charging the duty on the leather case\u2014and since it was Christmas Eve the appraisers were not on duty. This problem was resolved\u2014after a number of firm, not to say excited, words on my part\u2014when the chief inspector declared the whole parcel duty-free.\n\nThe day after Christmas I delivered it to my happy librarian, who now faced the problem of building a collection of Thomas' books around this masterpiece. I never actually found out, but I always sincerely hoped that the first person he showed the new acquisition was the adviser who had predicted the impossibility of finding any such thing.\n\nSome few years before his death, William Faulkner deposited all of his manuscripts at the University of Virginia. Virtually everything was there except the manuscript of his first novel, Soldier's Pay, which was presumed to have been lost or destroyed. Faulkner himself had no recollection of what had happened to it. Yet a few years ago I discovered it, in the possession of an elderly gentleman who had been Faulkner's roommate in the days after World War I in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Here it was, the entire manuscript with holograph revisions, along with several unpublished short stories, many poems in holograph (some of them unpublished), and even a variant ending for the novel. Everything was still in the original mailing carton addressed to Faulkner by the agent who was returning the material to him. The manuscript itself was in a shirt box. It seems that when Faulkner and the roommate decided to go their separate ways, Faulkner abandoned the material to be thrown away, but the roommate had the prescience to preserve it. The incident shows that once again it was not too late, despite what everyone thought, to acquire an important Faulkner manuscript.\n\nEven more recently, all important literary material by Conrad Aiken was thought to have vanished from the market when his widow sold his entire archive to the Henry Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, California. But within a year of that transaction, the working draft of his most famous novel, Blue Voyage, came to light in the estate of one of his lifelong friends. Aiken had inscribed it to the man as a gift, along with several notebooks of poem drafts, and all the manuscripts came up for sale.\n\nWorking draft of an unpublished poem by William Faulkner. From the author's collection.\n\nOutside the rarefied world of manuscripts, there is no way of knowing when a large collection or cache of books of superb quality will come to light. Many wonderful collections, previously unknown to dealers or other collectors, are continually surfacing. One such nearly incredible collection was sold by the Swann Galleries a few years ago. No one had ever heard tell of the collector or the collection. Put on the market by the lawyers for the estate, it comprised superb runs of Faulkner, Joyce, and Stein, including the long-lost fifth copy of Stein's The Making of Americans in the vellum edition, of which only five had been printed. For many years four copies could be located, and the fifth was surmised to have perished during World War II. But suddenly it surfaced along with such other gems as a signed, limited Ulysses, a handwritten book by Faulkner, and historically important letters by Stein describing the now famous Salon d'Automne, where Matisse first attracted public attention.\n\nThis kind of collection sometimes gravitates into a dealer's hands and forms the basis of an exceptional catalog; sometimes, as mentioned, it comes up at auction; or occasionally it even finds its way into an ordinary secondhand bookshop. More about this aspect will be said in a later chapter. Meanwhile, don't despair.\n\n# CHAPTER FIVE\n\n# DEALERS AND COLLECTORS\n\nAny collector, as opposed to a general reader who doesn't care whether he has a first or a tenth edition of a book, has to face the fact that most of his books will have to be obtained through specialist dealers. Long gone\u2014if they ever existed\u2014are the days when a superior collection could be built by haunting thrift shops and general secondhand bookshops. The latter are themselves almost an extinct species, victims of the increasingly high rents for the amount of space needed to operate a large general bookstore, the increase in specialization in all fields, extending also into book collecting, and, not least, the prevalence of paperback editions. The resale possibilities of paperbacks is severely limited \u2014many of them literally fall apart after a couple of readings; some don't even last through the first reading. Also, a used-book dealer can hope to make only a slim margin of profit on secondhand paperbacks.\n\nOf course, the occasional instance of serendipity still occurs on outdoor stands and in thrift shops, garage sales, and the like. Every collector has his favorite tale of the gem he obtained in just such a manner. But these finds are isolated instances at best, and happen so rarely that no serious collection can be built by depending on them. Once you are committed to any sort of collecting\u2014first editions, or a subject collection such as chess books, color-plate books, or whatever\u2014you will, of necessity, be obliged to go to specialist dealers to obtain the large majority of your books, especially the rare and more unusual items. Today, whenever a new, signed, limited edition by a major author is announced by a publisher, it is almost invariably oversubscribed, and all available copies taken up by specialist dealers. Very few, if any, find their way into regular bookstores. If you hope to get a copy, it will pay to have established a relationship with a dealer so that you will be guaranteed one of his. This is especially important when the demand is greater than the supply, for in that case the publisher is obliged to cut the number of copies allotted to each dealer.\n\nThe first problem, especially for the novice collector, is to discover which dealer can supply his needs, and where they are. Fortunately, in the United States and Great Britain there are several methods, relatively easy, of answering such questions. First of all, in the United States, there is the directory of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, commonly known as the ABAA. Founded just after World War II, this group has over three hundred members sworn to fair practices and honorable dealings. While a great many American book dealers are members, there are several important ones who are not, for a variety of reasons. One of these is the Association's rule that a prospective member must have been a full-time dealer in business for at least three years. This, of course, eliminates all fledglings, as well as part-time dealers. And there are some dealers, long established, with national and even international reputations, who are not members by reason of personal choice. The Association's membership list is nonetheless a good place to begin to seek out dealers who can help you. The ABAA maintains a shop in New York City at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10020, where a few representative volumes from several different members are on display. The shop usually has a supply of the latest catalogs of those members who issue them. The membership list of the ABAA can be obtained by going there in person, or by writing to the shop. If you write, be sure to enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the return of the list.\n\nIn Great Britain there is a similar organization known as the Antiquarian Book Dealers' Association, 154 Buckingham Palace Road, London, S.W. 1, England.\n\nThe Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times always carries a page of advertisements by booksellers, many of whom are specialists. It must be admitted, however, that this group of advertisers is rather small, and tends to remain the same, year in, year out. Furthermore, most of them are members of the ABAA and will already have been located through that membership list. However, in this section there are also advertisements by book searchers, something quite different from regular book dealers. These people will undertake to search for books for a fee. Usually there is no charge if the book is not located. It is generally pointless to ask them to find even run-of-the-mill first editions, and hopeless to request great rarities. However, they are often quite helpful in finding secondary items such as later printings, obscure journals, and the like.\n\nIn Great Britain, there is an extremely useful guide to book sellers entitled A Directory of Dealers in Secondhand & Antiquarian Books in the British Isles. It is arranged geographically for easy reference to whatever area you may be in at any given time. It further gives a brief description of the kinds of books handled by each dealer, so that you will know at a glance whether or not it is likely to be worth your time to visit a particular shop.\n\nThere are several trade journals for the out-of-print, secondhand, antiquarian, or used-book market. Chief among these is the one familiarly known as \"The AB\" from the initials of its original name, The Antiquarian Bookmarket. In recent years the magazine has been called AB Bookman's Weekly (Box AB, Clifton, New Jersey 07015). This can be an important source of information for any collector. While its primary function is to serve as a means of getting a dealer's specific and immediate wants known to his fellow dealers (this feature takes up the bulk of every issue), it also issues an annual directory, known as the AB Bookman's Yearbook. The Yearbook lists many small or part-time dealers who will not be found on the more august membership roll of the ABAA. They are honest, genuine dealers, and potential sources of desirable material. In Great Britain, there is a similar publication known as The Clique (75 World's End Road, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham B20 2NS), and another named The Bookfinder. Finally, there is a journal catering more directly to collectors than to the book trade, known as the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review (30 Cornmarket Street, Oxford OX1 3EY).\n\nThe most direct way of getting in touch with dealers is to attend one or more of the various antiquarian book fairs. These are being held with increasing frequency in the United States. The oldest of these is the ABAA's annual fair, held on the east and the west coasts in alternate years, generally in New York and in either Los Angeles or San Francisco. Lately there have been numerous other fairs of major importance. In England there are several regular book fairs in London as well as in the provinces. These fairs usually run for about five days and attract dealers from all over the world. From seventy to one hundred dealers may participate in a given fair and will display their choicest wares at booths. It is here that you can make the personal acquaintance of most of the dealers with whom you have been corresponding. For the neophyte it is an excellent way of ascertaining a dealer's potential value to you, since you can browse in his booth, and from the selection of books he has brought to exhibit you can tell at once whether or not he is ever likely to have the kind of material you seek. Many collectors are reluctant or even embarrassed to enter a shop or even to initiate correspondence without having a specific book in mind to purchase. But at a book fair no one need be shy.\n\nMost dealers save their best pieces for the fairs, and quite often you can obtain a long-sought item that has been kept in reserve for the occasion. So keen is the competition for such material that the admission fee for the opening night of the fair is usually at least double the normal amount, and even so the crowd is so great that it is virtually impossible to get near some of the booths. This apparently deters no one, and most collectors go home with at least one prize in hand. Unfortunately for collectors, there is often a good deal of pre-opening movement of choice items from one dealer to another, with, of course, a price escalation with each move. One such case at a recent California fair involved William Carlos Williams' first book Poems (Rutherford, 1909), of which fewer than twenty copies are known to exist. A previously unregistered copy was on display in one dealer's booth. Another dealer spotted it and, realizing that the $3,000 asking price was ridiculously low, bought it and marked it up to $5,000. A third dealer saw it and, still thinking it a bargain, bought it at that price less his 10 percent dealer's discount (dealers customarily give one another 10 percent discount on purchases). When the fair opened, it was resting in the third dealer's booth for sale at $12,000. Of course, such a tremendous price escalation is rare, but it does point up the importance of getting to a fair as early as possible.\n\nCatalogs issued by specialist dealers are probably the most important means of acquiring the better items you need. Most first-edition dealers issue such catalogs, some regularly and frequently, others irregularly and a year or more apart. The physical appearance of these catalogs may vary from a few mimeographed sheets stapled together all the way up to lavishly printed volumes, replete with illustrations and even in some rare cases cloth-bound. The general appearance of a catalog will usually indicate the caliber of material inside and the rough price range to be expected, but this is not always the case. Some of the mimeographed catalogs\u2014my own, I am pleased to say, included\u2014contain material just as rare and desirable as that found in the more finely printed ones. It goes without saying, of course, that the cost of producing and mailing out catalogs has to be taken into account by a dealer when pricing his books, and most collectors realize, if only subconsciously, that the less expensive the makeup of the catalog, the more likely the items in it will be reasonably priced. But whatever the appearance of the catalog may be, it is essential for the collector to get on the mailing list of the dozen or so most important dealers in whatever his field of interest may be, and also to give the dealers in return some sign of interest in their catalogs. Costs force every dealer to scan his mailing list periodically and remove names of persons who have not responded for some time. If you find nothing of interest in a series of catalogs, the chances are that this dealer is not handling the sort of material you want, and he will be justified in removing your name. If, however, you still want to receive his catalogs, you should send a note\u2014a postcard will do\u2014asking to be kept on the list. Most dealers will then be happy to continue to send the catalogs.\n\nOnce you have received a catalog in the mail, drop everything and read it immediately. Competition for desirable material is so keen nowadays that often a matter of minutes determines whether or not you get the desired item before someone else does. It is best to look first for the entries under your pet author, or even for a particular book, and then go back and read through the complete catalog. Quite often books you want may be classified under another heading, or even under another author. For example, there exist three plays and one travel book written jointly by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, and while you may be interested only in Isherwood, the dealer may catalog these only under Auden. The 1915 Catholic Anthology, which contains, among other major items, \"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\" and is Eliot's first book appearance, may be listed either in the section devoted to Ezra Pound, who edited the volume and also appears in it, or it may be listed among anthologies. (Once, to my own delight and profit, it appeared very cheaply in the catalog of an innocent dealer under \"Religious Books.\") If you spot something that you want badly, especially a major item, telephone immediately. Any dealer will accept a telephone order, particularly from a customer already known to him. Direct dialing telephone rates are relatively inexpensive, and well worth the extra couple of dollars it may cost to secure an item. It doesn't pay to wait until night rates are in effect. In fact, many wise collectors will telephone immediately on spotting an important item and will then go back and read the rest of the catalog, either making a second phone call for further choices, or perhaps ordering the minor items by mail. Many a collector has failed to get a crucial item merely by delaying an hour or so. Since most dealers who issue catalogs have extensive mailing lists, catalogs are usually sent bulk rate (third class) mail, which means that they are delivered by your local post office after all other mail has been taken care of. In some cases there can be a delay of four or five weeks between the actual mailing of the catalog and your receipt of it\u2014a period of time in which most of the plums will have been plucked. It is thus essential to receive the catalogs by first class mail. Since this is often very costly, a dealer is naturally reluctant to go to such expense. If, however, you are a regular customer and a fairly liberal purchaser, he will usually bear the expense himself of sending your copy first class. If, on the other hand, you are either a new customer, or if you seldom buy, the dealer may ask you to pay for the first-class postage. Usually this will amount to little more than a couple of dollars a year, but will always be worth it in order to have a better chance of obtaining your coveted items.\n\nThe dangers of buying a book sight unseen, through the mail, are too obvious to need elaboration. Condition (see Chapter 8) is the prime factor in book collecting, as in other hobby fields, and must be ascertained from the dealer's catalog description. It is here that interpretation enters in and disappointment occurs. Shades of meaning and gradations between \"fine,\" \"good,\" \"mint,\" and other terms commonly employed are a matter of judgment, and your standards of what is fine may not be the same as the dealer's opinion. (See pages 107\u20148 for an analysis of commonly used terms.) \"Condition cranks,\" a term applied to collectors whose insistence on perfection borders on mania and who push such standards to illogical extremes, are bound to be disappointed often. But most collectors who adopt a reasonable attitude toward condition will find little to complain of. For one thing, no dealer likes the wasted time, trouble, and expense of returned shipments, to say nothing of the danger to the books in the hands of the postal service. He may have lost a sale to another customer who wanted the particular item. Therefore, if only out of self-interest, most dealers try to be accurate in their cataloging. They have discerning eyes, generally, and it will not take long for you to become acquainted with the general level of each dealer's set of descriptive terms. Very few if any dealers will refuse to take a book back if it is returned within a reasonable length of time. This period is usually specified in the dealer's terms in the front of his catalog, and as a rule is ten days after receipt. If you are going to return a book, notify the dealer at once, either by phone or at least by letter, since the return parcel may take quite a long time to reach him. Particularly with a new catalog, he may have had to turn down one or more other orders for the item. Thus, if he knows it is coming back, he still has time to sell it to another customer.\n\nThe most important single aspect of the dealer-customer relationship is the gradual development of friendship and rapport. The buying of books is a unique type of transaction, unlike the purchase of almost any other commodity. Friendly relationships between a dealer and a customer are common. A good dealer will warm almost at once to a customer who indicates a true passion for books. On the other hand he may never find much affection for a customer who is collecting because it is fashionable or\u2014especially in recent years\u2014because books seem to be a good form of investment. Despite the old dictum that a dealer should not be a collector, so as not to compete with his own customers, virtually every dealer does have a personal collection of some sort, and almost without exception, every rare-book dealer started as a collector. It is safe to say that every book dealer is in the business because he enjoys it, a statement that cannot be made of many other professions.\n\nI shall never forget an occasion many years ago when I was browsing in a first-edition dealer's shop while still a novice collector myself. A customer came in and asked for several titles of a particularly scarce and much sought-after author, who happened also to be the favorite author of that dealer, whose collection was rated one of the best in existence. Warming to what he thought was a fellow enthusiast, the dealer not only produced most of the wanted titles, but also brought out several other highly desirable items that he confessed he had been hoarding toward a catalog. The customer said that he would buy them and asked to have them shipped to his address in England. Then he made the cardinal error of boasting, \"I can flog them for twice that price in England.\" The dealer was obviously nettled and immediately froze up, feeling, quite rightly, that he had been taken advantage of by a pretense of personal interest in the author's work. The customer left shortly thereafter, having given his London address, adding that he would send a check as soon as he got back to England. When he was safely out of the shop, the dealer said, as much to himself as to me, \"He'll never get those books.\" If need be, the dealer said, he would advise the man that the shipment had got lost in the mail. \"And besides,\" he added, \"he's very slow to pay.\"\n\nWhich brings up another crucial area in your relationship with a dealer. Except for a very occasional item that is in his shop on consignment, every book in a dealer's stock has been bought and paid for by him before placing it on the shelf or in his catalog. He must therefore wait for payments to come in from customers in order to replenish his working capital before he can buy more books. Most dealers are chronically short of immediate cash. The more quickly payments come in, the more stock they can buy and, consequently, the better chance you have of obtaining from them the items you need. Therefore, prompt payment is not only courteous, it is also in your own interest. Most dealers require customers who are purchasing for the first time to pay for the initial shipment in advance, and ask that a charge account be deferred until references can be checked. Usually references from other book dealers are preferred over any credit card or department store account references, which are difficult, if not impossible, to check. Most dealers expect to be paid upon receipt of the merchandise, or at the very least by the end of the month. Naturally, once you have become an established customer, private agreements can be arranged, especially if you are purchasing a particularly expensive item.\n\nWhen a new customer comes into a shop and asks for \"anything\" by a particularly prolific author, for example John Updike, Ted Hughes, Gertrude Stein, or any of a large number of major authors, the dealer may hedge a bit, especially if he happens to have a large or varied stock of the particular author. All too often a collector will use just that approach, either in person or by mail, when in actuality he is looking for one specific title or certain rarities. If the dealer's quarters are spacious enough for him to have everything shelved, he will usually point to the place where the author's books are displayed. But most dealers suffer chronically from lack of space, and not everything can be displayed at once. Sometimes there are other considerations, such as the exceptional fragility of an item, or an awkward size, or a rarity of such degree that the book would present too great a temptation to shoplifters. Or, with an unusually prolific author, the sheer bulk of the output may preclude displaying everything in one place. Most dealers will parry such an open-ended request, trying to narrow down the customer's field of interest. It is therefore essential to be specific in stating your wants. It is a false although apparently widely held belief among novices that a dealer instantly increases the price if you ask for a specific title; almost all dealers have prices marked in their books. It is vital for the collector to gain the friendship and goodwill of the dealer, particularly one who specializes in his author or area of interest. Many dealers are eccentrics, most of them charmingly so, but almost all of them like to place especially desirable titles where they think they belong, and if rubbed the wrong way, can very easily deny having the very book you want.\n\nThere is another precaution to be observed by someone making his first purchase from a dealer. It is very unwise to try to bargain with a dealer, particularly a specialist who knows his field very well. His prices are usually scaled in accordance with the general levels of the market on most items. Prices are normally set on the basis of the book's cost to the dealer. Most newly issued books are discounted at 40 percent to the dealer (plus, of course, postage or shipping charges, now a considerable figure). Many limited editions from small or private presses carry smaller dealer discounts, usually 30 percent, sometimes only 20 percent, and recently, when several such publishers have seen fit to issue an extremely limited edition of only twenty-six lettered copies, these have been sold to dealers at no discount at all, making it necessary for them to add something on the top in order to make even a modest profit. Many university presses allow dealers only 10 percent discount. When the postage is added to this, the cost to the dealer is often higher than the announced retail price, one reason why university press publications are often difficult to find in bookstores. On out-of-print books, the general practice in the book trade is to double the cost figure. This does not mean that the dealer is doubling his money on each item sold. He has rent, light, postage, printing, salaries\u2014in short, all the expenses that used to be called overhead\u2014to pay before his actual profit can be reckoned. Once in a while an item will come into a dealer's possession on which he can more than double his money, but that is the exception rather than the rule, and only helps to even out items he has bought at a particularly high price\u2014either for the fun or prestige of being able to offer a very rare item, or perhaps as a service to a customer \u2014and ended by selling at a nominal 10 or 15 percent markup.\n\nMost dealers also stockpile a certain number of copies of books by authors in whom they have faith, against future demand or future price rise. These caches, when released some years later, often provide the only available copies of titles suddenly in demand. Here, again, the dealer has invested money and storage space, both of which are chronically in short supply, and hence must charge a premium, if only to compensate for the amount of interest he could have had on the money thus tied up. There is one other form of stockpiling where the dealer can make a higher rate of return, and that is in the case of \"remainders,\" books wholesaled by the publishers at whatever price they will bring. Quite often first editions are remaindered, and many dealers in moderns watch the outlets for these with considerable care, buying quantities of titles by established authors and quietly putting them away until the remainder supply has dried up. Then the dealer will bring them out of storage and place them on the shelf at the original published price, or even at a markup, depending on the demand, how many copies are to be had from other dealers, and how many he himself has. The list of extremely desirable first editions that have been remaindered within the last quarter of a century is truly staggering, making one wonder why everyone was asleep. Just two examples should suffice. In the early 1960s the first four books of Edward Gorey were remaindered at 49c each; they now bring about two hundred times that figure. In 1960 the Yale edition of The Unpublished Work of Gertrude Stein, in eight volumes, was remaindered at half the original publication price. Sets now bring at least fifty times that amount and are rarely seen.\n\nIt is both unfair and unwise to ask a dealer to lower his price. One dealer, whenever he was asked to change a price, would look at the price penciled in the book, smile, say, \"Oh, you're right, that's wrong,\" and then calmly add another digit. His customers learned very quickly not to haggle. A dealer may offer on his own initiative to lower a price, particularly if it is a book he has had in stock for a long period of time with no apparent interest in it, or he may even wish to give you a break on an item\u2014but the initiative for such a reduction should come from him, not from you, unless your friendship with him is of such a degree that you can politely ask if that's the best he can do. But even such a request as this should be made rarely, only in the most exceptional circumstances, where there is some valid reason to suggest that the price may be too high. It must never be used as a standard operating procedure.\n\nOnce you have established a firm relationship with a dealer, he will be anxious to help you obtain the items you are looking for. He will take pride in helping build your collection, often spotting items in other dealers' catalogs, buying them for you and passing them on to you for little or no profit, just to have the pleasure of supplying something you need.\n\nWhile some old-fashioned rare-book dealers felt that a customer should be loyal to only one dealer, this outlook is simply not realistic, and few if any of the dealers now in operation believe that a collector should buy from only one. No one dealer, no matter how active he is, can possibly supply you with every single item you need. Specialist dealers have, of course, many sources from which to draw, but the rare and fugitive items simply cannot be commanded at will. Dealers must also wait for certain items to appear, and be on the spot when they do surface. Some dealers seem to have more luck at this than others, and the talent is inexplicable. If you are determined to have an exceptional collection, you must simply try to establish good relationships with all the major dealers specializing in your area. It is of course not only good taste but wise to exercise some discretion and not talk too much about the foibles, the stock, or the prices of one dealer when in another's shop.\n\nWant lists are both helpful and dangerous. Every collector, of course, has one, be it written on paper or merely carried in his head. But it is unwise to spread your written want lists to the four winds. If you send such a list out simultaneously to every dealer, the net result may well be a sudden false surge of interest in the titles on the list. Many dealers run periodic ads in the trade journals and comb each other's stock, either in person or by telephone. They also alert their book scouts. Several copies of your want list in the midst of all this activity may touch off what looks like a boom in a certain author or in particular titles, and could cause an abnormal escalation of prices. It is best to give the list to one dealer and let him work with it a few weeks or even months before passing it on to one of his competitors. Unless your want list is composed exclusively of \"impossibles,\" a good dealer will normally come up with a few of your items in a reasonable length of time. Of course, if the list is primarily the impossibles, an experienced dealer won't waste much time or energy on it; if he were able to locate such items he'd be happy to buy them anyway. Such difficult books are star items in a catalog and are usually in demand by many people.\n\nAbove all, remember that the dealer is the necessary connection between you and most of the books you want. Also remember that he has seen and handled a lot of that material at some time, usually many times over, and will know many fine points that you may be unaware of. Without the dealer, you will never form a significant collection. As one proof of this, consult the acknowledgments page of a bibliography of a modern author published in the last two decades and see how consistently dealers are thanked for their help and advice.\n\n# CHAPTER SIX\n\n# BUYING AT AUCTION\n\nNext to buying from a dealer, the most important way of adding to a collection is by purchasing books at auction. It is a method not generally understood as well as it should be. A lack of accurate knowledge about what actually happens at a book auction is partially responsible for the persistence of many popular fallacies, including the one that says prices are bound to be lower at auctions than at first-edition dealers' shops. The auction process seems to begin with to be almost childishly simple: books are offered for sale and people bid on them, the winner receiving the spoils. So it would appear on the surface. However, an experienced bidder knows that there is far more to it.\n\nThe easiest way to dispel cherished misconceptions about auctions is to follow the dispersal of a book collection through the auction mill. This process has as many currents and eddies as a millrace, both for the bidder and for the consignor of the collection. The wheels begin to grind long before the books actually come under the hammer and, in fact, before the general public has any notion that the collection will be coming up for sale. The collection may be an inherited one. Strangely, the love for book collecting is seldom inherited with a collection. And even if the heir is a collector, he may well lack interest in a ready-made collection.\n\nMany notable collections, therefore, eventually find their way to auction. The owners get in touch with an auction house. (See Appendix 1 for a list of auction houses handling books in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.) The gallery will usually request that the books be brought in for examination. If the collection is a very large one, the gallery will assign an expert to appraise the collection in situ, for which a fee will be charged. Small galleries generally have only small staffs, with wide but limited knowledge, while the larger galleries such as Sotheby Parke Bernet or Christie's have more expert personnel. At such galleries extensive reference collections of bibliographies are kept along with past auction records, which include their own and other catalogs. The gallery can usually come to a rapid decision as to whether or not a particular collection is suitable for auctioning and whether or not the gallery is interested in disposing of it. The gallery can also advise about the condition of the market at any given moment for a particular type of collection.\n\nThe whims affecting book collecting are no different from the whims in collecting art or antiques. What was valued twenty years ago may be pass\u00e9 today or vice versa. F. Scott Fitzgerald went almost totally unregarded a generation ago. Now his works are among the most prized items. A. E. Coppard, on the other hand, was fetching high prices in the thirties, but now is worth almost nothing. Experienced galleries know what is selling well and can advise whether the time is right or whether it may be to everyone's interest to wait for a more opportune moment. It is also in the gallery's interest to tell the would-be consignor when the case is hopeless\u2014when a valuable-seeming accumulation of books is in fact so nearly worthless as to fail to warrant the time and effort to auction them.\n\nIf the collection is of interest to the auction house, it is then removed to the gallery premises. A critical phase of the ultimate dispersal takes place here\u2014the separation of the collection into lots. The manner in which this is done will affect the amount of money to be realized by the owners and, frequently, whether dealers and collectors can be induced to bid at all. With highly popular known titles there is little or no problem\u2014each such book is a high spot, and is offered as a single item. Every gallery has its minimum price for a lot to be worth a catalog entry. Of the principal New York book auction galleries, Sotheby Parke Bernet's minimum is $150, Christie's is $100, and the Swann Galleries maintains a minimum of $50. This means books under that price are not accepted for auction singly. The lesser items in a collection are generally \"lotted\"\u2014that is, lumped together in groups so as not to waste time and effort during the sale. Lotting, however, is a chancy affair. Real treasures may be lotted accidentally together with books of low value, offering an opportunity to the sharp-eyed dealer or collector.\n\nNumerous examples of such finds can be cited. One afternoon, for example, a dealer was the only bidder on a seemingly unpromising group of anthologies offered in one lot near the end of a long, tedious sale. When examining the group a couple of days after the sale, he was startled to discover that one of the books\u2014Some Imagist Poets (London, 1915), edited by Amy Lowell\u2014had been signed by each of the contributors. Obviously an industrious collector had gone to a lot of trouble to seek out the various authors for signatures. The one book was consequently worth many times what the dealer paid for the entire lot. It is easy to see that galleries cannot spend time searching through each book for possible hidden values. Every dealer and most collectors can tell tales of finding letters, money, photographs, and other paraphernalia tucked into books by previous owners. Within a space of five years I have personally known of letters by James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Dylan Thomas, and W. B. Yeats being found slipped in books\u2014and all of them had been overlooked by specialist dealers who had the books on their shelves. This kind of thing happens frequently enough in auction lots to make the time spent in checking them carefully before the sale quite worthwhile.\n\nSample page of a catalog from Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York.\n\nOfficial conditions of sale printed on the inside front cover of a catalog from the Swann Galleries, Inc., New York.\n\nSample page of a catalog from the Swann Galleries.\n\nAfter the books have been arranged into lots, the gallery prepares the sale catalog. Many factors come into play at this point. Descriptions must be as accurate as possible and, unhappily, as brief as possible due to space and cost restrictions. Only very special items can be given more than three or four lines. All pertinent information must appear within this restricted space, limiting any other comment to a very few words.\n\nThe catalogs of many galleries are as a result notoriously inadequate in describing condition. Often no more than the slightest reference is made to condition and frequently none at all, even though a book may be actually disintegrating. Most modern books are of a standard format physically, and auction houses rightly assume that interested collectors and dealers know fairly well what the books look like, so no space is wasted on detailed descriptions. Extraordinary items, such as important presentation inscriptions or significant correspondence, are usually quoted extensively and often reproduced in holograph facsimile, especially in the case of letters, since content normally determines price. Such description is particularly important for bidders who are unable to view the lots in person.\n\nObviously, then, catalogs are a must, despite the fact that they are usually expensive and may vary considerably in quality, comprehensiveness, and detail. Swann Galleries in New York issues a Spartan no-nonsense catalog, containing only textual descriptions, usually without illustrations, whereas Sotheby Parke Bernet and Christie's issue lavishly illustrated catalogs on glossy paper, often more expensive, but not necessarily more useful. The wisest policy is to subscribe to the catalogs on a seasonal subscription basis; it is less expensive than purchasing the catalogs singly, and they will probably reach you in time for you to research interesting items. This will also give you time to view the books and other materials, of which more will be said later.\n\nIt is imperative that you learn how to decipher auction catalogs, mostly for what is left unsaid rather than what actually appears in print. Read everything, particularly if you are a novice. Read especially the fine print at the beginning of every catalog entitled \"Conditions of Sale.\" These terms, fairly standard throughout the trade, have a legal basis, and knowledge of them can save you from disputes or unexpected expenses. It is also important to know that each lot is sold as is, regardless of damages that may occur while the books are on display before the sale. Many purchasers have been horrified to receive severely damaged a book that was perfect when they examined it before the sale, and then bid on. It had suffered careless handling during the exhibition. Yet the buyer has no recourse. It is wise to have a precautionary last look immediately before the sale to see if all is still well. In some galleries, such as Swann, this is relatively easy to do because the books remain in full view on the shelves during the sale. Most other galleries, including Christie's and Sotheby Parke Bernet (in both London and New York) halt the viewing the day before the sale. Even at these galleries the head of the book department will usually agree to let you see one specific lot if you arrange to do so in advance, but more than this cannot reasonably be expected.\n\nMost American galleries list lots in their catalogs in alphabetical order by author, although many of the major English firms list the books in the order in which they have been received from the various consignors. The latter procedure makes for a lot of time wasted in searching for your particular authors, and makes it very easy to overlook something of importance to you unless you resign yourself to reading straight through the catalog from beginning to end. Tradition, laziness, and the unwillingness of the galleries to go to the trouble of alphabetizing seem to explain such lack of organization. With alphabetized catalogs, the natural tendency is to look immediately for your particular favorites, but as soon as you have done this, start back at the beginning and read thoroughly. Unconsidered items that could be treasures may lie hidden in a group lot, or may be mislabeled, or may even be catalogued under a subject heading rather than by author. Remember that you are probably more knowledgeable about your particular author than auction catalogers who have only a limited amount of time for research.\n\nAfter the catalogs are sent out, the books are generally put on display for several days before the auction. This is an important phase of the auction, but the most dangerous one for the books. Repeatedly, important books have been stolen or have had laid-in items removed or have been carelessly handled and seriously damaged. Much wear and tear is occasioned, with spines ripped and dust jackets snagged and torn. Although the galleries have been slow to act, there has been a recent heartening trend to restrict viewing of valuable books that warrant exceptional care. Sotheby Parke Bernet and Christie's in New York now require appointments to inspect such books. You must examine one book at a time, under the scrutiny of a gallery official. This is a time-consuming procedure, but no other alternative seems practicable.\n\nAfter the catalogs have been published and before the actual sale, the gallery usually receives many bids by mail and by telephone from out of town. These are noted in a ledger which is referred to during the sale by a gallery assistant who calls them out in competition with bids from the floor of the gallery. Unfortunately it is here that the possibility of irregularity can arise, though auctioneers are usually honest and attempt to obtain lots for absentee clients at the lowest possible figure. When the sale begins, the auctioneer generally opens the bidding at approximately 40 percent of the house's lower estimate. Estimates in recent years have, for the most part, been extremely conservative, and are usually exceeded in the actual bidding. If a book is estimated at $500 to $700, the opening figure would be $200, with the bidding rising by $25 increments. Most galleries have standard increments which the auctioneer automatically announces whenever a bidder indicates his willingness to increase a bid. Rarely if ever is a figure called out by a bidder. At Swann Galleries, bid increases of $1 are accepted on items up to $20. Thereafter bidding goes by $2.50 increments until $50 is reached and then by $5 and $10 increments. At Sotheby Parke Bernet and Christie's, the range is $5 or $10 (depending on the auctioneer and also upon the quality of the sale) until $200 is reached, when the jumps go by $25 up to $500, then by $50 up to $1,000, and by hundreds after that. After $5,000, the increment is usually $250.\n\nOne of the many reasons for employing the services of a dealer to do your bidding is to prevent your mail-order bid from being knocked down at precisely your top limit, or just one notch below it. If there is no bid from the floor, an auctioneer can announce your top bid, and the lot may be sold to you at that price; for instance, if you are willing to go to $100, the bidding can be opened at $90 or $100. If you have a dealer on the floor, he can open the bidding considerably below that, and if there is no competition, secure the lot for you well below your limit. A book dealer will undertake to represent you at an auction for a standard fee of 10 percent of the price realized in a successful bid. Many novices feel that they are paying a dealer a lot of money for doing nothing more than waving his arm to obtain the lot. This may be true in the case of a fairly standard item that is not open to much price variation (as for example, a proper first of Ulysses, where the only question is one of condition). The fact is, however, that a dealer will often save you frustration, loss of time, and perhaps most important of all, money. Many people fail to remember that the dealer receives a fee only if the bid is successful, regardless of the fact that he may have spent the better part of two or even three days in your service.\n\nIf you are a good customer, a dealer will usually go to the trouble of alerting you to items of possible interest. He may obtain photocopies of the pertinent portions of the catalog or even galley proofs of the entire catalog before it is issued. If you decide to try for an item, he will certainly have to go and check the condition and authenticity of the desired lots. He then must attend the auction, including those long stretches during which there are no lots of interest to either of you. (The problem is especially acute in the case of authors at the end of the alphabet. Admirers of Yeats and Zukofsky must have an extra modicum of patience in their makeup.) If successful, the dealer will then have to return to the gallery a third time to obtain the items and, finally, be required to ship them to you. Obviously then, 10 percent may not even recompense him for his efforts, particularly if your lots are relatively inexpensive ones. One veteran New York dealer has been heard to mutter on the way out of a sale, \"Didn't even make cabfare on that lot!\"\n\nEmploying a reliable dealer to bid for you also eliminates the possibility of your mail order bid being opened at your top figure. If a close relationship has developed between you and the dealer, he will know when to use his judgment to exceed, if he thinks advisable, the limit you have stipulated. His experience tells him when an increase or two over your top figure will obtain the book. Also not to be overlooked is the fact that employing a dealer, particularly a specialist, eliminates him as a competitor for a desired lot. One well-known and well-respected dealer solicits bids from customers for important sales with the startlingly frank question, \"Well, am I going to bid for you or against you?\"\n\nA dealer also has a broader knowledge of trade trends and values than an individual collector. His profession demands that he attend all important auctions, and he receives and peruses carefully all of his colleagues' catalogs. His finger is on the pulse of the book-collecting field throughout his entire lifetime. (Rare-book dealers practically never retire, and seemingly live forever.) His experience enables him to advise you how much the item will probably cost you, as well as its actual worth\u2014needless to say, not always the same figure.\n\nThe dealer will usually know who your likely competitors are and what your probable chances of success in obtaining your lots. Once in a while a new buyer will come into the market, someone eager to form a particular kind of a collection for an institution perhaps, or possibly an institution itself using donated funds to acquire specific items or to build up certain areas. As long as these funds or that particular interest lasts, chances are that there will be an unusually inflated demand for certain books or authors. During these periods only an experienced dealer can advise you when to be bullish and when to be bearish, so to speak. Some items appear so infrequently that if you really covet a particular title, it may be best to go full steam ahead no matter what. On the other hand, an item may appear often enough to make waiting worthwhile until prices level off. There was a classic example of this in 1975 when Faulkner prices began doubling and tripling, in three successive sales, for no obvious reason other than that a couple of avid collectors had suddenly become interested in forming superb Faulkner collections. After they had obtained most of the prime titles, prices rolled back to about where they were before all the excitement started.\n\nA final but no less important reason to enlist the help of a dealer is information. Auction houses will usually answer as many questions as they can. However, it must always be remembered that their time is extremely limited. Most galleries conduct a sale of some kind daily, and book sales with some frequency. An enormous amount of work is required to prepare the catalog and make the myriad arrangements attendant upon a sale. Consequently, even with the kindest intentions, answers must unfortunately be brief. Auction gallery employees cannot be experts. Collectors and specialist dealers almost always have a much deeper knowledge of a particular subject area. Your specialist will know the crucial points of any given title\u2014for example, the different weaves of cloth used in the various bindings of Dylan Thomas' The Map of Love that distinguish the four states of the first issue of the first edition of this book. The gallery, even when willing, may not be able to identify them.\n\nNow comes the actual auction. A neophyte attending his first sale usually finds the procedure mystifying and may have a great deal of difficulty identifying who, if anyone, is actually bidding. The auctioneer's rapid-fire style of delivery makes it very difficult to find out where the bidder is located, and a lot may be opened and sold within thirty seconds or, at most, a minute or two. As many as a hundred lots will be run through in an hour, so there is no time for second thoughts or for trying to find out who is bidding against you. Some dealers and experienced bidders do not like it to be known that they are actually bidding and use prearranged signals with the auctioneer. The late Lew Feldman of the House of El Dieff, a New York dealer, one of the most active bidders of recent years, always sat in the last row of the gallery, apparently paying no attention to the proceedings. Even so, lot after lot would be knocked down to him. It took years of careful scrutiny before I penetrated the secret of his signals. It was obvious, simple, and subtle. He placed his glasses across the top of his head, instead of on his nose, as many people do who need them only for reading. Then a small movement of his eyebrows would shift the glasses slightly, just enough for the auctioneer to see and take note of.\n\nThe rapid, staccato type of delivery used by auctioneers slows down perceptibly when the bidding reaches higher levels and there are two active bidders. The auctioneer will then be patient, often trying to draw out one more increase, and even, in some cases, allowing the underbidder an increase smaller than the usual unit of escalation to break a tie or to move the price up another notch.\n\nIt is not unknown for artificial bidding to take place, although this generally happens more in the art world than in the book world. Some art dealers have been known to try to inflate a particular artist's reputation and price scale in order to increase the value of their own holdings. This is rather more difficult to do in the book world, and few dealers have enough stock of any particular author to make the game worth the candle. It is rumored, however, that the sudden, overnight skyrocketing of the prices of John Betjeman's books after a London auction some years ago was a deliberate ploy by fans who wanted to \"put him on the map\"\u2014that is, into the realm of high prices. One of them was said to have put up his collection and arranged for a couple of friends to bid each other up. The auction established record prices for Betjeman; but the owner lost nothing but the gallery fees, since the proceeds went to him and he bought back the books from his friends. At least that's the way rumor had it.\n\nThe lot legally becomes your property at the fall of the hammer, and it is no longer the gallery's responsibility. You must pay for it within three days unless you have a charge account, which normally gives you the privilege of paying within thirty days. It is prudent to remove your purchases immediately, since in a large establishment books can easily be lost or mixed into the wrong lot. Most of the major galleries have a pickup area separate from the auction room, and you may pay for your lots and remove them even while the sale is still in progress. In smaller galleries, you normally have to wait until the end of the sale or even, in some cases, until the next day.\n\nImportant book auctions don't happen very often, partly because of the scarcity of major collections and also because of the growing tendency for such collections to be acquired en bloc by institutions. Two of the most important sales of the first half of the twentieth century were the John Quinn sale, which extended through several sessions in 1923 and 1924, and the Jerome Kern sale, held early in 1929. These two sales dramatically point up the importance of timing in the breakup of a collection by auction. Quinn was a New York lawyer whose taste in both literature and painting was far in advance of the general public's. In addition, his judgment was uncanny. He was wealthy enough to extend financial aid to struggling writers, and in gratitude for his help through crucial times both T. S. Eliot and James Joyce sold him the manuscripts of their major works. Thus, Quinn's collection contained\u2014in addition to superb rarities of most of the writers now the most highly prized of this century\u2014the manuscripts of The Waste Land and Ulysses, two of the pillars of twentieth-century English poetry and prose. Quinn died suddenly and prematurely, and his heirs, anxious to liquidate his vast holdings, sold off the collection as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for them, the time was ill-chosen. The books and manuscripts went for ridiculously low figures. The manuscript of Ulysses was bid on by Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach for $1,975, far less than the cost of a routine copy of the first edition of the printed book today, and even then a derisory price. Joyce himself was so disturbed by it that he tried to buy it back from Rosenbach, but the doctor knew a bargain when he saw one and shrewdly refused. As a result the manuscript is now one of the choicest items on display at the Rosenbach Foundation in Philadelphia.\n\nConversely, Jerome Kern's collection came on the market at the very peak of the boom. The sale was held in January 1929, and his collection of high spots of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries set record prices, some of which have never been matched since. The Kern sale is still remembered today not only for the prices realized, but also for the quality of the majority of the books in the collection.\n\nThe Depression\u2014which began a matter of months after the Kern sale\u2014caused the liquidation of many collections at heartbreaking prices, and in the ensuing debacle of World War II, no major sales occurred. However, in the late fifties interest in first editions started a dramatic upward swing. In October 1958, the Guffey sale took place. It was a sale that illustrates the impact the auction of a major collection can have on the general price structure of a particular author. Don Carlos Guffey had been Hemingway's personal physician through most of the author's life, and had assembled what was probably the world's greatest collection of prime Hemingway material, with every book containing long, important inscriptions. There were letters and manuscripts as well. Until then, while Hemingway had been widely collected, prices were moderate even for the rare two first books, Three Stories and Ten Poems and in our time, both published by the Contact Press in France. This abundance of important material brought out heavy competition, and at this sale Hemingway prices skyrocketed. He became the number one star in the modern firsts firmament, and has pretty well remained there ever since. Oddly enough, it took Faulkner quite a few more years to move up to the level of Hemingway prices. Today Faulkner and Hemingway are the two most expensive American fiction writers to collect.\n\nWidespread misconceptions regarding auction prices still exist among collectors and even among some new or part-time dealers. Established, knowledgeable dealers in first editions repeatedly make legitimate offers to buy books, only to find the owner saying, \"It was sold for five times that at such-and-such a sale last month.\" It may well be true that a specific copy brought much more than the dealer has offered for the copy in hand, but what is generally unrecognized is that the source of most such quotations, American Book Prices Current, does not note unusually fine condition or even the possibility of rare variants that would have accounted for the unexpectedly high price realized. There is usually a reason for an uncommonly high price at auction. It is often caused by two collectors' wanting a relatively scarce item which has not appeared at auction or in a dealer's catalog for a long time; they will hammer away at one another until one is forced to drop out. A similarly fine copy might well appear at a subsequent sale and not bring anywhere near the same price, simply because the loser of the first round has no serious competition this time.\n\nAnother possibility is that an important point was not catalogued, but was spotted by the bidders. Quite often a signature or an inscription will appear in an unusual place and be overlooked. Just a few years ago a hawk-eyed librarian spotted Patrick Henry's signature on the cover of a copy of The Statutes of the Commonwealth of Virginia which he had helped draft, along with Thomas Jefferson\u2014certainly making it a copy of major importance. But this is an unusual place to look for a signature, and the auction gallery cataloger missed it, as did apparently everyone else, because I obtained the lot for the happy librarian for a nominal sum, with no opposition.\n\nThe time when a high price was recorded must also be considered. As I have said, the changing fashions in book collecting can cause high prices to be paid for certain titles which, a couple of years later, are so little in demand as to be virtually unsalable. An example of this can be seen in the books of J. D. Salinger, who a decade ago was one of the most sought-after authors. Nowadays, only Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories are salable, and these at prices generally lower than they were in the sixties. The other titles can scarcely be given away.\n\nGrudge fights sometimes occur even in the dignified atmosphere of the poshest galleries, perhaps as often as in the wrestling ring. Rival dealers may run a price up simply to keep the other one from getting a bargain. It is risky, of course, but some enmities transcend mere money. This sort of thing is, alas, indulged in more frequently than one might imagine.\n\nOccasionally a dealer will go beyond the limit given him by a client, since the latter almost invariably says, when being told that his bid was not successful, \"Oh, I wish you'd gone another notch.\" The clever dealer who knows his customer well enough knows whether or not he is risking a refusal. Legally, the customer does not have to pay the difference. Most collectors, however, prefer to do so. That this is not always true is illustrated by the notorious occasion in 1947 when Dr. Rosenbach himself went beyond the limit Yale University had given him to acquire a copy of the rare The Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in colonial America. Yale refused to pay more than the authorized amount and the doctor had to pay the difference out of his own pocket.\n\nFrom a seller's point of view, the auction process represents the best means of getting the highest possible price for his collection. At least, that is the cherished belief. It is, alas, not always the case; and there can be no guarantee. There are so many variables that affect the bidding at any given sale that you may, after all the charges have been deducted, be left with less than you would have received from a reputable dealer. If you sell to a dealer, you are usually paid immediately, whereas the auction process is a lengthy one, and it may be a year or more before any cash is in your hands. If the collection is a sizable one, the interest alone on the money tied up is an important consideration. The dispersal of the Jonathan Goodwin collection began in March of 1977 and was not completed until more than a year later. When you consider that the collection had been delivered to the gallery nearly a year before the first session of the sale (it takes many months to organize a large collection for auction and to prepare the catalogs) and that a number of weeks passed after the final sale before the owner received settlement, more than two years had actually elapsed between the time the sale was initiated and the time when the payment came in. The Streeter collection of Americana was so vast that it took several years to disperse it. No matter when your collection is accepted by a gallery, you cannot expect it to come up for sale for at least six months, and quite often for nearly a year. Most galleries close in late April for the summer and do not resume sales again until late September. In addition to the pressure on the gallery to accommodate other customers who are also anxious to sell material, it is important not to glut the market with more material of a similar nature than it can comfortably absorb at any given time. To do so would obviously drive prices down, something that neither the gallery nor the owner of a collection desires (however much the acquiring collector may pray for such an event).\n\nOnce the sale has actually taken place, you will normally not receive the proceeds for at least sixty to ninety days, since the majority of a gallery's clients have a thirty-day period in which to pay, and payment is not made to you until the gallery has collected from the bidders. Thus, in the normal course of events, it will take at least a year from the time you decide to sell, and often longer, before any cash is turned over. Since financial necessity is often the reason for disposing of a collection, this delay must be faced when deciding how to get rid of your books. The auction method may be too slow if your needs are immediate.\n\nSince the gallery's commission is based on the sales price, the auctioneer can be depended upon to extract the last possible bid. Up until the mid 1970s, fees were graduated on a variable percentage of the price realized, with the percentage figure diminishing as the price realized increased. This was true both here and in England. However, in the mid-seventies, the British auction firms began assessing the buyer a 10 percent commission, and correspondingly reduced the charge made to the consignor by the same amount. After some reluctance, the major American auction firms also converted to this policy. Since the beginning of 1979, the rates charged a consignor are now flat fees\u201410 percent from a private individual, 8 percent from a museum or public institution, and 6 percent from a professional dealer (the latter low figure in an obvious bid to attract quality merchandise for auction). It must also be remembered that, aside from this percentage figure, each house has a minimum fee per lot regardless of what it actually brings. This will vary from $20 to $35 per lot, and points up the necessity of grouping minor items so as to avoid disastrous fees for items that may not reach the minimum. In the case of an exceptional item, or even on a very unusual collection, special terms can sometimes be agreed upon.\n\nThere are also other charges that must be borne by the owner of the collection. These include insurance while the collection is on the gallery's premises and illustrations in the catalog. The cost of printing and distributing the catalog is paid for by the gallery, but photos of major items are charged to the owner's account, even though the gallery decides which items will be illustrated. However, photos are usually inserted only on those items likely to sell for more than $1,000.\n\nThe most confusion and misinformation involves an aspect of the auction business that is often overlooked and often unknown to many of the bidders. This is the question of reserves\u2014minimum prices set in advance on items to be sold. In theory, reserves do not exist, since most catalogs state that the merchandise is \"for public sale without reserve.\" In actual practice, however, reserves are put on most items of high value. This is not done to force bidding up to abnormal levels, but to protect the owner from having to sell a valuable item at a ridiculously low figure because of some fluke. It is, in effect, a safety net, and generally is placed at about 75 percent of the lower estimate. The assumption\u2014a fair one, in my opinion\u2014is that it would be ridiculous for an owner to have to part with a book worth $500 simply because there was only one bid of $50 or $100. Such circumstances can develop. For example, a few years back at Sotheby Parke Bernet a complete collection of the modern poet Charles Bukowski, which at that time had a retail value of approximately $1,200, was offered as one lot. Only a handful of dealers are interested in this kind of material. Of the five present in the gallery that day, one had consigned the lot and so could not bid on it; another had lost track of his place, and was one lot behind; the third was leaving town immediately after the sale for an extended period and could not cope with the problem of removal of such a bulky lot, consisting of several cartons; and a fourth dealer, to everyone's amusement, had fallen asleep and could be heard gently snoring. This left only one dealer interested, and to the owner's and the auctioneer's chagrin, the lot went for $100, since no one had thought to place a reserve on it. Had the owner done so, he would have in effect bought it back, paying the gallery only five percent of the reserve, and could have saved the collection for sale at another more propitious time. Such \"buy-backs\" are not announced as such, of course, but are announced as \"sold to order,\" a term that includes all sales made to bidders not in the room. In recent years, with most books exceeding the estimates, there is very little buying back. But the reserve is good insurance, nonetheless, and costs nothing.\n\nBook auctions in the United States are nearly as old as the nation itself. The first book auction was held in the latter part of the seventeenth century, only a couple of generations after the landing of the Pilgrims. They continue with unabated popularity today, despite grumbling and complaining about \"outrageous prices\" heard after every important sale. Attendance seems to be increasing, partly because an important sale is more than a chance to acquire rarities. In New York and London such sales have become, if not social events, at least tribal rituals where it is important to be seen if only to let your colleagues and competitors know that you are still alive and kicking. The auction sale, John Carter once wrote, \"is a mechanical convenience for the bibliophile community\" which provides important and valuable secondary services over and above the disposal and acquisition of books. It offers \"a continuous barometer of prices; color, romance, and excitement; surprises, upsets, and disappointments; landmarks, records, and historic occasions.\" It seems likely to remain a permanent feature of book collecting, for what else in the entire field of collecting can offer all that within the space of a couple of hours?\n\n# CHAPTER SEVEN\n\n# OTHER SOURCES\n\nIn addition to specialist dealers and the auction galleries, there are of course other means of adding to your collection. They are by no means as fruitful as the two primary methods, and may often be more frustrating than rewarding. But certain items, while desirable and possibly necessary to the completeness of your collection, may be either too insignificant or too low-priced for a dealer to want to take the trouble and expense of acquiring or stocking them. For these things you must turn to other sources.\n\nOne such source is always attractive, always fun\u2014and rarely, if ever, productive. That is the general secondhand or used-book store. A great many beginning collectors\u2014and even some of long experience\u2014have the feeling that they have only to walk into such shops to be rewarded with rare volumes that the owner is unaware of, and which have eluded all previous customers and book scouts. The fact is that virtually every dealer in this country and abroad is aware of the potential value of first editions in general. And no matter how ignorant he may appear, or even pretend to be, he usually has some knowledge of particular titles. Such dealers tend to overprice the items they do recognize, mainly out of ignorance of true values, and to overlook condition altogether. Most secondhand dealers keep a copy of Book Prices Current (and more recently Van Allen Bradley's biennial compilations of rare-book prices) in order to be able to price, more or less accurately, their out-of-print books. They may also be aware of the auction prices brought by certain first editions. But in their ignorance of the value placed on condition, these dealers are likely to price a dog-eared copy of a rare book at the figure a fine copy would be expected to fetch under more sophisticated circumstances.\n\nDespite these hazards, careful searches in secondhand book shops can still be rewarding. Many books give few hints about what they really are. Quite often a rare or important translation by a much collected author will not display his name in any obvious place on the book. For example, one of the most difficult items to find for any Ezra Pound collection is his 1923 translation of Edouard Estauni\u00e9's novel The Call of the Road, which nowhere bears Pound's name. Such an obscure novel by an obscure writer may surface in any secondhand bookshop. Likewise, esoteric journals and magazines containing otherwise unpublished articles by major authors can often be found in such places.\n\nAnother source, which is sometimes more profitable, is the charity bazaar. I include in this category garage or \"tag\" sales. Very worthwhile books are sometimes donated to the local charity, and some quite spectacular items have turned up at such affairs. The lucky early bird gets many a prize. These book sales, often conducted for the benefit of various universities, have become annual or semiannual affairs, and attract swarms of customers, some of whom travel hundreds of miles and stand in line for hours to be in the forefront when the doors open. Since the donors are usually college graduates and other presumably literate persons, the quality of the books tends to be a bit higher than that of books generally encountered in the ordinary thrift shop, where the likelihood of making a halfway decent find is remote, But do not despair, even in a thrift shop. A few years ago, in New York City, one of my scouts ran across not just one book, but a treasure trove of superb items. A retired copy editor who had worked all her life at Scribner's died with no known heirs, or at least none who were interested in her library. Her books had been stored in cartons in the basement of her apartment building along with her furniture and other unwanted items. The superintendent of the building eventually took the whole lot to the thrift shop. There they remained all one summer, occasionally thumbed through by apparently ignorant browsers, until my scout finally saw them. There were approximately one hundred books from the thirties, all in superb condition, in their dust jackets. All had long, generous inscriptions from the authors, who ranged from Clarence Darrow to Ernest Hemingway. And in one of the Hemingway volumes was the rough draft manuscript of a chapter of the book!\n\nNow obviously such windfalls seldom happen, but the fact that they sometimes do is sufficient reason to keep these sources in mind. Even as I write this I am arranging for sale by auction of an album of original photos of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, found in a trash can in a New York suburb by a couple of eleven-year-old boys. It can pay to do a little judicious trash-picking.\n\nIn the United States still another place to be watched is the type of bookstore specializing in publishers' remainders \u2014that is, books that, for a variety of reasons, the publisher is willing to dispose of at a fraction of their original price. While you will not find older books in such places, it is quite common to find many worthwhile first editions of books issued within the past few years, priced at a dollar or two. Sometimes even signed limited editions appear on these bargain tables. The copies you find will quite often turn out to be later printings, but a careful sifting of the entire stock may well reveal a few first printings mixed in. It pays to check remainder shops regularly and frequently, as their turnover is rapid, and if a particularly desirable title appears on these tables, the entire supply is likely to disappear within a matter of hours.\n\nChurch bazaars, roadside stands, garage sales, country auctions, antique stores, junk stores, and other such unlikely places have all been known to yield the occasional treasure. It doesn't happen often, but the true collector, if only to satisfy his curiosity, will never pass up the most unlikely place. Who knows, he might find an unrecorded copy of Poe's Tamerlane, one of which sold at auction in New York in 1974 for $123,000\u2014though I'm fairly certain it did not come from a thrift store.\n\nA group of dust jackets: TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934); THE SOT-WEED FACTOR by John Barth (1960)\u2014jacket is by Edward Gorey; IN HIS OWN IMAGE by Baron Corvo (1901); and THE RAINBOW by D. H. Lawrence (1915). From the author's collection.\n\n# CHAPTER EIGHT\n\n# COLLECTOR'S CONDITION\n\nThe most important factor in modern book collecting is also probably the most misunderstood and the most often ignored. I speak of condition. As in many other fields of collecting, particularly stamps and coins, condition plays an enormous part in determining prices. The premium placed on condition increases geometrically rather than arithmetically, as has been proven time and time again in the auction house. An example of this phenomenon occurred when the Jonathan Goodwin collection was auctioned in 1977 and 1978, in three landmark sessions. Mr. Goodwin had invariably acquired the best possible copy, and his willingness to pay premium prices for superb examples paid off when the collection was sold. Virtually every book in the collection set record prices precisely because its condition was so unbelievably high. Many beginning collectors (and inexperienced dealers) read of such prices and naively assume that they apply to all copies of the books, which they do not.\n\nTo a collector, the ideal is a book as fresh and bright and perfect in every respect as it was on the day it was issued. Obviously, it is hard to find copies in such condition, particularly from the period prior to World War II, when collectors were not nearly as concerned with condition as they are today. This is especially true of dust jackets, which were often ignored by even the best collectors of that period. It is for this reason that the books of F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, often go for ten times as much with jackets as do sound copies without the jackets. One university I know of has a cutoff date of 1930, refusing to buy a book issued after that date without its dust jacket. Some collectors refuse to buy any book without the dust jacket, preferring to wait and pay the premium for a jacketed copy. Obviously, here, as in all phases of collecting, a little common sense has to be employed. There are some books so rare that you would be well advised to purchase whatever copy comes along; you may go the rest of your life and never find another copy in any state. (I suspect this may well turn out to be the case with the previously mentioned Pound translation of The Call of the Road. The only copy I have ever seen or heard of in twenty-five years is one of three books in my own collection without a jacket.) If a book is that scarce, you will have no trouble in disposing of your unjacketed copy should you be fortunate enough to locate one with a jacket.\n\nThe jackets of thick books, such as Gone with the Wind or any of the novels of Thomas Wolfe, tend to wear out much faster than the jackets of slimmer volumes, simply in the process of being read. Accordingly, they are likely to be scarce, especially in fine condition. Well-jacketed books thus invariably command premiums over and above the normal price. For most modern books, the price of a copy with a fine jacket will be twice that of a copy without the jacket, and the price for one with a worn or tattered jacket somewhere between the two, the exact difference being determined, of course, by the degree of wear.\n\nQuite a few modern books, particularly little press productions and deluxe, limited editions with fancy bindings, are issued without dust jackets in the usual sense of the term. They may have glassine or clear acetate jackets without printing on them. Glassine, especially, is fragile and over the years tends to become brittle and tear easily. The term \"original glassine\" is often encountered in dealers' catalogs when such books are being described, with such copies commanding approximately the same premium as books with their original printed dust jackets. But there is widespread disagreement among dealers and collectors over just how much one can depend on such a description, even with the most scrupulous of dealers. Glassine is easily replaced, and, so far as I know, there is no easy way of determining whether glassine is \"original\" or of fairly recent vintage. Actually, glassine tends to yellow slightly as well as to become brittle, but short of expensive chemical carbon testing, there is no way of proving or disproving its \"originality.\" With clear acetate the problem is almost hopeless. For this reason, many collectors do not attach the same importance to glassine and acetate as they do to printed dust jackets. It is simply a matter of being realistic. And incidentally I have yet to read a catalog description where the glassine was described as anything but \"original.\"\n\nOne hears a good deal of talk about jackets being \"married\" to copies of books. This refers to a jacket that was not originally on the specific copy of the book, but was placed on it at a later date. Some people consider this somehow reprehensible, although personally I see no harm in it as long as the correct jacket is placed on the book and the binding of the book itself is not worn or faded. The jackets are usually identical, and at some point in the book's production it had to be \"married\" to its jacket, so I cannot see why there should be a fuss made. Quite often a dealer will come across a copy of a book with two jackets (it used to be standard practice for a publisher's publicity department to send out review copies with an extra jacket in case the newspaper or magazine wanted to use it as an illustration for the review) and most dealers will save the extra one to place on a copy that they may eventually acquire without a jacket. Most collectors are willing to accept such copies; in fact, virtually every collector I have ever encountered is perfectly willing to perform such a service himself, sometimes continuing to upgrade the condition of jackets throughout his entire collecting career.\n\nOf the book itself the area most subject to wear is the binding. This should be, ideally, free from signs of wear or obvious damage. However, what is termed \"shelf wear,\" if not serious, should not be an important factor, for it is virtually inevitable, particularly on most modern novels with three-piece cloth and paper bindings. The bottom edge of such books will become unavoidably darkened from sliding on and off the shelf. Sometimes the paper will split, or break through. At this point the wear must be considered serious. Such worn copies are bound to be less valuable than perfect ones.\n\nPaperbacks are more susceptible to wear than hardcovers. Most commercial paperbacks are bound in a flexible card stock that has been coated with a plastic laminate on the outside. This coating easily crackles if the cover is bent too far, and there is no method of correcting it. Another problem frequently encountered with paperbacks is that of pages loosening and falling out. This happens when a paperback is handled roughly, or too often, since most of the cheaper paperbacks nowadays are \"perfect\" bound, an ambiguous trade term meaning that loose sheets are glued together and then a cover glued around them (as opposed to groups of folded sheets being sewn together for binding). Obviously, with frequent handling, such a book will begin to disintegrate fairly quickly. With age, moreover, certain glues become brittle and weak. There is a different problem presented by deluxe, little-press limited editions. Their paper is usually of a better quality, but a frequent flaw is the fraying of the overlap edges. Any edge of a book cover that is wider than the actual pages is referred to either as an \"overlap\" or \"wallet\" edge. Over the years, since there is no body to support these edges, they become frayed, chipped, and snagged, detracting from the book's value. Even when a protective envelope is used, considerable care has to be taken when removing or replacing the book, since the soft, handmade papers of these editions are easily caught and snagged. There is little that can be done about snagging once it has occurred. Some collectors place tape on the inside edge of the covers to reinforce them, but this is rather a dangerous procedure; most tapes have chemicals that will eat through the paper, or, at the very least, leave an unsightly stain. If the book is of sufficient value, a trained conservationist can restore the damaged edge by replacing chips where possible and then sealing it with a plastic lamination. This not only preserves it but prevents further deterioration. Depending on the vintage of the book, a moderate amount of such fraying has to be expected, especially on books dating from the first quarter of this century. Perhaps the most famous example of a paperback with a wallet edge is the first edition of Joyce's Ulysses published in Paris in 1922. It was an unusually thick book, the paper covers rather insubstantial (in fact the spine was too weak to support the weight of the book). Copies were extremely hard to come by at the time of publication and were usually passed from hand to hand as reading copies, resulting in considerable wear and tear. Quite often the covers were deliberately removed to make the book easier to smuggle past U.S. and British customs agents, who were prepared to seize it as pornography. Thus copies of Ulysses with the covers in perfect condition are virtually impossible to find, and correspondingly fetch far higher prices than do copies with some wear and tear or restoration to the spine. With moderately poor condition the norm, most collectors are willing to accept it, so long as the wear is not too disfiguring or too extensive.\n\nThis leads to another aspect of condition\u2014rebinding. There are many copies of Ulysses that have been rebound, for the reasons cited above. They bring far lower prices than copies with the original blue wrapper covers, even those with some restoration to the spine. Once a book has been rebound, it has lost much of its value as a collector's item. Rebinding of modern books\u2014that is, any books originally issued in publisher's bindings, standard practice since the first half of the nineteenth century\u2014while perhaps aesthetically pleasing, is not only expensive, but also destroys much of the bibliographic interest and a large part of the value of the book. In the case of twentieth-century books, rebinding is seldom done. If a modern book is in such poor condition as to make rebinding imperative, the chances are very much against the game's being worth the candle. There are, of course, a few modern books that are so rare that even a rebound copy can be acceptable. A few years ago I had a rebound copy of Ezra Pound's A Lume Spento, his first book and one of the rarest books of twentieth-century poetry. A collector of first books had desired this title for a great many years, and he bought the rebound copy, but not without misgivings. And despite the book's actual rarity (fewer than thirty copies are known to have survived out of the original one hundred printed at Pound's own expense in 1908), within the space of two years he sold it. He is still searching for a copy in the original wrappers. I could mention a few other titles of such rarity as to make rebound condition acceptable, but there aren't many of them, and more common books, such as the novels of John Updike or the later books of Evelyn Waugh, are plentiful enough to make it totally out of the question to consider rebound copies.\n\nCondition is naturally important inside the book, too. There are many things that can detract from value. One of the most common is roughly opened pages. Many books issued with untrimmed pages must be opened before the book can be read. Some careless or lazy persons attempt to do this with a finger, inevitably making uneven edges, and often tearing portions out of a page. It is unwise to use a sharp knife to open pages either, as it may easily slide away from the folded edge and leave a long gash in the page proper. The safest method is to use either a paperknife or, curiously, an ordinary playing card. The card has enough strength to do the job, but none of the dangerous sharpness of a blade. Whether or not the pages of an unopened book should be opened at all is a matter over which there is no agreement among collectors and dealers. If you adhere to the principle that the ideal copy of a book is one in exactly the condition in which it was issued, then the pages should be left unopened. But this of course precludes reading the book at all. The majority of collectors adopt the sensible attitude that a book, even a collector's item, is designed to be read, and while dealers always like to make note of unopened condition when describing a book, I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that an actual premium is placed on an unopened copy in comparison with an opened copy.\n\nSoiled pages are bound to detract from the value of a copy, as will writing or underlining, unless this writing is by the book's author or by some famous person whose comments are themselves of interest. But extreme caution should be taken before erasing anything in a book. Many an unsuspecting person has erased the very thing that would have made a particular copy of a book valuable. One of the most horrifying incidents of this kind occurred some years ago in England, when a collector noticed a clerk in a bookstore erasing penciled notations from a stack of books, then placing each cleaned copy on a bargain table. Finally, the customer's curiosity got the upper hand, and as the clerk was placing the final volume on the table, he asked why such trouble was being taken. \"Oh,\" replied the clerk, \"we always erase all previous owner's notations. It makes the books easier to sell.\" But in this case the books had come from the library of the poet A. E. Housman! It was, of course, too late to salvage anything. All the books had been dutifully purged not only of the markings, but also of their scholarly interest and monetary value.\n\nSo it does not pay to be in too much of a hurry to erase traces of previous ownership in modern books. You can never tell who may grow into an important author some few years hence, and what is simply an unsightly signature today may be tomorrow's prized autograph. Let well enough alone. There is usually little if any difference in value between a copy with a signature on the flyleaf and one without, particularly in books dating from before World War II. Elaborate inscriptions or signatures on title pages (always excepting those of noted persons) do detract in general from both appearance and value, although not significantly unless the appearance is truly marred by unsightly effusive scrawling. Soiled spots, fingermarks, and such like can be removed (if you know how), but either let signatures alone or wait until you can find an unsigned copy. Pencil marks are usually easily removed, but ink presents more serious problems. Old-fashioned fountain-pen ink can be removed with standard ink removers, but since these are acid-based, there is the concurrent danger of harming the paper fibers. Ball-point ink is the hardest of all to remove and should be done only by experts. In general, eradication of signatures is best not attempted by amateurs. And even if the signature does not turn out to be a valuable one, a dated sign of ownership may well help establish the date of publication. With little presses, which come and go with very brief life spans, it is often impossible to ascertain even a few years later just when a book was published. Most such little presses do not keep detailed records, and a large majority of the books they issue are never copyrighted; as a result bibliographers are often stymied for even approximate information on publication dates and prices. While it may not be evidence that would stand up in court, a dated signature of ownership is some sort of guide, and may help narrow the possibilities for a bibliographer.\n\nObvious defects, such as a missing page\u2014especially an illustration or the title page\u2014are virtually fatal. Such copies are termed \"cripples\" in the trade, for obvious reasons, and I can think of no modern book so rare that a cripple should be bought at all. You will always have an incomplete copy, one that will be difficult if not impossible to resell, and one that is of little interest to anyone. And you yourself will always want a better, perfect copy.\n\nIn the chapter on dealers I suggested that some of the terms used to describe condition are at best vague, even though not intentionally so. Simply because certain words can convey a wide variety of meanings and shades of meanings, it may help clarify matters a little to set forth here the terms most often used in book dealers' catalogs describing condition:\n\nMINT, PRISTINE, SUPERB All three terms are practically synonymous for the perfect copy, bright and fresh as the day it was published.\n\nVERY FINE Almost the same\u2014flawless. Generally used by the more conservative dealers.\n\nFINE Slightly below \"very fine\" but still a copy showing no defects.\n\nVERY GOOD This term may possibly confuse beginners, who may misunderstand this to mean a fine copy. \"Very good\" copies are usually rather worn and obviously have been read more than once. Generally speaking, \"very good\" copies are a bit below acceptable standards for truly serious collectors.\n\nGOOD Almost at the bottom of the condition scale. The term is often expanded into the phrase \"a good working copy,\" meaning that the book is textually complete, but the binding and other condition factors are below grade. Such copies are of use mainly to students and scholars who want reading copies from which to work.\n\nPOOR The worst possible condition, usually hopelessly bad. It is seldom encountered in a catalog, since most dealers will not stock copies in such condition. There may be the occasional exception where a book is of such rarity that any copy must be considered; and in unusual cases an impecunious collector who cannot ever hope to afford a fine copy will accept a poor copy rather than never own the title at all.\n\nTo sum up, the importance of condition is always a matter of personal taste, and though condition determines the price of a book, one must be realistic. It makes no sense to be a \"condition crank\" or to let condition become an obsession. Remember that even new books are handled several times before they reach a dealer's shelf, and a minuscule flyspeck on the dust jacket is not fatal.\n\n# CHAPTER NINE\n\n# HOW TO IDENTIFY FIRST EDITIONS\n\nKnowing how to identify a first edition is plainly a matter of importance in the building of any successful collection. Without such knowledge, even a comparatively advanced collector of considerable sophistication can go wrong, sometimes disastrously so. While no reputable dealer will knowingly sell a book as a first when it isn't, there are many new dealers in the field who have not had sufficient depth of experience to know all the fine points. Even a dealer of many years' experience can come a cropper in an unfamiliar area where he has little or no expertise. And there are, alas, many fledgling dealers who simply haven't taken the time and trouble to learn the standard practices of the major publishing houses.\n\nWhich is not to say they are easy to learn. It sometimes seems as though publishers are\u2014or at any rate were in the recent past\u2014deliberately reluctant to make first-edition identification simple. Various handbooks are available\u2014none of them wholly reliable, unfortunately\u2014giving methods of identification, but the circumstances of collecting are such that you may not necessarily have an opportunity to make use of them when you need them. You may be at an auction, or at a neighborhood sale, or even in the shop of a dealer not specializing in firsts. If you leave the item and come back after you have done your checking, the chances are that someone else will have snapped it up in the meantime, especially if it is a truly desirable first edition. So it is wise to learn some key identification tests thoroughly.\n\nOn almost all modern books the necessary information will usually be found on the title page or its verso, the copyright page, or both. Knowing what to look for on these two pages will give you the answer in the large majority of cases, though not every time. First of all, check the name of the publisher. Most first editions will bear the imprint of the publishing firm, one recognizable as the original publisher. Especially before the post-World War II paperback revolution, several firms specialized in cheap reprints of popular books that had long since reached a point of no profit for the original publisher. Such books are usually very quickly recognizable by the cheapness of the paper and the binding, and also by the difference between the date of publication (normally on the title page) and the date of the copyright (on the copyright page). In most cases these dates should be identical, although it is possible for a book published near the beginning of a year to have a copyright date at variance with that on the title page. Many inexperienced collectors are also confused by the appearance of a long string of dates on the copyright page. This usually occurs on books of poetry or short stories where the individual pieces were published in periodicals at various earlier dates, and copyrighted then. Novels and plays will generally have a single copyright date.\n\nAmong the reprint publishers whose books may present some confusion are Doubleday and Company (formerly Doubleday, Doran & Co.) in Garden City, New York. During the last twenty or thirty years Doubleday has been publishing original works for the most part. But in the period between the two world wars, a large part of the Doubleday output consisted of reprints, and a Garden City imprint in those years should be taken as a clear warning to check further before assuming first edition status. Similarly, Indianapolis as an imprint should be another warning, since Bobbs-Merrill also issued a great many reprints, although once again it has also published first editions\u2014for example, the early work of William Styron and the first books of Vladimir Nabokov published in this country. A book club edition, so marked on the dust jacket or elsewhere, is virtually certain not to be a first edition. An exception, relatively new, is The First Edition Society of the Franklin Library (a subdivision of the Franklin Mint) at Franklin Center, Pennsylvania. (See Chapter 14 for further details.)\n\nSome book-club editions present a virtually insoluble problem of identification. Nowadays many books that are taken by book clubs are supplied by the publisher of the trade edition in identical format, with only the dust jacket giving any possible clue, sometimes having the name of the club somewhere on the jacket (although this is not always a positive identification, since in some cases the book's selection as a book-club premium is advertised on the trade edition). One infallible sign, if the dust jacket is still totally intact, is the absence of a price on the flap of the dust jacket. Some book-club editions have a small black dot or a blind-stamped dot at the foot of the rear cover. And on books from the forties, fifties, and even into the sixties, it was common practice to print the book-club editions on much thinner paper, and quite often to use a cheaper binding. Here the beginner must have both copies of both editions in hand to distinguish between them. Once again, the seasoned dealer can guide the collector.\n\nBefore describing the ways in which major publishers mark (or fail to mark) their first editions, a word about terminology may be in order. \"Edition,\" \"printing,\" and \"issue\" are all words used by publishers, bibliographers, and booksellers. However, they are not always used in the same way or even consistently, especially by publishers and booksellers.\n\nTo bibliographers (who try to be accurate in all things) an \"edition\" means all copies of a book printed from a single unchanged setting of type. In the publishing life of a book, the first copy off the press is a \"first edition\" and so is the five hundred thousandth, even if the latter has a different binding or was printed five years later\u2014so long as the original typesetting remains unchanged. A \"printing,\" on the other hand, means only those copies produced during a single press run. \"Impression\" is synonymous with \"printing.\" Thus an edition may incorporate a whole series of printings. An \"issue,\" finally, is a still smaller category than a printing. Sometimes during a press run the printer may discover an error, stop the press and correct it, then go on to finish the printing. Or a publisher may choose to bind the completed sheets at a different time in different materials. A bibliographer describes the differently bound copies, or those with an error and those without, as two separate issues. The word \"state\" means much the same thing as \"issue.\" (For fine distinctions, see entries under these words in Chapter 16.)\n\nTo publishers, \"printing\" is the key term. Most of them are today fairly careful to indicate the printing a particular copy belongs to (see below). They are much less careful in their use of the word \"edition.\" In publishing usage a \"new edition\" implies a complete revision or updating or recasting of the book and its contents. But before the book actually goes into a \"new edition,\" many textual changes of greater or lesser importance may be introduced silently at the time of a new printing. The poet Robert Lowell, for example, often took the opportunity offered by a new printing to change words and sometimes whole lines. So did W. H. Auden and Marianne Moore. Errors are usually corrected and minor updating done as a matter of course.\n\nBecause of this fairly free and easy attitude toward the words \"edition\" and \"printing\" in publishing today, book collectors and dealers have come to regard \"first edition\" and \"first printing\" as synonymous. A book listed in a catalog as a first edition will as a matter of course be a first printing. (Some scrupulous\u2014or overhopeful\u2014dealers may list a book as, say, \"First edition, fifth printing,\" which may be technically accurate but unappealing to a collector with no interest in anything but the first printing.)\n\nIt will be noted that more and more American publishers are adopting a system of ascending numbers printed on the copyright page, sometimes along with the words \"First Edition.\" These words and the numeral \"1\" are then removed from the plate at the time of the second printing so that the number series now begins with \"2.\" In this system there is no need for any resetting of type.\n\n9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2\n\nThe following list summarizes the first edition and printing notation practices of most major American and British publishing houses, particularly those who publish\u2014or have published\u2014works of widely collected authors. It is based upon information gathered from several sources, including my own experience, but most of it is the result of a canvass of the publishing houses themselves.\n\n# METHODS OF IDENTIFYING FIRST EDITIONS AND FIRST PRINTINGS OF BOOKS ISSUED BY IMPORTANT BRITISH AND AMERICAN PUBLISHING FIRMS\n\nABELARD-SCHUMAN, LTD. Later printings are so marked.\n\nADVENTURES IN POETRY To date no book has gone into a later printing. The colophon bearing publication data is generally the last page of text.\n\nGEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD. Later printings are so indicated.\n\nALOES BOOKS Later printings are so indicated.\n\nAPPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS (formerly D. Appleton and Company) The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page or the Roman numeral I follows the last line of text on the last page.\n\nARGUS BOOKS, INC. (also known as Ben Abramson, Publisher) Lack of any notice of a later printing indicates a first.\n\nARKHAM HOUSE All Arkham House books are first editions with the exception of The Collected Works of H. P. Lovecraft, where the edition is noted in the colophon.\n\nARROW BOOKS, LTD. There must be no indication of a later printing on the copyright page.\n\nATHENEUM PUBLISHERS \"First Edition\" (or \"First American Edition\" when the book has had a prior European publication) appears on the copyright page. One notable exception is Edward Albee's Tiny Alice, where this notice was inadvertently omitted. Since the book did not go into a second printing, all regular trade copies are first editions, but care must be taken not to confuse them with the simultaneous book club edition.\n\nTHE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS The lack of notice of any further printings on the copyright page indicates a first edition. In 1925, the firm merged with Little, Brown, and Company, and since then both names appear on the title page.\n\nTHE AUERHAHN PRESS With the single exception of John Wieners' Hotel Wentley Poems, no book ever went into a later printing. The title of the fifth poem is expurgated in the first printing of this book, but is spelled out in full in the later printing.\n\nROBERT o. BALLOU, INC. (or Robert O. Ballou, Publisher) The copyright page bears the legend \"First published\u2014\" (with year date).\n\nTHE BANYAN PRESS All books are first editions; the press does not reprint.\n\nBARRE PUBLISHING COMPANY Identical dates appear on the title and copyright pages.\n\nBASIC BOOKS Identical dates appear on the title and copyright pages.\n\nB. T. BATSFORD, INC. The copyright page bears the words \"First printed 19\u2014.\" Later printings are usually listed below this line.\n\nBEACON PRESS Earlier books listed later printings on the copyright page. Since the mid-1970s, the row of ascending numbers has been used, with the lowest number indicating the printing.\n\nBLACK SPARROW PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page. A further identification can be made by noting the color of ink on the title page. First editions have title pages in two or more colors, whereas the later printings have title pages in black only.\n\nBLACK SUN PRESS Most of the books had only one printing. The few that did have second printings are so noted in the colophon.\n\nBOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, INC. For many years there was no uniformity of practice regarding identification of first printings, a situation further complicated by the fact that the firm was primarily engaged in issuing low-priced reprints. Some titles bear the words \"First Edition,\" and copies lacking such (as, for example, William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness) are either later printings or book club editions. On some other titles, a lack of any indication denotes a first, with later printings being so noted on the copyright page. With this firm it is always wise to consult an author bibliography when possible.\n\nTHE BODLEY HEAD, LTD. First editions are designated by the words \"First published 19\u2014\" on the copyright page.\n\nALBERT AND CHARLES BONI (later, Boni and Liveright) Either the words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page or the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nR. R. BOWKER co. The absence of any notation of a later printing indicates a first edition.\n\nGEORGE BRAZILLER, INC. The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nBRENTANO'S This company's policy through 1927 was to list later printings on the copyright page. Beginning in 1928, the words \"First Edition\" were placed on the copyright page.\n\nBREWER AND WARREN (later, Brewer, Warren & Putnam) Identical dates appear on title and copyright pages. Also, a lack of any indication of a later printing denotes a first.\n\nBROADSIDE PRESS The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nCALDER & BOYERS, LTD. (also John Calder [Publisher] Ltd.) Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nJONATHAN CAPE, LTD. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nJONATHAN CAPE AND HARRISON SMITH (U.S.) There must be no listing of subsequent printings after the date of publication appearing on the copyright page.\n\nCAPRA PRESS Later printings are so indicated on copyright page.\n\nCARCANET PRESS As of 1979 no publication had gone into a later printing.\n\nCAXTON PRINTERS, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page. Lack of any printing information indicates a first.\n\nTHE CENTURY co. Book must have identical dates on title and copyright pages or the words \"First Printing\" on the copyright page. Where no date appears on the title page, lack of any indication of a later printing is evidence of a first edition. C\n\nHATTO AND WINDUS Later printings are noted on the copyright page.\n\nCITADEL PRESS Either the words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page, or else there is no indication of a later printing.\n\nCITY LIGHTS This firm has no policy regarding first printings. Sometimes later printings are indicated on the copyright page, and sometimes at the top of the rear cover. Sometimes an increased price is the only indication of a later printing, but obviously in such cases a knowledge of the original price is necessary. With this firm it is absolutely essential to consult author bibliographies.\n\nCOACH HOUSE PRESS Normally there is no mention made of first printings, but usually (although not always) later printings are indicated in the colophon.\n\nCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Prior to the 1970s, a date on the title page indicated a first printing. On later printings, the date was removed. Currently, the series of ascending numbers is in use.\n\nCOPELAND AND DAY Book must have identical dates on title and copyright pages.\n\nCORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS The copyright page bears the legend \"First published\u2014\" (with year date). Later printings are so indicated.\n\nCOSMOPOLITAN BOOK COMPANY Book must have identical dates on title and colophon pages.\n\nCOVICI FRIEDE (Also Pascal Covici) Either the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, or else the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nCOVICI-MCGEE, PUBLISHERS The words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nCOWARD MCCANN, INC. (later, Coward, McCann & Geohegan) There is no mention of first printings, but all later printings are so marked on the copyright page.\n\nCREATIVE AGE PRESS, INC. Either there must be identical dates on title and copyright pages, or, when no date appears on the title, there must be no indication of a later printing on the copyright page.\n\nTHOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, INC. This company has had three different ways of marking its first editions. The most common is to have the words \"First Printing\" on the copyright page. The second is the lack of any indication of a later printing. The third, and current, is the row of ascending numbers in conjunction with the words \"First Edition.\"\n\nCROWN PUBLISHERS, INC. Subsequent printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nCUMMINGTON PRESS The very few second printings by this press are so indicated in the colophon.\n\nDARTMOUTH PUBLICATIONS Book must have identical dates on title and copyright pages.\n\nTHE JOHN DAY COMPANY, INC. The date in the legend \"First Published\u2014\" (with month and year) on the copyright page must agree with the date on the title page; or, lacking this legend, there must be no indication of a later printing. Currently, the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nSTEPHEN DAYE PRESS There must be no indication of a later printing.\n\nDELACORTE PRESS The words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page, or when the book has had a prior foreign edition, the legend reads \"First Delacorte Edition.\"\n\nTHE DERRYDALE PRESS, INC. The copyright page has a listing of the edition, and usually the number of copies comprising the edition. This occasionally appears in the colophon instead of on the copyright page.\n\nANDRE DEUTSCH, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nTHE DIAL PRESS Either the words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page, or the dates on the title and copyright page must agree.\n\nDODD, MEAD & COMPANY Earlier, the dates on the title and copyright pages agreed. Currently, the series of ascending numbers is in use to indicate printings.\n\nTHE DOLMEN PRESS, LTD. Later printings are so indicated, usually (but not always) on the copyright page.\n\nGEORGE H. DORAN & co. The copyright page must bear either the words \"First Printing\" or the \"GHD\" monogram.\n\nDORRANCE AND CO., INC. Either the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page or there must be no listing of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nDOUBLEDAY & CO., INC. (Also Doubleday, Doran, & Co.) The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page. This is sometimes varied when the book is the first American edition, the legend then reading \"First Edition in the United States of America.\" Finally, if a limited edition preceded the trade edition, the legend reads \"First Edition following the publication of a limited edition.\"\n\nDOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nDUELL, SLOAN & PEARCE Any one of three indications must appear on the copyright page: \"First Edition,\" \"First Printing,\" or a Roman numeral I.\n\nDUFFIELD & CO. (or Duffield and Green) The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nDUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are generally indicated on the copyright page. Sometimes the presence of more than one copyright date will indicate a later printing if it is not so stated.\n\nDUNSTER HOUSE BOOKSHOP Identical dates appear on title and copyright pages.\n\nPHILIP C. DUSCHNES Identical dates appear on title and copyright pages.\n\nE. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. The earlier practice was to have the words \"First Edition\" on the copyright page. The current practice is to use the series of ascending numbers in conjunction with the words \"First Edition\" (or \"First American Edition\" when the book has had a prior foreign edition).\n\nEAKINS PRESS Usually (but not always) the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page. However, the question is academic as no books of this press went into later printings.\n\nECCO PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page. There is no marking for first editions.\n\nEQUINOX COOPERATIVE PRESS, INC. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nEYRE METHUEN, LTD. (formerly Eyre & Spottiswoode, Ltd.) Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nFABER & FABER, LTD. (formerly Faber & Gwyer) Until the mid-1970s this firm consistently used the words \"First published in \u2014\" with the year in Roman numerals. Subsequent printings were also listed in Roman numerals. Since that date, the practice has been the same but Arabic numerals are now in use.\n\nFALMOUTH PUBLISHING HOUSE, INC. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nFARRAR & RINEHART, INC. (also Farrar Straus & Company, Farrar Straus & Cudahy, and currently, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.) The earlier practice was to place the firm's monogram \"fs\" or \"frs\" in large lower-case italics on the copyright page. Currently, the words \"First Edition\" (with year date) appear on the copyright page. However, a problem arises with their paperback editions. The practice of this house has been to bind up in paper whatever sheets are on hand from hardcover printings. Thus second or even third printings are often actually the first paperback. Precise information on a given book must be obtained from the publisher or from a reliable bibliography.\n\nFIELDS, OSGOOD & CO. Identical dates appear on title and copyright pages.\n\nFOLLETT PUBLISHING co. First editions are not designated as such. A single date on the copyright page indicates a first, with later editions carrying a dated printing key on the copyright page.\n\nFOUR SEAS COMPANY No notice of later printings appears on the copyright page.\n\nFOUR SEASONS FOUNDATION Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nSAMUEL FRENCH, INC. The firm makes no distinction whatever between printings. A bibliography must be consulted, or you must have a sure knowledge of the proper ads to be found on the back cover. These ads change with each printing. F\n\nULCRUM PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nFUNK & WAGNALLS, INC. These are three different methods employed by this firm to indicate first editions: the copyright page bears the words \"First Published\" (with a month and year); or the numeral 1 appears after the copyright date; or, in some rare cases, there is merely no indication of a later printing. Currently the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nGAMBIT The words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nBERNARD GEIS ASSOCIATES The words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nGODINE PRESS Later printings are so designated on the copyright page.\n\nVICTOR GOLLANCZ, LTD. There must be no indication of a later printing on the copyright page.\n\nLAURENCE J. GOMME Identical dates appear on title and copyright pages.\n\nGRANADA PUBLISHING, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on copyright page.\n\nGREENBERG PUBLISHER, INC. There must be no indication of a later printing on the copyright page.\n\nGREY FOX PRESS In some cases, the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, but all later printings are so indicated there.\n\nGROSSMAN PUBLISHERS, INC. This firm was not consistent in its markings. Some books bear the words \"First Printing\" on the copyright page, others simply lack any indication of further printings. This later style was used on books published in conjunction with the British firm of Jonathan Cape, Ltd.\n\nGROVE PRESS, INC. The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, with later printings also noted there.\n\nHAMISH HAMILTON, LTD. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nHARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY (also Harcourt, Brace & World, and currently Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.) At first the practice was to place the numeral 1 on the copyright page, or to have the legend \"Published\u2014\" (with month and year), this date being identical with the date on the title page. Currently the words \"First Edition\" (or \"First American Edition\") must appear on the copyright page.\n\nHARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS (also Harper & Brothers, and Harper & Row, Peterson) First printings of books published by this firm between 1960 and 1973 are the most difficult of all to identify. Most Harper books published between 1922 and 1960 should bear the words \"First Edition\" on the copyright page. However this policy was not always adhered to, and from 1960 until 1973 (except on certain books originating in Great Britain) two code letters were used alone on the copyright page. (Prior to 1960 the code letters were also used but in conjunction with the phrase \"First Edition.\") These code letters, whose use first began in 1912, indicate respectively the month and year of the printing of that copy of the book, according to the schedule on the next page. With this key you can easily determine the month and year of printing of the copy you have, but it will still be necessary to ascertain in what month and year the book was first published before you know your book is a first printing. So you will have to consult an author bibliography, if one exists, or to try to obtain publication information from the firm itself. Unfortunately, the latter method is seldom successful; in some cases the firm no longer has records, and in some cases no one has time to reply. Fortunately, this coding system was discontinued in 1973 in favor of the series of ascending numbers in conjunction with two-digit year dates.\n\nHARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page, with the dates on the title and copyright pages identical. Dates are removed from title pages on later printings.\n\nKey to Harper & Row printing dates.\n\nHASTINGS HOUSE PUBLISHERS, INC. Dates on title and copyright pages are identical, with no indication of later printing on the copyright page.\n\nWILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nHILL AND WANG Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nHOGARTH PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nHENRY HOLT & CO., INC. (Also Holt, Rinehart and Winston) Earlier books were marked with any one of three different wordings: \"First Edition,\" or \"First Published\" (with month and year date) ; or on the copyright page, with the year date corresponding to the date on the title page. Currently, the words \"First Edition\" appear with the ascending series of numbers.\n\nHORIZON PRESS There must be no indication of later printings.\n\nHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Earlier books bore the date on the title page, with no date on later printings. Currently, the series of ascending numbers is in use.\n\nHOWELL SOSKIN PUBLISHERS There must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nB. W. HUEBSCH The dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nINDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS There must be no listing of later printings on the copyright page. Recently, the system of ascending numbers has been adopted.\n\nJARGON (Jonathan Williams Publisher) There is no indication of edition on the publications of this firm with the single exception of Irving Layton's Improved Binoculars, where a second, expanded edition was issued, and so noted on the front cover. All other books were issued in one printing only.\n\nTHE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nMICHAEL JOSEPH, LTD. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nKAYAK Those few books that have gone into second printings are so designated on the copyright page.\n\nMITCHELL KENNERLY Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nKENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Until 1973 the words \"First Edition\" appeared on the copyright page. Since then, the policy has been reversed, with no notice of first printings, but with \"Second Printing,\" etc., on the copyright page to denote later printings.\n\nALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. On earlier books, the date on the title page must correspond with the copyright date, as the date on the title page generally indicates the year of the printing, rather than the year of original publication. This is still true, but in recent years the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, with subsequent printings also listed there.\n\nJOHN LANE COMPANY Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nSEYMOUR LAWRENCE, INC. The words \"First Printing\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nJ. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY In earlier books the words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page, or the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. An example of this latter style which confuses many collectors is Thomas Pynchon's V, where the first edition is identifiable only in this manner. More recently, the series of ascending numbers has been used in conjunction with the words \"First Edition.\"\n\nLITTLE, BROWN & CO. The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nHORACE LIVERIGHT, INC. (Also Liveright Publishing Co.) There should be no evidence of later printings on the copyright page. In some cases, the words \"First Edition\" appeared on the copyright page, but the absence of them does not indicate a later printing. Since 1970 the series of ascending numbers has been employed along with the words \"First Edition.\"\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN & CO. The legend \"First Published\" (with year date) appears on the copyright page. This date must agree with that on the title page.\n\nLOTHROP PUBLISHING co. The dates on title and copyright pages must be identical, with no listing of further printings on the copyright page.\n\nLOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS There must be no listing of additional printings on the copyright page.\n\nJOHN w. LUCE & co. There must be no listing of additional printings on the copyright page.\n\nLYLE STUART, INC. The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, with this changed to \"Second Printing,\" etc., on subsequent printings.\n\nTHE MACAULAY co. There must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nROBERT M. MCBRIDE & co. Three different methods of identifying first editions have been employed by this firm: the words \"First Edition\" on the copyright page; \"First Published\" (with month and year) on copyright page; or \"Published \u2014\" (with month and year) on copyright page. In both the latter styles, the dates on title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nMCCLELLAND AND STEWART, LTD. Later printings are usually so indicated on the copyright page. The firm admits that there have been some accidental omissions.\n\nTHE MCCLURE CO. (Also McClure Phillips & Co.) The copyright page must bear either the legend \"Published\" (with month and year) or \"First Impression\" (with month and year). In either case the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nA. c. MCCLURG & co. The copyright page bears the legend \"Published\" (with month and year).\n\nMCDOWELL OBOLENSKY co. The words \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nMACGIBBON & KEE, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nMCGRAW-HILL BOOK co. The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page. More recently, the series of ascending numbers has been in use.\n\nDAVID MCKAY COMPANY, INC. Prior to the 1970s, there must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page. Since then, the series of ascending numbers has been in use.\n\nMACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC. Either the words \"First Printing\" or the legend \"First Published\" (with month and year date) must appear on the copyright page, in which case the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. There have been occasional exceptions to this practice, and it is safer to consult author bibliographies when possible.\n\nMETHUEN & CO., LTD. See EYRE METHUEN, LTD.\n\nMINTON, BALCH & co. Dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nMODERN AGE BOOKS The dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nWILLIAM MORROW & co., INC. Prior to the 1970s the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. Occasionally the legend \"First Printing\" (with month and year) was employed. Since the 1970s the series of ascending numbers has been used in conjunction with the words \"First Edition,\" which are allowed to remain unless there has been a revision of the text.\n\nNASH PUBLISHING co. The words \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nTHE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY, INC. The words \"First Printing\" (with month and year date) must appear on the copyright page. This date must be identical with the date on the title page.\n\nNEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING CORP. Over the years the first-edition indication system of this firm has varied so much that it is jocularly referred to by some dealers as \"No Directions.\" The policy has been particularly inconsistent in respect to its hardbound books. On the paperbacks, the printing has almost always been noted in either the upper left or upper right corner of the rear cover. With the hardbound books, identification of first printings is difficult and often impossible. Generally, any book that does not show evidence of a later printing can be assumed to be a first, but there are numerous exceptions to this rule. Specific information must be sought, or an author bibliography consulted. Frequently, the later printings are noted only on the dust jacket flaps, which may, of course, be clipped, or removed entirely, rendering positive identification difficult at best. In one case, at least, the phrase \"First Edition\" appearing on the copyright page of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo was allowed to remain on the second printing (which can be identified only by the color of the binding). Recently, later printings have been so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nNEW RIVERS PRESS The colophon carries all pertinent information regarding the printing and edition.\n\nw. w. NORTON & CO., INC. The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page. More recently, the series of ascending numbers is being used in conjunction with the words \"First Edition,\" which are sometimes allowed to remain on later printings\u2014for example, on Adrienne Rich's Diving into the Wreck.\n\nIVAN OBOLENSKY The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nTHE ODYSSEY PRESS, INC. The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, or else a combination of letters and numbers \u2014the letter indicating the state of the text, and the number, the edition. Thus \"A-1\" indicates a first printing of the original text, whereas \"B-1\" would be the first printing of a revised text, and \"A-2\" would be a second printing of the original, unrevised text.\n\nOHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nOHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nOLIVER & BOYD Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nOLYMPIA PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nJAMES R. OSGOOD & co. Dates on title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nPETER OWN, LTD. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS All later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nOYEZ Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nPANTHEON BOOKS, INC. The words \"First Edition\" or \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nPAYSON & CLARKE, LTD. The dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nPELLEGRINI & CUDAHY There must be no evidence of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nPENMAEN PRESS This firm issues only first editions, which are sometimes so marked.\n\nPERGAMON PRESS, INC. The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nPERISHABLE PRESS The policy of this firm is to print one edition only, and therefore there is no indication of printing on anything except the first book of the press, The Disillusioned Solipsist, which bore the words \"First Printing\" on the title page. This practice was abandoned immediately thereafter.\n\nPETER PAUPER PRESS Formerly when the books of this press were limited editions notice of such was made in the colophons. Since shifting to the publication of trade books, there has been no definite means of identifying printings. The matter is, however, academic, as virtually everything published by this house consists of reprints of established classics.\n\nTHE PHOENIX BOOK SHOP Later printings are so noted on the title page.\n\nTHE POET'S PRESS Relatively few books of this press have gone beyond first printings. Those that did are so noted on either the title or the copyright page.\n\nBERN PORTER BOOKS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nCLARKSON POTTER, INC. The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page, with later printings being so noted.\n\nPRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Formerly, later printings were so noted on the copyright page, but this practice has been discontinued and later printings are indicated only when there has been significant change in the text.\n\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Later printings are sometimes so noted on the copyright page. In any case the dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. Books that are reprinted frequently lack any date whatever on the title page.\n\nRAND, MCNALLY & co. The words \"First Printing\" (with month and year) appear on the copyright page. The date there must correspond with the title page date.\n\nRANDOM HOUSE The words \"First Edition\" or \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page. (Two important exceptions to this practice are Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun and Knight's Gambit, in which all indication of first printing status were inadvertently omitted. These first editions must be distinguished by the colors of their bindings.)\n\nHENRY REGNERY COMPANY This company follows no set practice. During the year 1974 it used the series of ascending numbers, but discontinued it the following year. Bibliographies must be consulted.\n\nREYNAL & HITCHCOCK, INC. Most books of this firm bore no indication of printing (there were a few exceptions carrying the words \"First Printing\" on the copyright page). Lack of any indication of a later printing indicates a first.\n\nROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL, LTD. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nWILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE The dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nRUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nSAGAMORE PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nSAGE BOOKS, INC. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nSAND DOLLAR To date no book of this press has gone into a later printing. The publisher states that should this happen, he will indicate later printings on the copyright page.\n\nHENRY SCHUMAN, INC. (now known as Abelard-Schuman, Ltd.) Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS This firm has employed three different methods of marking its first editions. Until early in 1929, the dates on the title and copyright pages had to be identical, with no indication of a later printing on the copyright page. Late in 1929, the code letter \"A\" began to be placed on the copyright page to indicate the first printing. On later printings this was either removed or replaced with subsequent letters of the alphabet. This code letter system was discontinued in 1973 and the series of ascending numbers adopted.\n\nSEARS PUBLISHING co., INC. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nMARTIN SECKER & WARBURG, LTD. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nTHOMAS SELTZER Dates on title and copyright pages are identical. SHAMBALA PUBLICATIONS, INC. Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nSIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. The words \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nWILLIAM SLOANE ASSOCIATES, INC. The words \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nSMALL MAYNARD & co. Dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical.\n\nHARRISON SMITH, INC. (also known as Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, Inc.) The words \"First Printing\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nSOMETHING ELSE PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nSOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nSTANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so noted on the copyright page.\n\nSTEIN & DAY, PUBLISHERS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nFREDERICK A. STOKES & co. Dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. HERBERT S. STONE & CO. (also Stone & Kimball) Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nSTONEWALL PRESS Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nSUMAC PRESS The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page in most cases, but not all. However, all later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nTHE SUNWISE TURN Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nTHE SWALLOW PRESS (also Alan Swallow, Publisher) The words \"First Printing\" (with month and year date) must appear on the copyright page with the year identical with that on the title page. More recently, the wording has been changed to \"First Edition, first printing.\"\n\nSYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS There must be no indication of a later printing on the copyright page.\n\nTAPLINGER PUBLISHING CO., INC. The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page. If the book had a prior foreign edition, the wording will read either \"First American Edition\" or \"First Published in the United States in\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014(year) by Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc.\"\n\nTICKNOR AND COMPANY (also Ticknor and Fields) Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical in most cases. There are however some exceptions where the title page date may possibly be a year later than the copyright date. With this firm it is always best to consult either an author bibliography or the Merle Johnson checklist.\n\nTOTEM-CORINTH There is no specific way of indicating first or later printings by this firm, and extreme care must be taken, as almost all of this firm's important titles have gone into numerous printings, most of which appear similar to the untutored eye. Generally speaking, the later printings will have ads in the back of the books listing titles that were published later than the first printing of the particular book. To identify these, however, requires detailed knowledge of the publishing chronology of all of the firm's books. It is absolutely imperative to consult author bibliographies or reliable checklists.\n\nTRIDENT PRESS Dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical, or, in some rare cases where the title page date is a year later than the copyright date, there must be no listing of additional printings.\n\nTROBAR Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nFREDERICK UNGAR PUBLISHING co., INC. There must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nUNICORN PRESS All information is contained within the colophon, which usually gives the printing dates and the size of the edition.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS There must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS There must be no indication of later printings on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Dates on the title and copyright pages are identical.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page (or very occasionally on the title page).\n\nUNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the title page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the title or copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS The words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY PRESS OF VIRGINIA Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nVANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nVANGUARD PRESS, INC. Prior to the mid-1970s, later printings were so indicated on the copyright page. Currently, the series of ascending numbers is used.\n\nVIKING PRESS, INC. (now Viking Penguin, Inc.) Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page, which usually bears the words \"Published\u2014\" (with month and year). On juveniles, the words \"First Edition\" appear on the copyright page along with both a numerical and a year code\u20141 2 3 4 5 82 81 80 79 78. On the second printing the words \"First Edition\" are removed, along with the numeral 1, and also the year date if the printing is in a succeeding year.\n\nFRANKLIN WATTS, INC. On earlier books, the words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page. Since the mid-1970s the series of ascending numerals has been in use.\n\nWEIDENFELD & NICHOLSON, LTD. (also Weidenfeld [Publishers], Ltd.) Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nWESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS The words \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page, where later printings are also indicated.\n\nWEYBRIGHT & TALLEY, INC. Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\nWHITE RABBIT PRESS Almost no books of this press went into later printings. The one known exception is Robert Duncan's As Testimony, where the second printing can be distinguished by the presence of illustrations.\n\nWHITLESEY HOUSE Either the words \"First Edition\" will appear on the copyright page, or there will be no notice of later printings.\n\nTHE H. W. WILSON co. The dates on the title and copyright pages must be identical. Later printings are also usually indicated on the copyright page.\n\nWINGBOW PRESS The words \"First Edition\" or \"First Printing\" usually occur on the copyright page, where later printings are so indicated.\n\nWORLD PUBLISHING co. The words \"First Printing\" or \"First Edition\" must appear on the copyright page.\n\nYALE UNIVERSITY PRESS Later printings are so indicated on the copyright page.\n\n# CHAPTER TEN\n\n# BIBLIOGRAPHIES\n\nSeveral times in this book I have recommended that collectors refer to author bibliographies in identifying first editions, as well as for other information. A great many bibliographies now exist for twentieth-century authors, although, sad to say, only a small handful of them are really accurate. Some, because of sketchiness or errors, are not even useful. Particularly noteworthy for their excellence are those compiled for Ashbery, Auden, Cummings, Eliot, Frost, Hemingway, James, Kerouac, Lawrence, Pound, the Sitwells, Stevens, Wilder, William Carlos Williams, and Virginia Woolf. I will immodestly include my own bibliography of Gertrude Stein in this list. There are, unfortunately, many important twentieth-century authors who are widely collected, but who have not as yet received the attention of a serious or competent bibliographer. And there are also a great many so-called bibliographies that need total revision to be of any real use. Bibliography is a field with a great many opportunities for good, solid work to be done. This chapter lists all the bibliographies currently available for modern authors. I begin with a handful of general works that comprise, in the main, short title checklists of a large number of authors in one or more volumes. Of these, the most useful single volume ever produced in the United States for the aid of collectors is Merle Johnson's American First Editions, which first appeared in 1929 and was periodically revised and updated in 1932, 1936, and 1942, the latter two under the aegis of Jacob Blanck following Johnson's death in the early thirties. (Curiously there seems never to have been a comparable British volume.) All editions of Johnson have long been out of print, including a small pocket format reprint of the 1942 edition which appeared in 1962. This was quickly sold out and is much sought after. Many dealers will have a copy that you can consult, and (if it hasn't been stolen) most major libraries usually have one on their reference shelf. The book covers the first editions of approximately two hundred American authors, beginning with the post-Revolutionary literary pioneers such as Robert Bird, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and Philip Freneau, proceeding through all the nineteenth-century giants, and ending by doing yeoman service on the moderns who rose to prominence in the first three decades of this century. While there are, of course, some curious omissions, and even more curious deletions (the 1942 edition dropped Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound \"as there is not sufficient interest in these authors to continue listing them\"), there are very few errors of fact. American First Editions is still one of the most reliable volumes for quick, handy reference.\n\nBlanck did not issue another revision of Johnson for the simple reason that he had become involved in a far more extensive project\u2014the multivolume definitive Bibliography of American Literature, commonly referred to by its initials, \"the BAL,\" or sometimes by its editor's name, \"Blanck.\" Mammoth in scope, it proposes to cover in minute detail every known printing of every book or pamphlet by any American author of any degree of literary merit who died prior to 1930. It has never been revealed just how the relative degrees of \"literary merit\" were ascertained, or just why 1920 was chosen as a cutoff date. In any event, if the project has any fault, it is on the side of generosity, since it includes some extremely minor authors, as well as all those of importance and collector interest. The volumes have appeared irregularly at intervals of a few years. So far six volumes have been published, covering authors whose names begin with the letters A through O. Volume Six, published in 1973, is the last one to have benefited from the guidance of Jacob Blanck, who, alas, has since died. The series will be continued nonetheless, under the general direction of the Yale University Press, but the loss of its master spirit has dealt it a staggering blow.\n\nEach entry in the BAL is numbered, and it has already become standard practice for knowledgeable dealers to identify an item in their catalogs, particularly nineteenth-century titles, by listing its BAL number. This avoids any possible confusion among collectors or librarians about which edition is being offered. The series is rather costly for a private collector to own and, when completed, will take up nearly as much space as the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. Nor is it particularly geared for collectors of twentieth-century material, because of its cutoff date. But it is invaluable for authors who straddle the last century and this, and it is without doubt the definitive work for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American authors.\n\nUnfortunately, there is nothing, at least as yet, that takes the place of the BAL for British authors. I. Brussell's pioneering work Anglo-American First Editions is invaluable in the tricky field of twentieth-century authors who published on both sides of the Atlantic. Beginning with the first full-fledged American expatriate author, Henry James, the problem of whether the British or the American edition of a title takes precedence has been a constant plague and a problem for collectors. The old maxim of \"follow the flag\" (i.e., collect only the books published in the native land of the author) is rather a Procrustean solution and often flies in the face of facts. And it is also difficult to apply in the case of such authors as Henry James, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden, who changed their citizenship in mid-life. While a rough rule of thumb will sometimes apply\u2014the books of Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, and Christopher Isherwood usually appeared first in the countries where they were living at the time of publication\u2014this was not always true. From 1940 onward, the American editions of books by that trio are firsts, whereas the British editions are the true firsts for books published prior to that date. Of course, exceptions are numerous, and the only safe method is to check author bibliographies. Fortunately, the revised edition of the bibliography of W. H. Auden, compiled by B. C. Bloomfield and Edward Mendelson, is meticulous in detail and totally accurate, one of the best author bibliographies ever published. On the other hand, there has been no good bibliography of Huxley, and the Isherwood bibliography, while listing both British and American editions, fails to make plain which is the proper first. Luckily, work is being done on a revised and fully detailed study of Isherwood, and it is to be hoped that its publication will fill one of the major gaps in twentieth-century bibliography.\n\nThere are three other helpful guides which must be used with extreme caution. The least dubious is the first, Van Allen Bradley's Handbook of Values, now in its third edition, with many of the errors that marred the two previous editions removed. It does not attempt to be a bibliography as such, concentrating as it does on current market prices for an extremely large number of books that are popular with collectors, and not only in the literary field. Such an undertaking cannot go into much detail, and book descriptions are necessarily perfunctory. But it does list specific \"points\" and usually gives prices for both first and second issue varieties. Its main fault, aside from omissions, is the fact that the prices have been compiled from dealers' catalogs and auction records, with no apparent effort to edit out patently ridiculous prices. Many a dealer will put an outrageous price on an item in his catalog, either out of ignorance or out of greed, or perhaps from a combination of both. Such a figure does not by any means represent a true value, and the book in all probability will not find a buyer at that price, at least not for many years to come. Thus one must read Bradley's quotations with awareness of the fact that the reported prices are simply a cross-section of dealers' asking prices. Under the circumstances there are bound to be occasional bloopers, both high and low. But in the main it is fairly accurate, and will tell you at least what sort of ball park you are in with regards to any given title\u2014that is, whether it is a book likely to cost $50 or $500. Incidentally, to prevent his book from becoming unwieldy and bulky, Bradley does not list any title valued at less than $25. However, the absence of a listing does not mean per se that the title is worth less than $25: it can mean merely that the book is so scarce that no copy has been offered in the past few years, and there is, accordingly, no price on record. For example, Gertrude Stein's Is Dead was privately issued in an edition of only twenty-five copies. No copy has appeared at auction or in a dealer's catalog, at least not for the past twenty years, and one would easily bring several hundred dollars, regardless of the fact that Bradley does not list it.\n\nThe second book referred to is Gary Lepper's A Bibliographical Introduction to Seventy-five Modern American Authors. Despite its title, this work contains virtually no bibliographic data whatever, the contents comprising the briefest of checklists of the authors covered. It is a pioneering work, bringing to light a great many fugitive pamphlets and broadsides whose existence was known to very few dealers or collectors, and does provide the only checklists thus far available for a great many contemporary authors. But unfortunately it is so badly flawed with errors of fact that it is dangerous for a beginner to use. I have counted more than two hundred such errors, including listings of books that were never published and of pages removed from magazines described as \"broadsides,\" to say nothing of incorrect priorities being given in dozens of cases where a book was published in more than one format. Lepper's is a book that can be used with safety only with outside guidance, either from a knowledgeable dealer or from a veteran collector who already knows the intricacies of the books being described.\n\nThe third reference guide is somewhat similar\u2014Gale Research's First Printings of American Authors. It is more ambitious than Lepper in that it includes nearly five times as many authors, but like Lepper, it gives only the scantiest information, with no mention of dust jackets. Also like Lepper, it is badly flawed with errors of fact. In some cases it reprints Lepper's mistakes, thereby reproducing and reinforcing many glaring and obvious errors. The book is weirdly arranged\u2014not by alphabet but by the order in which the editors received the various lists from the compilers, often necessitating a search through four cumbersome volumes, all too large to fit upright on shelves. First Printings is also overloaded with many virtually unknown authors as well as a great many of dubious merit. Once again, as with Lepper, it is not a book a beginning collector can rely on. But it does provide checklists, inaccurate though some of them may be, for many authors about whom no other publication information is available. It has one feature possessed by no other reference work in this field: a generous number of reproductions of title pages for each author covered. This is a great aid in identifying proper editions.\n\n# LIST OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY AUTHOR BIBLIOGRAPHIES\n\n\u00c6 [GEORGE RUSSELL]. Printed Writings by George Russell (\u00c6) : A Bibliography with Some Notes on His Pictures and Portraits compiled by Alan Denson. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Ill., 1961. 255 pp.\n\nAGEE, JAMES. \"A Bibliography of the Works of James Agee\" by Genevieve Fabre. Bulletin of Bibliography Vol. 24, No. 7 (May\u2014Aug. 1965), pp. 145\u201448, 163\u201466.\n\nALDINGTON, RICHARD. A Bibliography of the Works of Richard Aldington from 1915 to 1948 by Alister Kershaw. Introduction by Richard Aldington. The Quadrant Press, London, 1950. 57 pp.\n\nALGREN, NELSON. Nelson Algren: A Checklist compiled by Kenneth G. McCollum. Introduction by Studs Terkel. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1973. 107 pp.\n\nANDERSON, MAXWELL. A Catalog of the Maxwell Anderson Collection at the University of Texas by Laurence G. Avery. University of Texas, Austin, 1968. 175 pp.\n\nANDERSON, SHERWOOD. Sherwood Anderson: A Bibliography compiled by Eugene P. Sheehy and Kenneth Lohf. The Talisman Press, Los Gatos, Calif., 1960. (Reprinted by H. P. Kraus, New York, 1968.) 125 pp.\n\nASHBERY, JOHN. John Ashbery: A Comprehensive Bibliography Including His Art Criticism and with Selected Notes from Unpublished Materials by David Kermani. Foreword by John Ashbery. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1976. 244 pp.\n\nAUDEN, W. H. W. H. Auden: A Bibliography 1924\u20141969 by B. C. Bloomfield and Edward Mendelson. Second edition. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1972. 420 pp.\n\nAUERHAHN PRESS, THE. A Bibliography of the Auerhahn Press & Its Successor Dave Haselwood Books. Poltroon Press, Berkeley, 1976. 89 pp.\n\nBALDWIN, JAMES. James Baldwin: A Checklist 1963\u20141967 by Fred L. Standley. Bulletin of Bibliography Vol. 25, No. 6 (May-Aug. 1968), pp. 135\u201437.\n\nBARNES, DJUNA. Djuna Barnes: A Bibliography by Douglas Messerli. David Lewis, New York, 1976. 131 pp.\n\nBARTH, JOHN. John Barth: A Descriptive Primary and Annotated Secondary Bibliography Including a Descriptive Catalog of Manuscript Holdings in United States Libraries by Joseph Weixlman. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1976. 214 pp.\n\nBARTHELME, DONALD. Donald Barthelme: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Annotated Secondary Checklist by Jerome Klinkowitz, Asa Pieratt, and Robert Murray Davis. Archon Books, Hamden, Conn., 1977. 128 pp.\n\nBECKETT, SAMUEL. Samuel Beckett\u2014His Works and His Critics: An Essay in Bibliography by Raymond Federman and John Fletcher. University of California Press, Berkeley\/Los Angeles \/London, 1979. 383 pp.\n\nBEERBOHM, MAX. A Bibliography of the Works of Max Beerbohm by A. E. Gallatin and L. M. Oliver. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1952. 60 pp.\n\nSir Max Beerbohm, Man and Writer: A Critical Analysis with a Brief Life and a Bibliography by J. G. Riewald. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1955. Bibliography, pp. 213\u2014343.\n\nBELLOW, SAUL. Saul Bellow\u2013His Works and His Critics: An Annotated International Bibliography by Marianne Nault. Garland Publishing Inc., New York & London, 1977. 191 pp.\n\nBENNETT, ARNOLD. Arnold Bennett: An Annotated Bibliography 1887\u20141932 by Anita Miller. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. 787 pp.\n\nBERRYMANN JOHN. John Berryman: A Checklist compiled by Richard J. Kelly. Foreword by William Meredith. Introduction by Michael Berryhill. Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, N.J., 1972. 105 pp.\n\nJohn Berryman: A Descriptive Bibliography by Ernest C. Stefanik, Jr. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1974. 285 pp.\n\nBISHOP, ELIZABETH. A Bibliography of Elizabeth Bishop by Candace MacMahon. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1980. Forthcoming.\n\nBLACK SPARROW PRESS, THE. A Checklist of the First One Hundred Publications of the Black Sparrow Press by Seamus Cooney. With 30 Passing Remarks by Robert Kelly. Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1971. 39 pp.\n\nBLACK SUN PRESS, THE. A Bibliography of the Black Sun Press by George Robert Minkoff. Introduction by Caresse Crosby. G. R. Minkoff, Great Neck, N.Y., 1970. 60 pp.\n\nBLUNDEN, EDMUND. A Bibliography of Edmund Blunden by B. J. Kirkpatrick. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979. 725 pp.\n\nBOGAN, LOUISE. Louise Bogan: A Woman's Words by William Jay Smith. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1971. 81 pp.\n\nBOTTEGHE OSCURE. Botteghe Oscure Index (with an appendix Index of Commerce 1949\u20141960) compiled by several hands. Introduction by Archibald MacLeish. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn., 1964. 36 pp.\n\nBRADBURY, RAY. The Ray Bradbury Companion by William F. Nolan. Gale Research, Detroit, 1975. 339 pp.\n\nBROOKE, RUPERT. A Bibliography of Rupert Brooke compiled by Geoffrey Keynes. Third edition, revised. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1964. 158 pp.\n\nBUKOWSKI, CHARLES. A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski by Sanford Dorbin. Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1969. 93 pp.\n\nBUNTING, BASIL. Basil Bunting: A Bibliography of Works and Criticism by Roger Guedalla. Norwood Editions, Norwood, Pa., 1973. 183 pp.\n\nBURROUGHS, WILLIAM S. William S. Burroughs: An Annotated Bibliography of His Works and Criticism by Michael B. Goodman. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1975. 96 pp.\n\nWilliam S. Burroughs: A Bibliography, 1953\u201473 compiled by Joe Maynard and Barry Miles. Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1978. 242 pp.\n\nCABELL, JAMES BRANCH. James Branch Cabell: A Revised Bibliography by I. R. Brussel. The Centaur Bookshop, Philadelphia, 1932. 133 pp.\n\nJames Branch Cabell: A Bibliography of His Writings, Biography, and Criticism by Frances Joan Brewer. Foreword by James Branch Cabell. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1957. 206 pp.\n\nCAPOTE, TRUMAN. Truman Capote: A Checklist by Kenneth Starosciak. Kenneth Starosciak Publisher, New Brighton, Minn., 1974. 29 pp.\n\nCARY, JOYCE. The Books of Joyce Cary: A Preliminary Bibliography of English and American Editions by James B. Meriwether. Offprint from the University of Texas Studies in Literature and Language Vol. I, No. 2 (Summer 1959). 12 pp.\n\nCATHER, WILLA. Willa Cather: A Checklist of Her Published Writings compiled by JoAnna Lathrop. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1975. 118 pp.\n\nCHANDLER, RAYMOND. Raymond Chandler: A Checklist. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1968.\n\nRaymond Chandler: A Descriptive Bibliography by Matthew J. Bruccoli. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1979. 120 pp.\n\nCHESTERSON, G. K. G. K. Chesterton: A Bibliography by John Sullivan. University of London Press, London, 1958. 208 pp. Chesterton Continued: A Bibliographical Supplement by John Sullivan. Together with some uncollected prose and verse by G. K. Chesterton. University of London Press, London, 1968. 120 pp.\n\nCIARDI, JOHN. John Ciardi: A Bibliography by William White. Note by John Ciardi. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1959. 65 pp.\n\nCLARK, WALTER VAN TILBURG. \"Walter van Tilburg Clark: A Bibliography\" by Richard Etulain. The South Dakota Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Autumn 1965), pp. 73\u201477.\n\nCONRAD, JOSEPH. A Bibliography of the Writings of Joseph Conrad (1895\u20141921) by Thomas J. Wise. Printed for private circulation, London, 1921. 126 pp.\n\nJoseph Conrad at Mid-Century: Editions and Studies, 1895\u2014 1955 by Kenneth A. Lohf and Eugene P. Sheehy. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1957.\n\nCOPPARD, A. E. The Writings of Alfred Edgar Coppard: A Bibliography by Jacob Schwartz. Foreword and notes by A. E. Coppard. The Ulysses Bookshop, London, 1931. 73 pp.\n\nCORSO, GREGORY. A Bibliography of Works by Gregory Corso 1954\u20141965 compiled by Robert A. Wilson. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1966. 40 pp.\n\nCORVO, BARON. A Bibliography of Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo by Cecil Woolf. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1972. 213 pp.\n\nCOZZENS, JAMES GOULD. James Gould Cozzens: A Checklist compiled by James B. Meriwether. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1972. 88 pp.\n\nCRANE, HART. Hart Crane: A Descriptive Bibliography by Joseph Schwartz and Robert C. Schweik. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1972. 168 pp.\n\nCRANE, STEPHEN. Stephen Crane: A Bibliography by Ames W. Williams & Vincent Starrett. John Valentine, Glendale, Calif., 1948. 161 pp.\n\nCREELEY, ROBERT. Robert Creeley: An Inventory, 1945\u20141970 by Mary Novik. Foreword by Robert Creeley. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1973. 210 pp.\n\nCROWLEY, ALEISTER. Aleister Crowley: The Man the Mage the Poet by C. R. Cammell. Richards Press, London, 1951. Bibliography, pp. 207\u201418.\n\nCULLEN, COUNT\u00c9E. A Bio-Bibliography of Count\u00e9e P. Cullen 1903\u20141946 by Margaret Perry. Foreword by Don M. Wolfe. Greenwood Publishing Corp., Westport, Conn., 1971. 134 pp.\n\nCUMMINGS, E. E. E. E. Cummings: A Bibliography by George J. Firmage. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn., 1960. 129 pp.\n\nCUMMINGTON PRESS. \"The Cummington Press\" by Mary L. Richmond. Books at Iowa No. 7 (Nov. 1967), pp. 9\u201431.\n\nH. D. [HILDA DOOLITTLE] \"H. D.: A Preliminary Checklist\" by Jackson R. Bryer and Pamela Roblyer. Pp. 632\u201475 in the special H. D. issue of Contemporary Literature, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Autumn 1969), University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.\n\nDAHLBERG, EDWARD. A Bibliography of Edward Dahlberg by Harold Billings. Introduction by Edward Dahlberg. Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1971. 22 pp.\n\nDAY-LEWIS, c. Day-Lewis\u2014The Poet Laureate: A Bibliography compiled by Geoffrey Handley-Taylor and Timothy d'Arch Smith. Letter of introduction by W. H. Auden. St. James Press, Chicago & London, 1968. 42 pp.\n\nDICKEY, JAMES. James Dickey\u2014The Critic As Poet: An Annotated Bibliography with an Introductory Essay by Eileen Glancy. Whitston Publishing Co., Inc., Troy, N.Y., 1971. 107 pp.\n\nJames Dickey: A Checklist compiled by Franklin Ashley. Introduction by James Dickey. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1972. 98 pp.\n\nDINESEN, ISAK. Isak Dinesen\u2014Karen Blixen: A Bibliography by Liselotte Henriksen. Gylendal, Cophenhagen, 1977. 224 pp.\n\nDORN, ED. A Bibliography of Ed Dorn compiled by David Streeter. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1973. 64 pp.\n\nDOS PASSOS, JOHN. A Bibliography of John Dos Passos by Jack Potter. Introduction by John Dos Passos. Normandie House, Chicago, 1950. 95 pp.\n\nDOUGLAS, NORMAN. A Bibliography of the Writings of Norman Douglas by Edward D. McDonald. Notes by Norman Douglas. The Centaur Bookshop, Philadelphia, 1927. 165 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of Norman Douglas by Cecil Woolf. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1954. 201 pp.\n\nDOYLE, ARTHUR CONAN. A Bibliography of First Appearances of the Writings of A. Conan Doyle by Benny R. Reece. Furman University, Greenville, S.C., 1975. 48 pp.\n\nDREISER, THEODORE. Dreiserana: A Book About His Books by Vrest Orton. Chocorua Bibliographies, New York, 1929. 84 pp.\n\nTheodore Dreiser: A Checklist by Hugh C. Atkinson. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1971. 104 pp.\n\nDRINKWATER, JOHN. John Drinkwater: A Comprehensive Bibliography of His Works by Michael Pearce. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. 157 pp.\n\nDUBOIS, W. E. B. W. E. B. Dubois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings by Paul G. Partington. Paul G. Partington, Whittier, Calif., 1977. 202 pp.\n\nDURRELL, LAWRENCE. Lawrence Durrell: A Study by G. S. Fraser. with a Bibliography by Alan G. Thomas. Faber & Faber, London, 1968. Revised edition, 1973. 256 pp.\n\nEBERHART, RICHARD. Richard Eberhart\u2014The Progress of an American Poet by Joel Roache. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971. Bibliography, pp. 263\u201493.\n\nEIGNER, LARRY. A Bibliography of Works by Larry Eigner 1937\u20141969 compiled by Andrea Wyatt. Oyez, Berkeley, 1970. 82 pp.\n\nELIOT, T. s. T. S. Eliot: A Bibliography\u2014A Revised and Extended Edition by Donald Gallup. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1969. 414 pp.\n\nChecklist of T. S. Eliot compiled by Bradley Gunter. Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus, Ohio, 1970. 43 pp.\n\nELLISON, RALPH. \"A Ralph Waldo Ellison Bibliography\" by R. S. Lillard. The American Book Collector Vol. 19, No. 3 (Nov. 1968), pp. 18\u201422. The Nov.\/Dec. 1969 issue (Vol. 20, No. 3) contains an \"Addendum\" by Carol Polsgrove, pp. 11\u201412.\n\nEVERSON, WILLIAM. William Everson: A Descriptive Bibliography 1934\u20141976 by Lee Bartlett and Allen Campo. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., & London, 1977. 119 pp. (For a large part of his writing career Everson published under his clerical name, Brother Antoninus.)\n\nFAULKNER, WILLIAM. \"Man Working,\" 1919-1962 William Faulkner compiled by Linton Massey. Introduction by John Cook Wyllie. Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1968. 249 pp.\n\nEach in Its Ordered Place: A Faulkner Collector's Notebook by Carl Petersen. Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1975. 311 pp.\n\nFIRBANK, RONALD. A Bibliography of Ronald Firbank by Miriam Benkowitz. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1963. 103 pp.\n\nFITZGERALD, F. SCOTT. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Descriptive Bibliography by Matthew J. Bruccoli. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1972. 369 pp.\n\nFORD, FORD MADOX. Ford Madox Ford 1873-1939: A Bibliography of Works and Criticism by David Dow Harvey. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1962. 633 pp.\n\nFORD, JESSE HILL. Jesse Hill Ford: An Annotated Checklist of His Published Works and of His Papers by Helen White. Memphis State University, Memphis, Tenn., 1974. 55 pp.\n\nFORSTER, E. M. A Bibliography of E. M. Forster by B. J. Kirkpatrick. Foreword by E. M. Forster. Second, revised edition. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1968. 205 pp.\n\nFROST, ROBERT. Robert Frost: A Bibliography by W. B. Shubrick Clymer and Charles Green. Foreword by David Lambuth. Jones Library, Inc., Amherst, Mass., 1937. 158 pp.\n\nRobert Frost\u2014A Descriptive Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia compiled by Joan St. C. Crane. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1974. 280 pp.\n\nGALSWORTHY, JOHN. A Bibliography of the Works of John Galsworthy by E. V. Marrot. Elkin Matthews & Marrot, London & New York, 1928. 252 pp.\n\nGEHENNA PRESS. A Bibliography of the Gehenna Press 1942-1975 by Stephen Brook. J. P. Dwyer, Northampton, Mass., 1976. 77 pp.\n\nGINSBERG, ALLEN. A Bibliography of Works by Allen Ginsberg October 1943 to July 1, 1967 compiled by George Dowden. Foreword by Allen Ginsberg. City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1971. 343 pp.\n\nGLASGOW, ELLEN. Ellen Glasgow: A Bibliography by William W. Kelly. Bibliographical Society of Virginia, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1964. 330 pp.\n\nGOODMAN, PAUL. Adam and His Work: A Bibliography of Sources by and About Paul Goodman by Tom Nicely. Metuchen, London, 1979. 336 pp.\n\nGOREY, EDWARD. \"Edward Gorey: An American Gothic\" by Thomas M. McDade. American Book Collector Vol. 21, No. 7 (May 1971), pp. 12-17.\n\nGRAVES, ROBERT. A Bibliography of Works by Robert Graves by Fred H. Higginson. Nicholas Vane, London, 1966. 328 pp.\n\nGREENE, GRAHAM. The Portable Graham Greene. Viking, New York, 1973. Bibliographic notes, pp. xix-xxiii.\n\nGUNN, THOM. Thom Gunn\u2014A Bibliography 1940-1978 by J. W. C. Hagstrom and George Bixby. Bertram Rota, Ltd., London, 1979.\n\nHAGGARD, SIR H. RIDER. A Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Rider Haggard by George L. McKay. The Bookman's Journal, London, 1930. 110 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of the Works of Sir Henry Rider Haggard 1856-1929 by J. F. Scott. Elkin-Mathews, Ltd. Takeley, London, 1947. 258 pp.\n\nHAMMETT, DASHIELL. A List of the Original Appearances of Dashiell Hammett's Magazine Work assembled by E. H. Mundell. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1968. 52 pp.\n\nDashiell Hammett: A Descriptive Bibliography by Richard Layman. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1979. 162 pp.\n\nHARDY, THOMAS. Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study by Richard Little Purdy. Oxford University Press (Geoffrey Cumberlege), London & New York, 1954. 387 pp.\n\nHAWKES, JOHN. Three Contemporary Novelists: An Annotated Bibliography of Works by and about John Hawkes, Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon by Robert M. Scotto. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. 97 pp.\n\nHEARN, LAFCADIO. Lafcadio Hearn: A Bibliography of His Writings by P. D. and lone Perkins. Introduction by Sanki Ichikawa. Houghton-Mifflin, New York & Boston, 1934. 444 pp.\n\nHELLER, JOSEPH. (See Hawkes, John.)\n\nHELLMAN, LILLIAN. The Lillian Hellman Collection at the University of Texas. Humanities Research Division, Austin, 1966. 167 pp.\n\nHEMINGWAY, ERNEST. A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway by Louis Henry Cohn. Random House, New York., 1931. 116 pp.\n\nA Hemingway Checklist by Lee Samuels. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1951. 64 pp.\n\nErnest Hemingway: A Comprehensive Bibliography by Audre Hanneman. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967. 568 pp.\n\nSupplement to Ernest Hemingway: A Comprehensive Bibliography by Audre Hanneman. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1975. 393 pp.\n\nHIMES, CHESTER. \"Chester Himes's Published Work: A Tentative Checklist\" by Michel Fabre. Black World Vol. 21, No. 5 (March 1972), pp. 76-78.\n\nHOFFMAN, DANIEL. Daniel Hoffman: A Comprehensive Bibliography by Michael Lowe. Norwood Editions, Norwood, Pa., 1973. 64 pp.\n\nHOGARTH PRESS. A Checklist of the Hogarth Press with a Short History of the Press by Mary E. Gaither compiled by J. Howard Woolmer. Woolmer & Brotherson, Ltd., Andes, N.Y., 1976. 177 pp.\n\nHOURS PRESS, THE. \"The Hours Press Restrospect Catalogue Commentary\" by Nancy Cunard. The Book Collector Vol. 13, No. 4 (Winter 1964), pp. 492-96.\n\nHOUSMAN, A. E. A. E. Housman: An Annotated Hand-List by John Carter and John Sparrow. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1952. 54 pp.\n\nHUDSON, W. H. A Bibliography of the Writings of W. H. Hudson by G. F. Wilson. The Bookman's Journal, London, 1922. 69 pp.\n\nW. H. Hudson: A Bibliography by John R. Payne. Foreword by Alfred A. Knopf. Archon Books, Dawson, Hamden, Conn., 1977. 248 pp.\n\nHUGHES, LANGSTON. A Bio-Bibliography of Langston Hughes 1902-1967 by Donald C. Dickinson. Preface by Arna Bontemps. Archon Books, Hamden, Conn., 1967. 267 pp.\n\nHUXLEY, ALDOUS. Bibliographies of the First Editions of A. L. and T. F. Powys compiled by P. H. Muir and B. van Thal. Dulau & Co., Ltd., London, 1927. 61 pp.\n\nAldous Huxley: A Bibliography 1916-1959 by Claire John Eschelbach and Joyce Lee Shober. University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1961. 150 pp.\n\nISHERWOOD, CHRISTOPHER. Christopher Isherwood. A Bibliography 1923-1967 by Selmer Westby and Clayton M. Brown. California State College at Los Angeles Foundation, Los Angels, 1968. 51 pp.\n\nJAMES, HENRY. A Bibliography of Henry James by Leon Edel and Dan H. Laurence. Second edition, revised. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1961. 427 pp.\n\nJARGON PRESS. The Jargon Idea by Millicent Bell. Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1963. Offprinted from Books at Brown Vol. XIX (May 1963). 12 pp.\n\nThe Jargon Society 1951-1975. The Book Organization, Millerton, N.Y., 1976. 12 pp.\n\nA Jargon Society Checklist by J. M. Edelstein. Books and Company, New York, 1979. 11 pp.\n\nJARRELL, RANDALL. Randall Jarrell: A Bibliography by Charles M. Adams. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1958. 72 pp. Supplement to the above, in Analecta Magazine, Spring 1961, Vol. I, pp. 49-56.\n\nJEFFERS, ROBINSON. A Bibliography of the Works of Robinson Jeffers by S. S. Alberts. 1933. Reprinted in 1966 by Cultural History Research, Inc., Rye, N.Y. 262 pp.\n\nJONES, DAVID. David Jones: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Research by Samuel Rees. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. 97 pp.\n\nJONES, JAMES. James Jones: A Checklist compiled by John R. Hopkins. Foreword by James Jones. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1974. 67 pp.\n\nJONES, LEROI. LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka): A Checklist of Works by and about Him by Letitia Dace. The Nether Press, London, 1971. 196 pp.\n\nJOYCE, JAMES. A Bibliography of James Joyce (1880-1941) by John J. Slocum and Herbert Cahoon. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953. 195 pp.\n\nKEROUAC, JACK. Jack Kerouac: A Bibliography 1939-1975 compiled by Ann Charters. Revised edition. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1975. 136 pp.\n\nKIPLING, RUDYARD. Bibliography of the Works of Rudyard Kipling by Flora V. Livingston. Edgar H. Wells & Co., New York, 1927. 523 pp.\n\nRudyard Kipling: A Bibliographical Catalogue by James M. Stewart. Edited by A. W. Yeats. Dalhousie University Press, Halifax, and University Press of Toronto, Toronto, 1959. 673 pp.\n\nLARDNER, RING. Ring W. Lardner: A Descriptive Bibliography by Matthew Bruccoli and Richard Layman. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1976. 424 pp.\n\nLAWRENCE, D. H. A Bibliography of D. H. Lawrence by Warren Roberts. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1963. 399 pp.\n\nThe Frieda Lawrence Collection of D. H. Lawrence Manuscripts: A Descriptive Bibliography by E. W. Tedlock, Jr. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1948. 333 pp.\n\nLAWRENCE, T. E. T. E. Lawrence: A Bibliography by Jeffrey Meyers. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1974. 48 pp.\n\nLESSING, DORIS. Doris Lessing: A Checklist of Primary and Secondary Sources by Selma R. Burkom and Margaret Williams. Whitston Publishing Co., Inc., Troy, N.Y., 1973. 88 pp.\n\nLEVERTOV, DENISE. A Bibliography of Denise Levertov compiled by Robert A. Wilson. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1972. 98 pp.\n\nLEWIS, ALUN. Alun Lewis 1915-1944: Biographical Note, Original Works and Contributions to Periodicals, Critical Articles. Welsh Arts Council, Adran Llenyddiaeth, 1968. 7 pp.\n\nLEWIS, WYNDHAM. Wyndham Lewis: A Descriptive Bibliography by Omar S. Pound and Phillip Grover. Archon Books, Dawson, Hamden, Conn., 1978. 198 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of the Writings of Wyndham Lewis by Bradford Morrow and Bernard Lafourcade. Introduction by Hugh Kenner. Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara, 1978. 373 pp.\n\nLITTLE MAGAZINES. The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography by Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1946. 440 pp.\n\nThe Little Magazine in America: A Modern Documentary History edited by Elliott Anderson and Mary Kinzie. Pushcart, Yonkers, N.Y., 1978. 770 pp.\n\nLONDON, JACK. Jack London: A Bibliography compiled by Hensley C. Woodbridge, John London, and George H. Tweney. Talisman Press, Georgetown, Calif., 1966. 422 pp.\n\nLORCA, FEDERICO GARCIA. \"Federico Garcia Lorca, 1899-1936: A Bibliography of His Works in English Translation\" by Remigio Ugo Pane. Bulletin of Bibliography and Dramatic Index , Vol. 20, No. 3 Whole Number 184 (Sept.-Dec. 1950), pp. 71-75.\n\nLOWELL, ROBERT. The Achievement of Robert Lowell: 1939\u2014 1959 by Jerome Mazzaro. University of Detroit Press, Detroit, 1960. 41 pp.\n\nLOWRY, MALCOLM. A Malcolm Lowry Catalogue, essays by Perle Epstein and Richard Hauer Costa. J. Howard Woolmer, New York, 1968. 64 pp.\n\nMCALMON, ROBERT. Robert McAlmon: Expatriate Publisher and Writer by Robert E. Knoll. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1959. Contains \"The Published Works of Robert McAlmon,\" pp. 85-89.\n\nMCCARTHY, MARY. Mary McCarthy: A Bibliography by Sherli Evens Goldman. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1968. 80 pp.\n\nMCCLURE, MICHAEL. A Catalogue of Works by Michael McClure 1956\u20141965 compiled by Marshall Clements. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1965. 36 pp.\n\nMCCULLERS, CARSON. \"Carson McCullers, 1940\u20141956: A Selected Checklist\" by Stanley Stewart. Bulletin of Bibliography and Magazine Notes, Vol. 22, No. 8 (Jan.\u2014April 1959), pp. 182\u2014 85. Supplement in Vol. 24, No. 5 (Sept.\u2014Dec. 1964) by Robert S. Phillips, pp. 113\u201416.\n\nMACDONALD, ROSS. Kenneth Millar\/Ross MacDonald: A Checklist compiled by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Introduction by Kenneth Millar. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1971. 86 pp.\n\nMACLEISH, ARCHIBALD. A Catalogue of the First Editions of Archibald MacLeish by Arthur Mizener. Yale University Library, New Haven, 1938. 30 pp.\n\nMACNEICE, LOUIS. A Bibliography of the Works of Louis MacNeice by C. M. Armitage and Neil Clark. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, 1973. 136 pp.\n\nMALAMUD, BERNARD. Bernard Malamud: An Annotated Check-list by Rita Nathalie Kosofsky. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1969. 63 pp.\n\nMANSFIELD, KATHERINE. The Critical Bibliography of Katherine Mansfield by Ruth Elvish Mantz, M.A. Introductory Note by John Middleton Murry. Originally published in 1930; reprinted by Burt Franklin, New York, 1968. 204 pp.\n\nMASEFIELD, JOHN. John Masefield O.M.: A Bibliography compiled by Geoffrey Handley-Taylor. The Cranbrook Tower Press, London, 1960. 96 pp.\n\nMAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET. A Bibliography of the Works of W. Somerset Maugham by Raymond Toole Stott. The University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, 1973. 320 pp.\n\nMELTZER, DAVID. David Meltzer: A Sketch from Memory and Descriptive Checklist by David Kherdian. Oyez, Berkeley, 1965. 9 pp.\n\nMENCKEN, H. L. H. L. M.: The Mencken Bibliography compiled by Betty Adler with the assistance of Jane Wilhelm. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1961. 367 pp.\n\nH. L. M.: The Mencken Bibliography, A Ten-Year Supplement compiled by Betty Adler. Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, 1971. 84 pp.\n\nMERRILL, JAMES. The Merrill Notebook: A Provisional Checklist compiled by Mary Johnsen. In preparation.\n\nMERTON, THOMAS. Thomas Merton: A Bibliography compiled by Frank Dell' Isola. Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1956. 116 pp.\n\nMILLAY, EDNA ST. VINCENT. A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay with an Essay in Appreciation by Harold Lewis Cook, Introductions and Three Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay compiled by Karl Yost. Originally published in 1937; reprinted by Burt Franklin, New York, 1968, in his Bibliography and Reference Series No. 149. 248 pp.\n\nMILLER, HENRY. Henry Miller: A Chronology and Bibliography collected and published by Bern Porter, n.p., 1945. 36 pp.\n\nBibliography of Henry Miller edited by Thomas H. Moore. The Henry Miller Literary Society, Minneapolis, 1961. 32 pp. plus one page addendum leaf.\n\nHenry Miller: An Informal Bibliography 1924-1960 by Esta Lou Riley. Fort Hays Studies\u2014New Series Bibliography\n\nSeries No. 1, Fort Hays Kansas State College, Fort Hays, June 1961. 52 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of Henry Miller 1945-1961 by Maxine Renken. Allan Swallow, The Swallow Pamphlets No. 12, Denver, 1962. 13 pp.\n\nMOORE, GEORGE. A Bibliography of George Moore by Edwin Gilcher. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, 1970. 274 pp.\n\nMOORE, MARIANNE. The Achievement of Marianne Moore: A Bibliography 1907-1957 compiled by Eugene Sheehy and Kenneth A. Lohf. New York Public Library, New York, 1958. 43 pp.\n\nMarianne Moore: A Descriptive Bibliography by Craig S. Abbott. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1977. 265 pp.\n\nMORLEY, CHRISTOPHER. A Bibliography of Christopher Morley by Alfred P. Lee. Doubleday, Doran and Company, Garden City, N.Y., 1935. 277pp.\n\nMUIR, EDWIN. A Bibliography of the Writings of Edwin Muir by E. W. Mellown. Alabama University Press, University, Ala., 1964. 139 pp.\n\nMUMFORD, LEWIS. Lewis Mumford: A Bibliography 1914-1970 by Elmer S. Newman. Introduction by Lewis Mumford. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1971. 167 pp.\n\nMURDOCH, IRIS. \"An Iris Murdoch Checklist\" by R. L. Widmann. Critique (Magazine) Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. X, No. 1 (1967), pp. 17-29.\n\nNABOKOV, VLADIMIR. Vladimir Nabokov Bibliographie des Gesamtwerkes by Dieter E. Zimmer. Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg, 1963. 50 pp. (In German)\n\nNabokov: A Bibliography by Andrew Field. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1973. 249 pp.\n\nNATHAN, ROBERT. A Checklist of First Editions. Preface by Robert Nathan. Casanova, Inc., Milwaukee, n.d. 15 pp.\n\nNEW YORKER, THE. An Index to Literature in The New Yorker\n\nby Robert Owen Johnson. 3 vols. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen,\n\nN.J., 1969\u201471.\n\nVol. One covers 1925\u20141940 (Vols. I\u2014XV) 543 pp.\n\nVol. Two covers 1940\u20141955 (Vols. XVI-XXX) 477 pp.\n\nVol. Three covers 1955\u20141970 (Vols. XXXI-XLV 523 pp.\n\nNEWTON, A. E. A. Edward Newton: A Collection of His Works edited by Robert D. Fleck. Oak Knoll Books, Newark, Del., 1977. 38 pp.\n\nNIN, ANAIS. Anais Nin: A Bibliography by Benjamin Franklin V. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1973. 115 pp.\n\nO'CONNOR, FLANNERY. \"Flannery O'Connor: A Bibliography\" by Joan T. Brittain. Bulletin of Bibliography Vol. 25 No. 4 (Sept.-Dec. 1967), pp. 98\u2014100. Continued in Vol. 25 No. 5 (Jan.-Apr. 1968), pp. 123\u201424.\n\nO'FLAHERTY, LIAM. Checklist of Twentieth Century Authors: First Series, pp. 12\u201413. Casanova Booksellers, Milwaukee, 1931.\n\nO'HARA, JOHN. John O'Hara: A Checklist compiled by Matthew Bruccoli. Random House, New York, 1972. 136 pp.\n\nOLSON, CHARLES. A Bibliography of Works by Charles Olson compiled by George Butterick and Charles Glover. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1967. 90 pp.\n\nOLYMPIA PRESS. The Olympia Press Paris: 1953\u20141965. A Handlist by P. J. Kearney, London, 1975. 34 pp.\n\nO'NEILL, EUGENE. A Bibliography of the Works of Eugene O'Neill together with the Collected Poems of Eugene O'Neill compiled and edited by Ralph Sanborn and Barrett H. Clark. Random House, New York, 1931; reprinted by Benjamin Blom, New\n\nYork, 1965. 171 pp. Eugene O'Neill: A Descriptive Bibliography by Jennifer Mc-Cabe Atkinson. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1974. 410 pp.\n\nOPPENHEIMER, JOEL. Joel Oppenheimer: A Checklist of His Writings by George F. Butterick. The University of Connecticut Library Bibliography Series No. 4, Storrs, March 1975. 12 pp.\n\nOWEN, WILFRED. Wilfred Owen (1893\u20141918): A Bibliography by William White. Prefacing note by Harold Owen. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1967. 41 pp.\n\nPATCHEN, KENNETH. Kenneth Patchen 1911-1972: An Annotated Descriptive Bibliography by Richard G. Morgan. Paul P. Appel, Mamaroneck, N.Y., 1979. 174 pp.\n\nPERREAULT, JOHN. \"These Repeats Repeat: A Beginning Bibliography of John Perreault\" by Inez Dahlberg. Serif Quarterly, Vol. 11 No. 3 (Fall 1974), pp. 28\u201434. Kent State University Library, Kent, Ohio.\n\nPERSE, SAINT-JOHN. Saint-John Perse: Praise and Presence by Pierre Emmanuel. With a bibliography. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1971. 82 pp.\n\nPLATH, SYLVIA. A Chronological Checklist of the Periodical Publications of Sylvia Plath by Eric Homberger. University of Exeter, Exeter, Eng., 1970. 17 pp.\n\nSylvia Plath: A Bibliography by Gary Lane and Marie Stevens. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1978. 144 pp.\n\nPLAYBOY. Index to Playboy Belles-Lettres, Articles, and Humor Dec. 1953\u2014Dec. 1969 by Mildred Lynn Miles. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1970. 162 pp.\n\nPOETRY. Index to Fifty Years of Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, Volumes 1\u2014100, 1912\u20141962 compiled by Elizabeth Wright. AMS Reprint Company, New York, 1963. 392 pp.\n\nPOETRY LONDON. A Complete Catalogue of Books Published by Editions Poetry London at 26 Manchester Square March 1948. Editions Poetry London, London, 1948. 68 pp.\n\nPORTER, KATHERINE ANNE. Katherine Anne Porter: A Critical Bibliography by Edward Schwartz. Introduction by Robert Penn Warren. New York Public Library, New York, 1953. 42 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of the Works of Katherine Anne Porter and a Bibliography of the Criticism of the Works of Katherine Anne Porter by Louise Waldrip and Shirley Ann Bower. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1969. 219 pp.\n\nPOUND, EZRA. A Bibliography of Ezra Pound by Donald Gallup. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1963. 454 pp.\n\n\"Corrections and Additions to the Pound Bibliography\" by Donald Gallup. Paideuma, Vol. I No. 1 (Spring\/Summer 1972), pp. 113\u201425.\n\n\"Corrections and Additions to the Pound Bibliography (Part 2)\" by Donald Gallup. Paideuma, Vol. 2 No. 2 (Fall 1973), pp. 315\u201424.\n\nPOWYS, JOHN COWPER. A Bibliography of the Writings of John Cowper Powys: 1872\u20141963 by Dante Thomas. Foreword by G. Wilson Knight. Paul P. Appel, Mamaroneck, N.Y., 1975. 192 pp.\n\nPOWYS, T. F. A Bibliography of T. F. Powys by Peter Riley. R. A. Brimmell, Hastings, N.Y., 1967. 69 pp.\n\nPSEUDONYMS. The Hawthorn Dictionary of Pseudonyms compiled by Andrew Bauer. Hawthorn Books, New York, 1971. 312 pp.\n\nPYNCHON, THOMAS. (See Hawkes, John.)\n\nRANSOM, JOHN CROWE. John Crowe Ransom: Critical Essays and a Bibliography edited by Thomas Daniel Young. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1968. 290 pp.\n\nREXROTH, KENNETH. Kenneth Rexroth: A Checklist of His Published Writings compiled by James Hartzell and Richard Zumwinkly. Foreword by Lawrence Clark Powell. Friends of the U.C.L.A. Library, University of California, Los Angeles, 1967. 67 pp.\n\nROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON. A Bibliography of the Writings of Edwin Arlington Robinson by Lucius Beebe and Robert J. Bulkley, Jr. Dunster House Bookshop, Cambridge, Mass., 1931. 59 pp.\n\nROETHKE, THEODORE. Theodore Roethke: A Bibliography by James Richard MacLeod. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1973. 241 pp.\n\nROHMER, SAX. Book Collecting & Library Monthly No. 14 (June 1969), pp. 39\u201441. A checklist. Master of Villainy: A Biography of Sax Rohmer by Cay Van Ash and Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. Tom Stacey, London, 1972. Contains a bibliography.\n\nSALINGER, J. D. J. D. Salinger: A Thirty-Year Bibliography 1938\u2014 1968 by Kenneth Starosciak. The Croixside Press, St. Paul, 1971. 83 pp.\n\nSANDBURG, CARL. Carl Sandburg by Mark van Doren with a Bibliography of Sandburg Materials in the Collections of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1969. 83 pp.\n\nSAROYAN, WILLIAM. A Bibliography of William Saroyan 1934\u2014 1964 by David Kherdian. Roger Beacham, San Francisco, 1965. 204 pp.\n\nSARTON, MAY. May Sarton: A Bibliography by Leona P. Blouin. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1978. 236 pp.\n\nSASSOON, SIEGFRIED. A Bibliography of Siegfried Sassoon by Geoffrey Keynes. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1962. 199 pp.\n\nSHAPIRO, KARL. Karl Shapiro: A Bibliography by William White. Note by Karl Shapiro. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1960. 113 pp.\n\nSHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets of George Bernard Shaw. Bookman's Journal and Print Collectors Company, Ltd., London, 1928. 46 pp.\n\nSITWELL FAMILY. A Bibliography of Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Sitwell by Richard Fifoot. Second edition, revised. Rupert Hart-Davis, London 1963; reprinted by Archon Books, Hamden, Conn., 1971. 432 pp.\n\nSNYDER, GARY. A Bibliography of Gary Snyder by Katherine MacNeil. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York. In preparation. A Biographical Sketch and Descriptive Checklist of Gary Snyder by David Kherdian. Oyez, Berkeley, 1965. 30 pp.\n\nSOLZHENITSYN, ALEXANDER. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: An International Bibliography of Writings by and about Him compiled by Donald M. Fiene. Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1973. 148 pp.\n\nSPENDER, STEPHEN. Stephen Spender\u2014Works and Criticism: An\n\nAnnotated Bibliography by H. B. Kulkarni. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1976. 264 pp.\n\nSTEIN, GERTRUDE. Gertrude Stein: A Bibliography by Julian Sawyer. Arrow Editions, New York, 1940. 162 pp.\n\nA Catalogue of the Published and Unpublished Writings of Gertrude Stein compiled by Robert Bartless Haas and Donald Clifford Gallup. Yale University Library, New Haven, 1941. 64 pp.\n\nA Check-List of the Published Writings of Gertrude Stein compiled by George James Firmage. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1954. 8 pp.\n\nGertrude Stein: A Bibliography compiled by Robert A. Wilson. The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1974. 227 pp.\n\nSTEINBECK, JOHN. John Steinbeck: A Concise Bibliography (1930\u20141965) compiled by Tetsumaro Hayashi. Introduction by Warren G. French. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1967. 164 pp.\n\nJohn Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection by Adrian H. Goldstone and John M. Payne. Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1974. 240 pp.\n\nSTEPHENS, JAMES. James Stephens: A Literary and Bibliographical Study by Birgit Bramsback. Irish Institute, Uppsala University, Uppsala\/Copenhagen\/Dublin\/Cambridge, Eng., 1959. 209 pp.\n\nSTEVENS, WALLACE. Wallace Stevens: A Preliminary Checklist of His Published Writings: 1898\u20141954 by Samuel French Morse. Yale University Library, New Haven, 1954. 66 pp. Wallace Stevens: Checklist and Bibliography of Stevens Criticism by Samuel French Morse, Jackson H. Bryer, and Joseph E. Riddell. Alan Swallow, Denver, 1963. 98 pp. Wallace Stevens: A Descriptive Bibliography by J. M. Edelstein, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1973. 429 pp.\n\nSTYRON, WILLIAM. William Styron: A Descriptive Bibliography by James L. West III. Preface by William Styron. G. K. Hall & Co., Boston, 1977. 252 pp.\n\nTATE, ALLEN. \"Allen Tate: A Checklist\" by Willard Thorp. Critique Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. X No. 2 (1968), pp. 17-52.\n\nAllen Tate: A Bibliography compiled by Marshall Fallwell with the assistance of Martha Cook and Francis Immler. David Lewis, New York, 1969. 112 pp.\n\nTAYLOR, PETER. \"A Peter Taylor Checklist\" by James Penny Smith. Critique Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. IX No. 3 (1976), pp. 31-36.\n\nTHOMAS, DYLAN. Dylan Thomas: A Bibliography by J. Alexander Rolph. Foreword by Dame Edith Sitwell. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, 1956. 108 pp.\n\nTHURBER, JAMES. James Thurber: A Bibliography by Edwin T. Bowden. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1968. 353 pp.\n\nTZARA, TRISTAN. Tristan Tzara: A Bibliography by Lee Harwood. Aloes Books, London, 1974. 48 pp.\n\nUPDIKE, JOHN. John Updike: A Bibliography by C. Clarke Taylor. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1968. 82 pp.\n\nVAN VECHTEN, CARL. A Bibliography of the Writings of Carl Van Vechten by Scott Cunningham. Overture in the Form of a Funeral March by Carl Van Vechten. Philadelphia, The Centaur Bookshop, 1924. 52 pp.\n\nVONNEGUT, KURT. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A Checklist compiled by Betty Lenhardt Hudgens. Introduction by Vance Bourjaily. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1972. 67 pp.\n\nWALEY, ARTHUR. A Bibliography of Arthur Waley by Francis A. Johns. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., 1968.\n\nWARREN, ROBERT PENN. Robert Penn Warren: A Bibliography compiled by Mary Nancy Huff. David Lewis, New York, 1968. 171 pp.\n\nWATKINS, VERNON. Vernon Watkins 1906\u20141967: Biographical Note, Original Works and Contributions to Periodicals, Critical Articles by Brynmor Jones. Welsh Arts Council Bibliographies of Anglo-Welsh Literature, 1968. 6 pp.\n\nWAUGH, EVELYN. Evelyn Waugh: A Checklist of Primary and Secondary Materials by Robert Murray Davis, Paul A. Doyle, Heinz Kosok, and Charles E. Linck, Jr. Whitston Publishing Co., Troy, N.Y., 1972. 211 pp.\n\nWELLS, H. G. Herbert George Wells: An Annotated Bibliography of His Works by J. R. Hammond. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. 257 pp.\n\nWELTY, EUDORA. \"A Eudora Welty Checklist\" by Noel Polk. Mississippi Quarterly Vol. 26 No. 4 (Fall 1973), pp. 663\u201493.\n\nWEST, NATHANAEL. Nathanael West: A Comprehensive Bibliography by William White. Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, 1975. 209 pp.\n\nWHARTON, EDITH. A Bibliography of the Collected Writings of Edith Wharton by Lawson McClung Melish. The Brick Row Bookshop, New York, 1927. 97 pp.\n\nEdith Wharton: A Bibliography by Vito J. Brenni. West Virginia University Library, Morgantown, 1966. 99 pp.\n\nWHITE, E. B. E. B. White: A Bibliography by A. J. Anderson. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N.J., 1968. 199 pp.\n\nWIENERS, JOHN. \"John Wieners: A Checklist\" by George Butterick. Athanor Magazine No. 3 (Summer\/Fall 1972), pp. 53\u201466.\n\nWILBUR, RICHARD. Richard Wilbur: A Bibliographical Checklist by John P. Field. Note by Richard Wilbur. Kent State University Press, The Serif Series No. 16, Kent, Ohio, 1971. 85 pp.\n\nWILDE, OSCAR. Bibliography of Oscar Wilde by Stuart Mason [Christopher Millard]. T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., London, 1914; reprinted by Bertram Rota, Ltd., London, 1967, with a new introduction by Timothy d'Arch Smith. 605 pp.\n\nWILDER, THORNTON. A Bibliographical Checklist of the Writings of Thornton Wilder compiled by J. M. Edelstein. Yale University Library, New Haven, 1959. 62 pp.\n\nWILLIAMS, TENNESSEE. \"Tennessee Williams: A Selected Bibliography\" by Nadine Dony. Modern Drama Magazine, Vol. I, No. 3 (Winter 1958), pp. 181\u201491.\n\nWILLIAMS, WILLIAM CARLOS. I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet by William Carlos Williams. Reported and edited by Edith Heal. Beacon Press, Boston, 1958. 99 pp.\n\nA Bibliography of William Carlos Williams by Emily Mitchell Wallace. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn., 1968. 354 pp.\n\nWILSON, EDMUND. Edmund Wilson: A Bibliography compiled by Richard David Ramsey. David Lewis, New York, 1971. 345 pp.\n\nWODEHOUSE, P. G. A Bibliography and Reader's Guide to the First Editions of P. G. Wodehouse by David A. Jasen. Archon Books, Hamden, Conn., 1970. 290 pp.\n\nWOLFE, THOMAS. Thomas Wolfe: A Bibliography by George H. Preston, Jr. Charles S. Boesen, New York, 1943. 127 pp.\n\nOf Time and Thomas Wolfe: A Bibliography with a Character Index of His Works by Elmer D. Johnson. Scarecrow Press, New York, 1959.\n\nThomas Wolfe: A Checklist by Elmer D. Johnson. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1970. 278 pp.\n\nWOOLF, VIRGINIA. A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf by B. J. Kirkpatrick. Revised edition. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1967. 212 pip.\n\nWRIGHT, JAMES. \"Bibliography.\" Ironwood Magazine No. 10 (special James Wright issue), pp. 156\u201465.\n\nWRIGHT, RICHARD. \"Richard Wright (1908\u20141960): A Bibliography\" by Michel Fabre and Edward Margolies. Bulletin of Bibliography and Magazine Notes, Vol. 24, No. 6 (Jan.\u2014Apr. 1965), pp. 131-33, 137.\n\nYEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER. A Bibliography of the Writings of W. B. Yeats by Allan Wade. Second edition, revised. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1958. 449 pp.; third edition, revised, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1968. 514 pp.\n\n\"Additions to Allan Wade's Bibliography of W. B. Yeats\" by Russell K. Alspach. The Irish Book (Magazine)\u2014(special Yeats issue), Vol. II Nos. 3 & 4 (Autumn 1963), pp. 91\u2014114.\n\nZUKOFSKY, LOUIS. A Bibliography of Louis Zukofsky by Celia Zukofsky. Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1969. 52 pp.\n\n# BIBLIOGRAPHIES COVERING NUMEROUS AUTHORS\n\nBLANCK, JACOB, COMPILER. Bibliography of American Literature. 6 vols. Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1955\u201473.\n\nVolume One (1955) Henry Adams to Donn Byrne 474 pp.\n\nVolume Two (1957) George W. Cable to Timothy Dwight 532 pp.\n\nVolume Three (1959) Edward Eggleston to Bret Harte 482 pp.\n\nVolume Four (1963) Nathaniel Hawthorne to Joseph Holt Ingraham 495 pp.\n\nVolume Five (1969) Washington Irving to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 643 pp.\n\nVolume Six (1973) Augustus Baldwin Longstreet to Thomas William Parsons 594 pp.\n\nBRUCCOLI, MATTHEW J., AND CLARK, C. E. FRAZER, JR., editors. First Printings of American Authors: Contributions Toward Descriptive Checklists. Gale Research Company, Detroit, 1977\u201479. Four volumes covering twentieth-century American authors. Vol. One: 432 pp., Vol. Two: 407 pp., Vol. Three: 412 pp., Vol. Four: 406 pp.\n\nBRUSSELL, I. R. Anglo-American First Editions. New York 1935\u2014 36. R. R. Bowker Co. Vol. One: East to West 1826\u20141900 covers editions of British authors first published in the U.S. Vol. Two: West to East 1786\u20141930 covers editions of American authors first published in England.\n\nCONNOLLY, CYRIL. The Modern Movement: One Hundred Key Books from England, France and America 1880\u20141950. Andre Deutsch\/Hamish Hamilton, London, 1965. 148 pp.\n\nDEODENE, FRANK, AND FRENCH, WILLIAM P. Black American Fiction Since 1952: A Preliminary Checklist. The Chatham Bookseller, Chatham, N.J., 1970. 25 pp. Black American Poetry Since 1944: A Preliminary Checklist. The Chatham Bookseller, Chatham, N.J., 1971. 41 pp.\n\nHAWKINS, SHERMAN. Seven Princeton Poets. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1963. Covers Louis Coke, Galway Kinnell, George Garrett, William Meredith, Theodore Holmes, W. S. Merwin, and Bink Noll. 115 pp.\n\nJOHNSON, MERLE. Merle Johnson's American First Editions. Revised and enlarged by Jacob Blanck. Fourth Edition. Reprinted by Research Classics, Cambridge, Mass., 1962. 553 pp.\n\nKHERDIAN, DAVID. Six Poets of the San Francisco Renaissance: Portraits and Checklists. Introduction by William Saroyan. The Giligia Press, Fresno, 1967. Covers Brother Antoninus (William Everson), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen. 183 pp.\n\nKING, KIMBALL. Twenty Modern British Playwrights: A Bibliography 1956\u20141976. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1977. Covers John Arden, Alan Ayckbourn, Peter Barnes, Robert Bolt, Edward Bond, Simon Gray, Christopher Hampton, Ann Jellicoe, Peter Nichols, Joe Orton, John Osborne, Harold Pinter,. Anthony Shaffer, Peter Shaffer, N. F. Simpson, Tom Stoppard, David Storey, Arnold Wesker, Heathcote Williams, and Charles Wood. 289 pp.\n\nLEPPER, GARY. A Bibliographical Introduction to Seventy-five Modern American Authors. Serendipity Books, Berkeley, 1976. Covers Nelson Algren, John Ashbery, Louis Auchincloss, James Baldwin, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Saul Bellow, Thomas Berger, Daniel Berrigan, Ted Berrigan, Wendell Berry, John Berryman, Paul Blackburn, Robert Bly, Paul Bowles, Richard Brautigan, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Hortense Calisher, Truman Capote, John Cheever, Tom Clark, Robert Coover, Cid Corman, Robert Creeley, James Dickey, Diane di Prima, Edward Dorn, Robert Duncan, George P. Elliott, Clayton Eshleman, William Everson (Brother Antoninus), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bruce Jay Friedman, John Gardner, William H. Gass, Herbert Gold, Paul Goodman, William Goyen, Shirley Ann Grau, Donald Hall, John Hawkes, Joseph Heller, Jack Hirschman, Robert Kelly, John Oliver Killens, Kenneth Koch, Philip Lamantia, Denise Levertov, Ron Loewinsohn, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Michael McClure, Larry McMurtry, David Meltzer, Josephine Miles, Warren Miller, Wright Morris, Joyce Carol Oates, Frank O'Hara, Reynolds Price, James Purdy, Philip Roth, Jerome Rothenberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Spicer, William Styron, Harvey Swados, Paul Theroux, John Updike, Diane Wakoski, Edward Wallant, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, and John Wieners. 428 pp.\n\nMURPHY, ROSALIE, EDITOR. Contemporary Poets. Preface by C. Day Lewis. St. James Press\/St. Martin's Press, London & New York, 1970. Contains checklists of each poet plus a separate listing of anthologies. 1,243 pp.\n\nContemporary Novelists. St. James Press\/St. Martin's Press, London & New York, 1972. Contains checklists of each novelist included.\n\nContemporary Dramatists. St. James Press\/St. Martin's Press, London & New York, 1973. Contains checklists of each dramatist included.\n\nTATE, ALLEN, EDITOR. Sixty American Poets 1896\u20141944. Revised edition. Selected, with Preface and Critical Notes, by Allen Tate. The Library of Congress Reference Department, Washington, D.C., 1954. Covers L\u00e9onie Adams, James Agee, Conrad Aiken, Hilda Doolittle Aldington, Howard Baker, Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t, John Peale Bishop, Richard P. Blackmur, Louise Bogan, Malcolm Cowley, Hart Crane, E. E. Cummings, Donald Davison, Richard Eberhart, T. S. Eliot, Paul Engle, Kenneth Fearing, Kimball Flaccus, John Gould Fletcher, Robert Frost, Horace Gregory, Langston Hughes, Randall Jarrell, Robinson Jeffers, James Weldon Johnson, Alfred Kreymborg, William Ellery Leonard, Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell, Archibald MacLeish, Norman MacLeod, Edgar Lee Masters, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore, Merrill Moore, Howard Nutt, Ezra Pound, Frederic Prokosch, Howard Phelps Putnam, John Crowe Ransom, Laura Riding, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Muriel Rukeyser, Carl Sandburg, Delmore Schwartz, Karl Jay Shapiro, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Jesse Stuart, Genevieve Taggard, Allen Tate, Sara Teasdale, Mark van Doren, Robert Penn Warren, James Whaler, John Brooks Wheelwright, William Carlos Williams, Yvor Winters, Elinor Wylie, and Maria Zaturenska. 155 pp.\n\nWHITEMAN, MAXWELL. A Century of Fiction by American Negroes, 1853\u20141952. A Descriptive Bibliography. Published by the author, Philadelphia, 1955. 64 pp.\n\nWHITLOW, ROGER. Black American Literature: A Critical History. With a 1,520-Title Bibliography of Works Written by and about Black Americans. Nelson Hall, Chicago, 1973. 287 pp.\n\n# CHAPTER ELEVEN\n\n# A BOOK PRODUCTION\n\nIn an earlier chapter, mention was made of galleys, proof copies, advance reading copies, and such other items involved in the production of a book which precede actual publication. Since the nature and function of these objects are often confused or misunderstood, even by some dealers (to say nothing of beginning collectors), this chapter will be devoted to a step-by-step account of the process by which an author's manuscript becomes a book. An understanding of it is more important than it once was; book collectors have become more sophisticated in their tastes and interests in the past couple of decades. Prior to World War II, one collected first editions, period. Virtually no one paid any attention to anything else\u2014either later editions, or earlier states or forms of a book\u2014other than the actual first edition as issued. Later revisions, variant bindings, and the like were never listed in catalogs and were apparently regarded as lacking in significance. Likewise, states of a book before the final, published format were not collected at all. Yet these preliminary states often reflect earlier versions of the text and are in many respects of great interest, scholarly and otherwise. Nowadays such early state material is keenly sought after.\n\nWhile the basic processes involved in making most books are consistent, there are many variations. For example, works of nonfiction generally involve matter that does not appear in works of fiction\u2014indexes, appendixes, forewords, introductions (although sometimes works of fiction by new authors have introductions by better-known, well-established authors), tables of contents, illustrations, etc. However, as most collected books are fiction (or poetry), the following description involves the production of a typical novel.\n\nNaturally, the first step is for the author to submit a completed manuscript to the publisher. No matter whether or not this is a cleanly typed text, it is generally known as a rough working manuscript. It may be an actual manuscript in the original sense of the word\u2014that is, handwritten\u2014although this is highly unlikely; most publishers insist on typed copy. Most standard contracts, in fact, call for two sets of finished manuscript. At one time this consisted of the ribbon original and a carbon typescript. This still tends to be the case in England, but nowadays in the United States the submission generally consists of the original typescript and a photocopy. Quite often, in fact, contemporary authors submit only the original copy of their manuscript, assuming that the publishing firm will have its own photocopying machine and can run off copies readily. The submitted manuscript may itself be a photocopy, since the author will usually want to keep at least one copy himself, for obvious reasons. The final copy submitted to the publisher, whether original typescript or photocopy, may have some last minute corrections in the author's hand.\n\nHaving received the original from the author, the publisher proceeds to make photocopies for internal house use, usually five or six of them. These will be used to plan the book in the production department, to prepare a book design in the art department, and to begin work on a jacket, either inside the house or with an outside artist. Other copies go to various persons in the office for reading or scanning. The book's editor uses one for his editing, and he will probably go through these changes with the author, ultimately transferring them to the original copy (by now known as the \"setting copy\"\u2014the copy of the manuscript that will go to the typesetters). At this point a copy editor must read through this top copy, or setting copy, correcting any punctuation or spelling errors and making style consistent. Once again, the author must read through the copy to make sure that he approves all the items marked before it goes to the typesetters. He also has an opportunity now to make final changes of his own. If the revisions have been extensive, it may be necessary to retype the entire manuscript. This will seldom happen, although a glance at a single page of revisions made at this point by James Joyce makes one wonder how Maurice Daranti\u00e8re's typesetters managed to decipher anything at all when setting type for Ulysses, the more especially in view of the fact that they were setting in a language unknown to them.\n\nMore likely it is an odd page or two that would be retyped and inserted in place of the one bearing numerous corrections. All of these changes will appear on the setting copy, but no effort will be made to correct the photocopies of the original text that went to the production departments. They usually remain uncorrected, since textual revisions will rarely affect the work of the jacket design department or even the physical makeup of the book. (Unless, of course, the changes are so extensive as to require that the book itself be redesigned. This is very rare.)\n\nFinally, typesetting takes place. Once the type has been set, the printer pulls about three sets of loose galleys, or long galleys, called such because they are printed on long sheets of proof paper, each sheet bearing approximately two and a half printed pages. (If the book is being set, as is increasingly the case, by a computer, the long galleys may come through at this stage already broken into single pages.) These are then read by the author, by a professional proofreader, and sometimes by the book's editor. To distinguish the source of changes made at this stage, each set of galleys is generally marked at the top of the first sheet\u2014for example, \"Author's set.\" The various corrections are then collated and transferred to one master set. This may or may not be the author's set. One reason for the importance of identifying the corrections at this point is the matter of financial responsibility for the changes. Since typesetting, like everything else, is a costly matter, the publisher quite naturally wishes to avoid expensive changes insofar as possible. The errors of the typesetter\u2014PEs\u2014are legitimately his expense. However, if the author has made errors, or wishes to make changes in the text originally submitted, these are known as author's alterations\u2014AAs\u2014and the cost of making them, beyond a certain reasonable number, will be charged to the author's account. The final corrected set then goes back to the printer, who will make the corrections.\n\nFirst page of a set of author's galleys, corrected by the poet Robert Duncan. Courtesy of Jordan Davies.\n\nWhen the first proofs are received, the publisher will send a set to a company that produces bound galleys. These are usually made from the original uncorrected, unproofed typesetting. They are printed by offset onto somewhat shorter sheets (although generally still taller than the finished book), still on a cheap variety of paper, and usually bound in stiff wrappers, sometimes glued and sometimes fastened by spiral plastic bands. The resulting \"books\" are intended primarily for publicity purposes. Some are sent as advance copies to important reviewers, some are circulated within the publishing house to the sales force, some are sent out for comment or quotes in advance of publication, some may be submitted to book clubs, such as the Book-of-the-Month Club or the Literary Guild, for consideration as a selection. The number of copies of such bound galleys may vary from half a dozen for a volume of poetry or a long, expensive deluxe book all the way up to as many as seventy-five or a hundred copies of a book that will receive widespread publicity.\n\nOccasionally a firm will have a book that warrants the expense of producing a special \"Advance Issue.\" This is usually printed on something better than proof paper, often the same paper that will be used in the final format of the book, and has a better quality cover than the normal set of bound galleys\u2014possibly even the actual dust jacket, glued around the book. Or the advance issue may have a printed wrapper bearing a message from the publisher or some famous author explaining why the book is felt to be of particular interest or importance. These copies are usually produced from the final text, or as close to the final state of the text as is possible at the time. They generally resemble the finished book in size and general appearance except for the paper binding. Such a book is usually identified on the cover by the words \"Advance Reading Copy\" or some similar designation. These are usually produced in fairly large quantities, at least five hundred\u2014as was the case with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood\u2014or even several thousand copies, particularly if the book is to be publicized at the American Booksellers Association annual convention. Advance copies are usually distributed rather generously at the ABA conventions in the hope of securing large advance orders from retail bookstores. They are of course eagerly sought after by collectors, since they are obviously the earliest form of the book to be released to the public. In some cases they may contain material that does not appear in the final issued version.\n\nWhen all corrections have been made, the columns of type are separated into page lengths by the compositor. Then (assuming the book is being printed by offset) such things as running heads, chapter headings, page numbers, etc., are stripped in (i.e., actually pasted onto the appropriate page), and all other material is added\u2014such front and back matter as title page, foreword, dedication, table of contents, index, or whatever nontextual material was not actually set in the original galleys. When this work has been okayed by the publisher, the printer photographs the paste-up, strips the resulting negatives to a \"flat\" roughly the same size as the sheet of paper the book is to be printed on, and makes a set of blueprints (much like an architect's) of the finished flats. These, folded, are known as \"blues.\" Once again, the publisher gives them one final check to make sure that everything is in its correct place, in sequence, and right side up\u2014especially the front and back matter, which has been added. Then a set of printing plates is made from the approved flats, and actual printing begins.\n\nAt this stage it is possible for the publisher to request sets of the folded and gathered sheets\u2014actually finished copies of the printed portions of the book, lacking only the binding. This is not often done nowadays, since the binding process takes a very short time, but it means that the reviewers can be supplied with material a few days earlier. These folded and gathered sheets\u2014known as \"f and g's\"\u2014are generally requested only in the case of art books or illustrated books that could not be judged fairly on the basis of the text alone.\n\nThe publisher will ideally receive completed books, bound and dust-jacketed, five to six weeks (sometimes less) before the official publication date of the book. This allows time for the books to be shipped to bookstores so that there will be stock on hand when the actual publication date arrives. It also allows time for review copies to be sent out. Formerly, most publishers employed a rubber stamp inside the front covers of review copies to mark them, but today the common practice is to insert a specially printed slip, giving the price and the official publication date, and requesting that two copies of the review be sent to the publisher. Sometimes a glossy photo and a brief biography of the author may also be inserted. In the past, many publishers double-jacketed review copies so that the newspaper or magazine could, if it chose, use one jacket to illustrate the review. These copies are known as advance review copies and are usually distributed rather liberally by major publishing houses as a form of advertising a new book. Collectors naturally prefer these, since in the normal course of events such copies are issued some weeks prior to the regular copies of the book.\n\nSome prepublication forms of literary material: loose galleys of Robert Lowell's ENDECOTT AND THE RED CROSS; bound galleys of Galway Kinnell's FLOWER HERDING ON MOUNT MONADNOCK; and a special reading edition of Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. From the author's collection.\n\nIn some cases advance review copies may come to be regarded as extremely desirable first issues, when some vital mistake is discovered after their distribution and corrected before the rest of the books are sent out. There are several instances of this. Even as I write, it has been discovered that such was the case with Bernard Malamud's Dubin's Lives. But perhaps the most notable instance, if only for the convoluted sequence of events and the variant copies that it gave rise to, is Marianne Moore's Collected Poems. This book was published in 1950 by Macmillan in New York, with a corresponding edition in England by Faber & Faber. At that time it was common for publishers to have the entire printing for a joint edition done in Europe, with either the completed books shipped here, or sometimes the sheets alone, which were then bound and jacketed in the United States. In this particular case, the complete book was printed and bound in England in two editions, one with a Macmillan title page and the Macmillan imprint on the spine, and the other with a Faber title page and the Faber imprint on the spine. Since Miss Moore was an American, it was agreed that the American edition would be released first to protect her copyright, the British edition following some three or four weeks later. Accordingly the Macmillan copies were shipped to the United States. Now, a shipment of three or four thousand books occupies a very large amount of space, and on any bulk shipment comprising identical items in quantity, the standard practice of the U.S. Customs is to release all but one case to the consignee, who is expected to hold all the merchandise, no matter what it is, until the one retained case has been examined by the customs agents and a final clearance given. Not expecting any problem, Macmillan sent out review copies, some sixty-five in all, before word came from Customs that the books were not admissible because they lacked a printed copyright notice on the verso of the title page. If the books were released thus, Miss Moore would lose her copyright. Obviously this could not be allowed to happen, and all the books had to be shipped back to England\u2014all, that is, but the sixty-five review copies, which were at this point irretrievable. Macmillan then hurriedly proceeded with production of a wholly American-printed edition, but this could not be readied in time for issuance before the Faber edition was released in England. Thus the first edition situation is as follows: a total of sixty-five copies, bearing a Macmillan title page and Macmillan imprint on the spine, but no copyright notice; next, a British edition, with Faber on the spine and a Faber title page; then the American-printed American edition (in blue cloth instead of the original orange), with Macmillan on the spine, a Macmillan title page, and bearing a copyright notice. Just to add to the confusion, when the copyright-less batch of Macmillan copies arrived back in England, rather than sacrifice the entire lot Faber sliced out the title page and tipped in a new one, bearing the Faber imprint. This created bastard copies with a Faber title page but a Macmillan imprint on the spine, and these were issued after Faber had sold out its initial supply. So there are four variants of the first edition of Marianne Moore's Collected Poems\u2014and the sixty-five advance review copies sent out by Macmillan clearly enjoy priority over all the others.\n\nMost modern books go through all of the production stages described above, although occasionally one of the steps will be bypassed. Material from each stage, however, is of interest to most collectors, especially \"in-depth\" collectors. The big trick is to get hold of such material. Review copies for most books turn up in the market fairly frequently, for regular reviewers usually supplement their income by selling unwanted books. Advance reading copies also turn up fairly often, for the same reason, and bound galleys sent out as review copies also come into the market occasionally. But the other formats are never released by publishers and, as indicated, often exist in only a very few copies. To recapitulate, here is a list of the possible states of a book, arranged chronologically:\n\n  * 1 Author's manuscript\n  * 2 Photocopies of the manuscript, prepared for house use. Either one of these or the author's original will serve as the \"setting copy,\" with corrections thereon.\n  * *3 Long galleys (usually about three sets), including the set with the author's corrections\n  * *4 Bound galleys\n  * *5 Advance reading copies (usually in special wrappers)\n  * 6 \"Blues\"\n  * 7 Sets of folded and gathered but unbound sheets\n  * *8 Advance review copies of the completed book\n  * *9 Completed book as issued\n\nThe starred items are the ones sometimes or often available in the market. The others are very rarely seen outside the publishing house. But, of course, whatever exists will be sought and valued by collectors interested in the work of that particular author.\n\n# CHAPTER TWELVE\n\n# THE CARE AND PROTECTION OF YOUR COLLECTION\n\nEvery librarian or conservationist will recommend that a collection be housed in a vault or a safe, preferably totally devoid of light and with temperature and climate controls as the best\u2014indeed, the only certain\u2014way of ensuring its preservation. The very minimum that any of them will countenance is an air-conditioned, temperature-controlled room with no windows, and with every book slipcased against light and air and the impurities to be found therein. In other words, human contact with books is to be avoided insofar as possible. This is, of course, sound advice, no denying it. It is also totally impractical, even for libraries and museums, to say nothing of the average collector. While many people nowadays live in air-conditioned homes, few if any collectors are wealthy enough to be able to devote one or more rooms exclusively to the antiseptic preservation of a book collection. Furthermore, kept under such conditions, a collection ceases to be enjoyable and becomes a burden. The slipcases alone, in addition to running into considerable money, take up an enormous amount of space\u2014something that most collectors have even less of than money. Casing denies the collector the simple, unadulterated pleasure of seeing and handling his books whenever he wishes to. To have one's books stored away in a safe-deposit vault, or locked in a light-proof room, or even housed scrupulously in slipcases, seems to me to put one in the same category as those people who possess jewels of such value that the originals are kept locked away in a vault, and paste imitations are worn to avoid the danger of theft or loss.\n\nI am strongly of the opinion that a book collector should not lose sight of the primary purpose for which a book was created. Most books were printed and published to be read and used. This does not mean abused; but the average book is not going to be damaged by being kept in normal surroundings and handled with care. Certain precautions are obvious\u2014shelves should not be above or near radiators, or in a position where the books on them are exposed to direct sunlight during any part of the day. Nor should a collection be kept where there is seepage or dampness. Basement apartments and cellars are subject to this hazard, and any sensible person with a collection to care for will avoid moving into such quarters.\n\nThere are other precautions that are not quite so obvious, although still easily taken without being a nuisance. For instance, fluorescent lighting is five times as destructive to paper as ordinary incandescent lighting. Dust and dirt are just as deleterious to books as they are to human lungs. Books are best protected by being kept in cases with doors, such as the old-fashioned glass-fronted bookcases. These, alas, have several disadvantages: they are expensive; they are difficult to purchase today since they are out of style and have gone out of production; and they are bulky. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, they do not house nearly as many books as the same amount of space devoted to open shelves. Most collectors have limited space, and open shelves are therefore more practical. With the widespread use of air-conditioning in private homes and apartments, the problem of dust and dirt has lessened somewhat. But there are other hazards in the use of open shelves. One is bookends, and a word of caution is appropriate here. It is advisable to place a thickness of cardboard, or even a dummy book next to the bookends, particularly if you are using the metal variety. This will prevent the accidental \"knifing\" of a book inadvertently replaced onto the bookend rather than next to it.\n\nWhat about protective cases? My own feeling is that, expense aside, row on row of uniformly colored leather-backed boxes rob a collection of its charm and character. There is also one fact that advocates of cases never seem to mention\u2014the wear and tear to books and dust jackets occasioned by their removal from the cases. The dangers of casing probably equal the deterioration that may result from not casing. If you do, however, decide to use cases\u2014and most collections contain one or more gems or pets that deserve a case\u2014there is a wide variety of styles and types to choose from. Any of them can be ordered with either cloth or leather covering, in a multitude of colors. If you wish, you can have a uniform color scheme for the entire collection, or a different color for each author if you collect a number of different writers.\n\nProbably the earliest type of case still in use is the solander case, named for its eighteenth-century inventor, Daniel Solander. Strictly speaking, the solander case is a box, one of whose ends or sides drops down when the lid is lifted. This allows the book to be slid in from the side, and the cover then replaced. It is not as airtight as the other kinds, however.\n\nAnother popular type is the slipcase, which is simply a box with one long end open, exposing the spine of the book. Such cases are often found today on signed limited editions and are generally made of cardboard covered with paper. They are the simplest and therefore least expensive kind of case, but obviously still leave the spine of the book subject to light and, therefore, fading. This problem can be defeated by the use of a wrap-around sleeve, or \"corset\" as it is more properly termed, which is fitted around the book before it is inserted into the case. Slipcases are relatively simple to make, and any collector at all handy with paste and scissors and a little patience can produce them. (If you try this, make certain not to use high-acid-content materials \u2014see p. 186.) At least one rather knowledgeable dealer has been so fooled by a homemade slipcase as to catalog the book as being \"in the original slipcase, as issued,\" to the vast amusement of his better-informed colleagues.\n\nA third style is the double-hinged type, the \"fall-down back\" case, which will lie flat when opened. It is also known as a clam-shell box, since the two sides fit together as snugly as the two halves of a clam shell when closed. It is probably the best kind of case to use, not only because it gives more protection than any other type, but also because it requires the least amount of handling of the book it contains in that it will lie flat and allow the book to be in full view. There is no need to slide the book to remove it, an operation always tinged with the possibilities of damage.\n\nThe fourth type is the \"pull-off\" case, also known as a drop case. This is a vertical box with a lid, much like an ordinary kitchen canister. With the top removed, the book must then be dropped into the case, and the lid replaced. Similarly, to remove a book from such a case involves either pulling or shaking the book out\u2014risky, as noted above.\n\nPamphlets usually require some sort of protection, being too fragile to stand upright on shelves and, without the strength of bound books, being more prone to wear and tear. Formerly, ordinary brown kraft paper envelopes were believed to be suitable and efficient protection. Now, however, we have become aware of the disintegrating action of chemicals used in the manufacture of most paper, and know that such containers are to be avoided. It is now possible to purchase folders and envelopes made of acid-free paper which will safely preserve anything stored in them. The best known are retailed under the trade name \"Permalife.\" Specially designed pamphlet folders are also available, with fold-over flaps to keep items from slipping out. Since pamphlets do not make any appreciable showing on library shelves, many collectors employ boxes or library cases to house groups of pamphlets. A wide variety of sizes and styles of storage boxes and cases, either for flat or upright storage, all made of acid-free materials, is available. But since most collectors like to keep everything by one author together, a pamphlet case may not be the answer for all storage problems. It is also possible to use precut sheets of Mylar, in a thickness of .010\", fastened with a \"Bac-bone,\" which slides on easily over the closed edge. These are ideal if you have only one pamphlet or even a group of loose sheets on any one subject to be housed together. These Mylar sheets come in standard sizes and a variety of colors, if so desired. There is still another alternative that is chemically safe, a combination of the Mylar sheets and the format of the Permalife envelopes, known as Markilo Transparent Envelopes, made of cellulose acetate. They come in three standard sizes: 9\" x 3\"; 9\" x 6\"; and 12\" x 9\", with an opening on one long side.\n\nA problem that has become increasingly apparent in recent years is the deterioration of the printed paper itself, because of its acid content. Anyone familiar with the rapid yellowing and crumbling of old newspapers will realize immediately how serious such damage can be, particularly in the case of books or pamphlets printed on cheap wood-pulp paper, the kind used extensively in books published during both world wars. Deacidification of such paper is possible by at least three methods, but they are all intricate processes that can be performed only by specialists with considerable knowledge, experience, and equipment. Since all of them are time consuming, they are correspondingly expensive. It is especially difficult to treat bound books; they must be disbound, treated, and then rebound. Few modern books warrant such expensive treatment. However, this treatment is recommended for rare dust jackets, and particularly for rarities of the Beat writers, many of whose early works were mimeographed on cheap paper guaranteed to self-destruct within a few years. Such items must be deacidified as soon as possible. Allen Ginsberg's first book, the pamphlet Siesta at Xbalba (see p. 12), is an example. Since Ginsberg has become one of the most widely collected of modern poets, this pamphlet fetches four-figure prices whenever it makes one of its rare appearances on the market. Certainly a few dollars' worth of treatment makes sense to preserve such a rarity.\n\nFor the collector who likes to display some of his manuscript pages, perhaps a poem in the holograph of one of his favorite poets, there is always the danger of the ink fading due to prolonged exposure to light. In recent years a transparent plastic \"glass\" has been developed that absorbs ultraviolet light and can be used instead of ordinary glass in a picture frame as a safeguard against fading. It comes in sheets, maximum size 48\" x 96\", and is thick enough (\u215b\") and easily enough cut that it can be used to replace regular window glass in the room housing valuable documents. A word of caution, though: If you have plants in the same room, this glass cannot be used; the ultraviolet light that is so deleterious to books is absolutely essential to a living plant. This plastic\u2014like the other specialized materials recommended in this chapter\u2014can be procured only from specialized library supply dealers, although an occasional item may be found in some of the larger art supply houses. Highly recommended is the firm of Talas, 130 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011, which carries all of the items mentioned, as well as many other aids. A seventy-page catalog is available for a small fee.\n\nThe preservation of dust jackets is perhaps the problem that the majority of collectors worry about most. For the collector who does not want to case every book, there is an inexpensive and convenient alternative which will minimize the danger of further wear and tear to dust jackets. This is the use of a thin sheet of Mylar as an outside wrapper. Mylar is totally transparent and also chemically inactive. It comes in two styles, one with paper backing and one without. The type with the paper backing is slightly more difficult to fit onto dust jackets, but does provide more protection, since it seals off the top and bottom edges as well as covering the face of the jackets. The paperless variety, easier to use, serves as a second, transparent dust jacket around the original, and is usually an effective safeguard against tearing or snagging, soiling, and other disasters to which jackets are prone. Some collectors, not wishing to go to the expense of Mylar, which must be bought in large rolls, have turned instead to ordinary household waxed paper. Conservation experts wince when such a suggestion is made, but admit that there is no chemical harm in using such an unsophisticated product. The main drawback is that waxed paper has no strength, and after several handlings must be replaced, whereas the Mylar is virtually indestructible and lasts indefinitely. It does scratch, but only with continued daily handling\u2014and even then can be replaced quickly and inexpensively. Some brands of waxed paper are more opaque than others; in my experience Marcal seems to be the most transparent. With any of them, however, there will be a general dulling of colors, whereas Mylar seems to heighten and freshen the appearance of a collection, a definite aesthetic advantage which helps offset the additional expense involved.\n\nTo sum up, general good sense and reasonable care should suffice to protect all but the most fragile items from damage. If there should be damage, don't try home repairs. Most of us are able only to make matters worse. There are experts available who know what to do, and it will save you grief and expense in the long run to employ their services. Finding them may not be easy; however, rare-book librarians at most universities and large institutions will necessarily have employed one or more of these specialists and will probably be glad to give you names and addresses. Similarly, clubs devoted to book collecting will certainly have such names on file or have members who will be able to supply such information. Carolyn Horton Associates, 430 West 22d Street, New York, New York 10011, is one of the best in the field, having headed the American team of expert restorers who helped salvage the irreplaceable books and manuscripts damaged in the Florence flood a few years ago.\n\nMost veteran collectors know that there are also some modern \"conveniences\" which must be kept away from books\u2014such things as rubber bands, paper clips, cellophane tape (or any other kind of tape for that matter, including Scotch brand Magic tape), ball-point pens, and felt-tip pens. If you discover a signature or inscription in felt-tip ink in a book, immediately place slips of Mylar (or at the very least our old friend, waxed paper) on either side of the inscribed page to prevent it from bleeding through.\n\nPerhaps the greatest danger to rare books, as to most other endangered species, is man himself, especially in the form of a careless friend or visitor. Never, ever, under any circumstances, allow anyone to handle any of your books while holding a pipe, cigar, cigarette, or drink. The risks of a hot ash burning a hole are obvious, and water damage is probably worse. I learned this the hard way when a famous poet was examining one of his own books in my house with a drink in hand. The inevitable happened, and the drink stained the wrappers and colophon page of a very limited, signed edition (one of only twelve copies). Some days later, when it had thoroughly dried, the poet made amends by making a drawing around the stain and suitably inscribing an explanation. All in all, a reasonably happy ending, but not one that could be expected if someone other than the author had caused the damage. So be firm. No true friend or book lover will be offended.\n\nThe following chart, originally issued in 1937 by a mythical \"Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Books,\" contains sound advice beneath its flippant tone:\n\nHOW TO ABSTAIN FROM BIBLIOLATRY, BEING A TREATISE ON THE IMPROPER CARE OF BOOKS\n\nMethod | Result  \n---|---  \n1 | TIGHT PACKING ON SHELVES | An excellent method for tearing covers when removing.  \n2 | LOOSE PACKING ON SHELVES | A quick cover-warping process.  \n3 | OPENING NEW BOOK VIOLENTLY | A back-breaking exercise.  \n4 | LAYING FACE DOWN AND WITH OTHER BOOKS PILED ON TOP | A good system for producing \"pop-open\" and \"bow-legged\" books.  \n5 | USING BULKY OBJECTS FOR PLACE MARKERS | A short-cut to split backs.  \n6 | USING TO ELEVATE INFANT CHAIR | Good means for applying a painful overall strain.  \n7 | FOLDING CORNER AS MARKER | Approved manner of paper torture.  \n8 | USING PAPER CLIP AS MARKER | Good system for tearing and leaving marks on paper.  \n9 | USING RUBBER BAND AS MARKER | The sulphur-rot system.  \n10 | TURNING PAGES VIOLENTLY | Endorsed way of creating tears.  \n11 | PLACING ON ROUGH AND SHARP-EDGED SHELVES | Favored method for abrading head and tail of books.  \n12 | PLACING LIGHTED CIGARETTE ON BOOK | Informal procedure for producing decorations to the binding.  \n13 | EATING AND CRUMB DROPPING WHILE READING | The lazy torturer's method, as he entices the assistance of vermin to do his work.  \n14 | USING AS SERVING TRAY OR COASTER | Artistic, surrealistic decorations result.  \n15 | LEAVING OUTSIDE IN HOT SUN | The sanctioned rule for producing faded colors and permanent warping.  \n16 | USING BOOKS AS WEIGHTS | Excellent form for creating interesting cover marks.  \n17 | USING BOOKS TO KEEP DOORS AJAR | Ideal for producing flattened corners.  \n18 | CUTTING ILLUSTRATIONS FROM BOOKS | This method is particularly enjoyable when employed on borrowed books.  \n19 | VILIFYING AUTHOR IN MARGINAL NOTES | The courageous method of anonymous attack on authors.  \n20 | UNDERLINING SENTENCES | Decorative and impressive, especially on library books.\n\n# CHAPTER THIRTEEN\n\n# FAKES, FORGERIES, AND FACSIMILES\n\nFakes, forgeries, and facsimiles do not, fortunately, plague the collector of twentieth-century material as much as they do collectors of earlier material, or even collectors of objects other than books. Still, there is enough of this sort of thing around to warrant some discussion of it.\n\nForgeries may be defined as spurious productions of books or pamphlets that never actually existed, as opposed to fakes which are conscious reproductions of items made at a later date with the intention of deception. Quite often a facsimile\u2014which has been honestly issued as such\u2014will be manipulated or doctored into a fake. But more about that later. Outright forgeries, the creation of books or pamphlets that never existed, are seldom encountered, thank heaven! But there have been two major attempts to create them, one in the nineteenth century and, surprisingly enough, one in the 1960s. The amazing thing about these two attempts is that the perpetrators employed exactly the same ideas and techniques, and were discovered and tripped up by exactly the same detective tactics.\n\nThe earlier forger was the now notorious Thomas J. Wise, certainly one of the least likely candidates for the role. Wise, a businessman of some means, was the leading British bibliophile in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He held every position of honor in the field, and rightly so, as author of comprehensive pioneering bibliographies of such authors as Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin, Swinburne, Wordsworth, and other contemporary writers, all of whom were at that time just beginning to be collected seriously. Wise's bibliographies were based on his own magnificent collections, unrivaled for scope and depth. But some flaw in Wise's character led him astray and ultimately negated all his accomplishments, to the point where he is now principally remembered as one of the most unscrupulous forgers of all time. For reasons we shall probably never know, he began issuing little pamphlets that purported to be early rarities of important Victorian authors, all dated in the 1840s and 1850s. None of them actually appeared before 1888, however, and each one that surfaced was somehow \"discovered\" by Wise and parceled out by him to eager collectors. This went on for a considerable number of years; in fact, for several decades. Not until the early 1930s, when two serious doubters and students of bibliography had assembled enough evidence to publish a book modestly entitled An Enquiry Into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets was he at last unmasked. Written by John Carter and Graham Pollard, An Enquiry appeared in 1934 and was the biggest bombshell ever to hit the book-collecting world.\n\nImprobabilities concerning the Wise pamphlets had already touched off a certain amount of suspicion. For instance, the most famous of them, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, supposedly had been issued in Reading in 1847, three years prior to the earliest known appearance of these poems. Yet not a single copy bore an inscription, although the edition was purportedly \"not for sale\" and produced for Mrs. Browning's private distribution among her friends. Further, all the copies were in superb condition, showing no signs of ever having been read. This was also the case with most of the other pamphlets. While such facts may cause suspicion, they are not legally damning, but they inspired Carter and Pollard to employ modern scientific methods to make a case against Wise. A chemical analysis of the paper from one of the Browning pamphlets\u2014and God bless the one rare-book librarian who had courage enough to snip a small strip from her copy\u2014proved that it had been manufactured long after 1847, when the book was presumably printed. Then there was the evidence of the typefaces, which also could be demonstrated not to have been in use until long after the imprint dates of the pamphlets. Wise refused all comment, and died shortly afterward in disgrace. Ironically, Wise's fame is such that his forgeries today are collected in their own right; a \"genuine Wise forgery\" may bring more now than it did in the days when an unsuspecting collector believed he was buying a genuine early rarity.\n\nTwo pamphlets forged by Thomas J. Wise late in the nineteenth century. Courtesy of the Grolier Club.\n\nNo serious attempt at anything similar occurred until the late 1960s. Back in the 1930s, in fact almost precisely at the time when the Wise scandal broke, a young poet-novelist named Frederic Prokosch commissioned the printing, quite legitimately and with the knowledge and permission of the various authors concerned, of a series of small pamphlets of poems by such poets as W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, and W. B. Yeats. The pamphlets were always limited to an extremely small number of copies (usually twenty or twenty-two\u2014although there is beginning to be a suspicion that there may have been some duplication of numbers), printed on a variety of papers. Prokosch was personally acquainted with the poets, and copies of most of the pamphlets exist with genuine presentation inscriptions dated at the time of issuance. A choice copy is T. S. Eliot's Two Songs, inscribed by the author to the then-fledgling W. H. Auden on the eve of the latter's birthday. As the pamphlets were known and catalogued immediately upon publication, there can be no question that they were genuine.\n\nA genuine T. S. Eliot pamphlet published by Frederic Prokosch in 1934, inscribed by Eliot to Auden and dated. From the author's collection.\n\nHowever, in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, additional Prokosch pamphlets by these poets suddenly began appearing at auction, along with titles by other authors not previously known to have been published by him. They appeared chiefly in sales at one of the principal London auction galleries, where most of them were bought by one of the oldest and most honored of British booksellers. At first, collectors were dismayed. Here was a whole series of hitherto unknown and important items\u2014and there were virtually none to be had. What was one to do, when one prided oneself on having a complete author collection\u2014and that collection had suddenly developed an expensive, and perhaps unfillable, gap? I had such collections of Marianne Moore and Gertrude Stein, each of whom now appeared to have permitted a \"Prokosch\" pamphlet. Gradually, as the first shock wore off, experienced dealers and seasoned collectors began to be suspicious. It seemed odd in the extreme, with the earlier pamphlets well documented since the date of their imprints, that these had never come to light before. Some of the pamphlets had in addition a manuscript note, apparently in Prokosch's own hand, describing the exact circumstances in which each had been printed, at various towns in Europe, between 1934 and 1940. All this added color to the supposition that more pamphlets had been printed than had previously been known. Inevitably collectors, bibliographers, and other experts discussed these new rarities, and inevitably, each voiced his suspicion. For my own part, having been for many years an avid collector of the works of both Stein and Moore, I found it hard to believe that I would never have heard of these had they legitimately existed. Both ladies were meticulous with regard to their own publications, and had Miss Moore, a longtime friend, known of their existence, she would certainly have at least shown me one, if not given me a copy. With respect to Gertrude Stein, the evidence against such a pamphlet was even more weighty. Being convinced of her own genius and immortality from the very beginning, she preserved every scrap of paper she ever received\u2014every letter, card, note, and household bill, right down to the bills for the clipping and grooming of her pet poodle, Basket. She also religiously kept all her manuscripts, written in longhand in school notebooks. These were then transcribed by the faithful Alice Toklas into typewritten copies to send out for possible publication. In all of her massive archive, carefully stored at Yale, fully catalogued, there is no correspondence from Prokosch about any such publication, nor any trace of the poem he issued under her name. Prokosch claimed that he lost the manuscript of \"Lily\" (the title of the poem he caused to be printed). It does not even sound like genuine Stein, thus posing the possibility of a double forgery\u2014not only of the imprint, but also of the text as well.\n\nAll this came into the open when a supposedly complete set of these pamphlets was put up for sale on 1 May 1972. The majority were bought by Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. of London ; Arthur Freeman, of that firm, doubtful from the first, asked Nicolas Barker, editor of The Book Collector and a bibliographer specializing in the analysis of the physical attributes of books, to examine them. As with the Wise forgeries, Mr. Barker was now able to establish that typeface, paper, or text condemned 75 percent of the pamphlets as manufactured later than the date on the title page. Mr. Barker's account of the entire episode is scheduled for publication soon.\n\nIn the United States, in the 1960s, a series of piracies\u2014that is, books issued in violation of copyright\u2014were issued by the New York firm of Haskell House. These were not intended to defraud collectors, since for the most part they did not attempt to reproduce the formats of the original editions. They were intended primarily to fill the demand for scarce, out-of-print texts. The technique was to photocopy a first edition, sometimes in the same size and approximate format, sometimes in larger or smaller size. This firm flourished for a few years, long enough to issue at one point a catalog listing a hundred of these productions. Eventually they were forced to desist when they started issuing titles by Eliot, Stein, and other authors whose estates or literary executors took offense. Some of these books are of interest to in-depth collectors who want every imprint of a title. In the main they are not dangerous, for they cannot possibly fool a collector of even small experience.\n\nSomewhat more serious to collectors is the matter of fakes\u2014that is, the sale of a reproduction as an original. This occurs fairly often in other collecting fields\u2014notably antiques, paintings, and stamps. Generally speaking, for most books the expense of the faking is prohibitive. To set up type, print pages, bind the book, and go through all the necessary mechanics normally involves so much time and labor that the process is self-defeating. Naturally, the simpler the production format, the greater the chance there is that a fake can be produced. Pamphlets are easier to make than hardbound books, and mimeographed items easier still. It is in this last category that some fakes have been produced, especially since the mimeograph revolution of the late fifties. Mimeography was one of the principal methods employed by the Beats to issue their works. To my knowledge, however, only one fake of a mimeographed rarity has been identified definitely\u2014an early book by Larry Eigner entitled Look at the Park, where the stencils were retyped, run again, and reissued in identical format. Luckily for collectors, a slight error was made on the reissue: it was stapled at the top left corner only. The original had been stapled all along the left side. The telltale staple holes in the upper corner make identification of this fake very easy. But there well may be other mimeographed fakes in existence that have never been identified.\n\nThe conversion of honest facsimiles into fakes is another matter and once again it is not something easily accomplished in the case of bound books. To begin with, very few facsimiles are issued, and those that are usually have various kinds of marking on them so as to render faking difficult, although, of course, not totally impossible. The gambit is rare enough, however, not to need further elaboration here. In most cases, attempted conversions of facsimiles into fakes are so clumsy as to be obvious to almost any collector with a modicum of experience.\n\nThe area where there is, alas, a considerable amount of dishonesty and faking is in the field of signed or inscribed copies. This mainly takes the form of forged signatures in books that are genuine. While entire inscriptions can be forged, they are much more difficult to accomplish than signatures and much easier to identify as fraudulent. What usually appears is merely a forged signature copied, with varying degrees of skill, from a genuine specimen. The model is usually a signature in a signed limited edition because there is generally no question of its genuineness. (Not that there is never a question in such a case: In one notorious instance, Delacorte Press in 1967 announced a signed limited edition of A Christmas Story by Katherine Anne Porter, illustrated by Ben Shahn, to be signed by both. Shahn signed all five hundred of the copies, but Miss Porter became ill and could not sign them. As this was an item aimed specifically at the Christmas market it would have been disastrous to have waited for her to recover. So a modern \"auto-pen\" was employed, a mechanical device that copies the signature fed into it. Such machines are sometimes used by busy executives who must sign great numbers of letters and became well known to the collecting field when employed by the late President Kennedy. A couple of sharp-eyed dealers noted the repetitious similarity of the Porter signatures and protested to the publisher. Delacorte permitted unsold copies of the book to be returned for signing\u2014post\u2014Christmas\u2014by the author.)\n\nSome signed book forgeries are good enough to fool even the experts. Luckily, though, most of them are fairly easily recognizable by anyone familiar with a genuine signature. Here again, it pays to have established a working relationship with a reliable and experienced dealer who has seen a considerable number of genuine signatures and is likely to be able to spot fakes and forgeries.\n\nThe growing interest in, and demand for, autograph and manuscript material has given rise to another unscrupulous dodge, to which many amiable authors have unwittingly lent their aid. This takes the form of getting an author to sign a typed extract from one of his works, which is then offered in the trade as a typed \"manuscript, signed.\" Of course, it is nothing of the kind, since it was not typed by the author and in no way can be considered anything more than an example of the author's signature. Some authors who have been victimized by this practice now quite rightly refuse to sign any typed extracts, and one hopes that the practice is on the wane.\n\nHuman nature being what it is, there will always be fakes and forgeries as long as there are customers for material that can be faked or forged. To understand why some collectors are so gullible as to buy things that even on the surface should sound suspicious, it is necessary to understand the deep urge felt by every collector\u2014including the innocent and the unskilled\u2014to own something unique, something dazzling, that no one else has. One old-time dealer, Samuel Loveman, now dead, played this tendency to the hilt in the last twenty years of his long life, offering all sorts of things that common sense should have told anyone could not possibly be genuine. He was fond of signing famous authors' names into worthless books, offering them in his catalogs as having come from the famous authors' own libraries. It once emerged that no fewer than three of his customers had bought Cabell's Jurgen with Dylan Thomas' \"signature of ownership.\" But, despite his ability to make reasonably good copies of genuine signatures, Loveman had a slight palsy, and the handwriting on his spurious products was always a little tremulous, a dead giveaway most of the time. He had acquired, on the death of Hart Crane's mother, her entire archive of her son's letters, books, and papers, a lot that included a large supply of Crane's unused bookplates. Well into the late 1960s Loveman was pasting these into otherwise valueless books, offering them as books from Hart Crane's library. At least once, to my knowledge, he slipped up and put a bookplate into a book not published until after Crane's death.\n\nAs senility set in, Loveman got more and more careless about signing books, using ball-point pens for signatures of authors who had died before the ball-point pen was invented. His catalogs were an endless source of amusement to those familiar with his wares. To my mind, he reached the peak of his forging career when he offered, for a mere $50, a book on whaling \"annotated in pencil by Herman Melville.\" I've often wondered who bought this treasure.\n\n# CHAPTER FOURTEEN\n\n# INVESTMENT\n\nMost dealers have, at best, ambiguous feelings about customers who are frankly collecting for investment, and while no dealer in his right mind will refuse to sell a book to a customer for this reason alone, dealers usually prefer to place their better books with customers who are collecting primarily for the love of the sport. Realistically, of course, no collector is ever completely unconcerned about the value of his books. One of the many satisfactions in owning a collection is the pleasure of watching a book you have purchased at a nominal price, perhaps even at publication price, start on an upward spiral.\n\nIn the past couple of years there has been a considerable amount of discussion in newspapers and national magazines about the investment potential of rare books. Part of the reason for their attractiveness is the fact that several other popular inflation hedges have performed erratically recently, or moved beyond the reach of the average investor. Gold coins, after a boom, stayed more or less level for several years. Impressionist and other modern paintings (which first took the lead in price rises) are now far beyond the means of all but millionaires. Antique furniture, while a good potential investment, presents a massive storage problem. So attention has turned to the field of rare books, where prices are still moderate, supplies available, and storage problems not overly burdensome.\n\nA sure sign of the widespread belief in the attractiveness of rare books as a form of investment is the sudden proliferation of companies purveying what they term \"collectors' editions.\" These are supposedly deluxe limited editions, sold at fancy prices by direct mail and by means of heavy advertising in mass magazines. The advertising is not at all hesitant to tout the investment potential of these books, implying that they are bound to increase in value. All the more reason to bear in mind that several factors must obtain for this to occur. First of all, the book has to be truly scarce, if not rare. (These two terms are vague at best, and are quite often used interchangeably in dealers' catalogs. However, most collectors and many dealers will agree that \"scarce\" means that a book will be difficult to find immediately or even soon, but will, in all probability, eventually turn up within a reasonable period of time. A truly \"rare\" book may not be seen for years, perhaps not for decades.) To be scarce or rare, the initial number of copies in existence must be relatively small. \"Relatively small\" can mean as many as a thousand copies, but certainly no more than that, and probably far fewer. Secondly, it should have the advantage of being either a first edition or, at the very least, an edition that offers something that no other edition can boast\u2014perhaps the signature of the author, or illustrations by a well-known artist, perhaps original etchings or lithographs bound in or an extraordinarily fine binding. The firms offering \"collectors' editions\" currently meet very few, if any, of these requirements. One firm does advertise that all of its books are first editions\u2014in fact, uses the words \"first edition\" in the club's name. Much of the time it is true that their edition is a legitimate first, but in several documented cases their editions were in fact issued later than the corresponding trade edition. Ultimately, when bibliographies of the various authors involved are compiled, this lack of priority will be spelled out. As a result, the book is scarcely likely to command any kind of premium.\n\nThe prospectuses and advertising copy of these various clubs are shrewdly calculated to trap the unwary. While nothing that they state is actually untrue, a lot of information that is crucial and relevant is carefully omitted. When the most prominent of these companies started its series, an advertisement listed the authors whose new books the firm would publish and then elaborated in considerable detail the high prices that certain titles by those authors were now bringing. For example, W. H. Auden's Sonnet was quoted as being worth anywhere from $400 to $600, and William Faulkner's Marble Faun $1,700. Both of these price indications were correct (perhaps even underestimated), but it takes very little research to show how little they have to do with the prospective value of books issued by the club. Auden's Sonnet was privately issued in 1934, early in the poet's career, in an edition of only twenty-two copies. Faulkner's Marble Faun was virtually worthless for nearly forty years after its publication in 1924, during which time the never very large number of copies in the initial printing became very small indeed. The number of copies actually issued by the club of Auden's Collected Poems and the Selected Letters of William Faulkner (two of the authors singled out as prime examples of good investment possibilities) exceeded 40,000\u2014more, in fact, than were published in the regular trade editions of the books. Now, it is possible for these books to increase in value\u2014but I wouldn't wait for it to happen! So, the first trap for an investor to avoid is that of joining a book club that promises him, even by implication, books for investment.\n\nThere have been, and still are, many other book clubs devoted to the production of fine books in limited editions, most of which are legitimate and do produce handsome books. The Limited Editions Club has been in existence since 1929, producing, usually, a book every month; but not for investment. Many people join this club for a couple of years and then are distressed to learn that they seldom can get their original investment back when they go to sell the books. Handsome as they are, very few of them have increased very much in value over the years.\n\nAmong the most notable of Limited Editions Club books that have appreciated is James Joyce's Ulysses with six original etchings by Matisse. This edition was originally announced as being signed by both Joyce and Matisse, and Matisse did actually sign the colophon sheets for all 1,500 copies. Joyce, however, signed only slightly more than 250 sheets, ceasing when he realized\u2014on looking at a set of the etchings airmailed to him\u2014that Matisse had not illustrated his work at all but, through a misunderstanding, had illustrated Homer's Odyssey. So copies bearing both signatures command a far higher premium than those with only Matisse's signature, although, naturally, any copy of the book, containing as it does six original Matisse etchings, brings a healthy sum. The Limited Editions Club edition of Lysistrata, illustrated by Picasso, also always brings a high price, as do the two Alice books signed by Alice Hargreaves (the original Alice for whom Lewis Carroll wrote the stories) and two or three other titles in the series, mainly those with illustrations by such notable twentieth-century artists as Andr\u00e9 Derain and Thomas Hart Benton. But such wanted books account for fewer than a dozen titles out of nearly six hundred. It bears out the principle that book club editions, no matter how fine, must have some other important distinction ever to become valuable.\n\nInvesting in books as a form of profit making is just as risky as investing in stocks and bonds. Seemingly \"safe\" authors may fall from grace and favor and never again find popularity among collectors. The classic example, known to every dealer, is that of John Galsworthy, who in the late 1920s and early 1930s was the twentieth-century author to collect. His first book, From the Four Winds, written under the pseudonym of John Sinjohn, was eagerly sought after and sold readily for $500 or $600 in 1933, when that amount of money represented a staggering figure. (To gain perspective on this, remember that a married man could raise a family, own his home and perhaps even an automobile, on a salary of $45 a week. The best cut of sirloin steak was 25\u00a2 a pound.) After World War II, Galsworthy fell from popularity and has never recovered with either collectors or readers. Even the success of the television version of The Forsyte Saga a few years ago failed to create any demand for his work other than a brief flurry of interest in that one sequence of novels. Nowadays, you can buy From the Four Winds for well under $100, and the complete combined The Forsyte Saga for not much more, even in the deluxe edition. The other titles cannot be given away. So anyone who invested in Galsworthy has taken a terrific beating.\n\nColophon page of one of the few copies of the Limited Edition Club's edition of James Joyce's ULYSSES, illustrated by Henri Matisse, that were signed by both Joyce and Matisse. From the author's collection.\n\nNor is that an isolated example. Forty or fifty years ago, the popular authors to collect were H. L. Mencken, James Branch Cabell, A. E. Coppard, Joseph Hergesheimer, Carl Van Vechten, Willa Cather, Robinson Jeffers, Eugene O'Neill, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Mencken and Cabell slumped badly. Cabell today commands only a very limited audience, and his books sell at modest prices. Mencken has started a comeback, but there is absolutely no interest whatever in Hergesheimer or Coppard, and only a modicum in the works of Van Vechten. Millay, Cather, O'Neill, and Jeffers, of course, are still widely collected. But the same precipitous decline may\u2014and undoubtedly will\u2014strike some of today's top favorites during the next two decades. It would be patently foolish at this point to try to predict which ones they will be. But certainly very few of the much sought after novelists of the present generation will remain in great demand at such inflated prices as are now current.\n\nTitle page of Robert Lowell's first book, signed by him. From the author's collection.\n\nMy belief, based on nearly forty years of experience and observation, is that poets fare better in the long run, for many reasons. For one thing, they arrive much more slowly at peaks of eminence and, in the nature of things, also decline \u2014if they ever do\u2014far more slowly than popular novelists. Another important factor is that the number of copies printed of a book of poetry is extremely small in most cases, especially when compared with the quantity printed of a popular novel. A book of poetry may well have only five hundred or a thousand copies in its first printing (if, indeed, it ever reaches a second). For example, Robert Lowell's first book, The Land of Unlikeness, was published in 1944 in an edition of 226 copies, at $2 each. Four years earlier, Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls appeared in an edition of 75,000 copies. Hemingway's reputation was well established by that time and copies of his book were readily bought up by collectors. Very few people had ever heard of an unknown poet named R. T. S. Lowell, and only a small number of people bought the book. Those who did buy it were mostly fans of the Cummington Press, which printed it, and they purchased it as an example of fine printing. Some three or four decades later, the price of the Hemingway book has done little more than keep pace with inflation, not because of any decline in Hemingway's popularity with collectors but simply because of the enormous number of copies available. On the other hand, Lowell's book is now recognized as one of the key books in any collection of postwar American poetry, and easily fetches four figures when a copy comes on the market. Lowell's second book, Lord Weary's Castle, was published by a commercial firm, Harcourt, Brace and Co., and earned him his Pulitzer Prize. While the firm will not disclose the actual number of copies printed, it was almost certainly fewer than five thousand\u2014far, far fewer than that of a Hemingway novel. Today, of course, a copy will cost far more than a copy of Hemingway's Bell. This parallel can be drawn all along the line between poetry and fiction. Among living novelists in the late 1970s, John Updike is far and away the most collected fiction writer. His books are produced in enormous quantities, and most also appear in book club editions. Updike novels usually have large initial printings\u2014up to fifty thousand copies\u2014and sometimes go into later printings. His signed, limited editions (issued concurrently with the regular trade edition) are always oversold before publication. On the other hand, the books of the poet Howard Nemerov, a recent National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, are produced in relatively small editions and often remain available for several years in the first printing (most never go into later printings at all). In all probability, decades hence the later novels of Updike will, like Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, be available at reasonable prices despite a continued interest in Updike. The volumes of Nemerov's poetry, all other factors being equal, should rise appreciably over the years simply because there are so few of them.\n\nThere are, of course, as with everything, exceptions to this generalization. If a poet such as Carl Sandburg, Marianne Moore, or Allen Ginsberg becomes a public figure (usually, it must be admitted, because of his or her picturesque personality), large editions of his or her work will be printed, though still not nearly as big as those of popular novels. Thus, Marianne Moore's last few volumes will probably never be high-priced items since there are sufficient quantities available to satisfy any and all collectors. The same applies to the later books of Ginsberg, produced in editions of thousands of copies. But Ginsberg's first two books, the aforementioned mimeographed Siesta in Xbalba and Howl, a watershed volume in the history of American poetry, climb steadily in value. It is fairly safe to say that they will always command a large price, since, whatever one may think of Ginsberg's oeuvre overall, his impact on the course of modern poetry has been (in my opinion) greater than that of any other single poet in this century. His books will always have a unique place in literary history\u2014and among collectors.\n\nMany collectors do not have a realistic idea of how much a dealer can or will pay for books. This is often a source of disappointment and sometimes even anger. Especially in the case of modern books, which are often in fairly adequate supply, the would-be seller may be startled to find that he cannot get as much as he paid in the first place, even if he has kept the book for a considerable time, unless for some reason the price for that particular volume has increased significantly. With very few exceptions, no dealer can or will pay more than half of what his ultimate retail selling price will be, and many dealers pay even less than this. Fifty percent is the absolute top price that should be expected. Thus, if the collector has bought novels of an established author such as Norman Mailer or John Updike or Colin Wilson, particularly the middle and later titles of such authors, he should expect to experience difficulty in breaking even. These later titles were all issued in extremely large quantities and are therefore not difficult to find. When such books as these are offered, most dealers will be only mildly interested. Chances are they have at least one copy in stock and perhaps many more, with no prospects of immediate sale. So an offer below the original purchase price can be quite honest and is in no way intended to cheat the owner. In fact, by offering to buy the books at all, the dealer may be doing the seller a favor. There is one way for the seller in such a predicament to realize somewhat more on his investment, and that is by taking other books in trade rather than cash. Most dealers will allow a higher price if it is in trade for other merchandise, the usual offer being approximately another 15 to 20 percent above the cash price.\n\nIf the collector has bought books after the particular author has come into widespread collector popularity, he has probably paid premiums for some of them, making his chance of breaking even on resale even less. Once again, the rule of thumb of one-half the dealer's prospective retail price applies. Even with today's rapid increases, it takes a long time for a book to double in price\u2014necessary if the owner is to get back his original investment\u2014or to increase beyond that point\u2014necessary if he is to make a profit. As always, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, little or no profit can be expected on books held for less than a decade. As has been repeatedly said, book collecting should be done for the fun and love of it, not primarily for profit.\n\nStill another factor playing a part in determining prices is one that many people fail to take into consideration. Yet it is probably the most important one of all. Condition has been stressed in other chapters of this book. Modern books, and particularly books published in the last thirty years, are, with very few exceptions, not difficult to find in fine condition and usually with presentable dust jackets. Therefore, many dealers refuse to buy copies without dust jackets, and few dealers, if any, will buy worn copies of books published since World War II. Many beginning collectors hear about phenomenal prices, especially after an important auction, or read high prices in catalogs, but fail to comprehend that these high prices are based very largely on the fact that the book's condition is splendid. They think that their dog-eared copy should bring just as much and cannot understand why the dealer either offers very little or refuses to buy. The importance of condition in a book is much the same as condition in a used automobile. A used Ford in fine running condition is worth far more than a smashed-up Cadillac beyond repair.\n\n# CHAPTER FIFTEEN\n\n# DONATING OR SELLING YOUR COLLECTION TO AN INSTITUTION\n\nThe problem of what to do with a large or important collection is one that every collector thinks about from time to time. We have already discussed selling at auction. A second option, and one that is favored by a large segment of the serious book-collecting fraternity, is placement en bloc in an institution. As with other ways of disposing of a collection, this option presents both advantages and disadvantages to the owner, to say nothing of surprises, dangers, and pitfalls along the way.\n\nIf you decide not to sell the collection on the open market and thus to break it up, but want to keep it intact by placing it in an institutional library, you have several important choices to make, each with legal ramifications for you and for the institution you select. First of all, most basically, you must decide which institution you want it to go to. This is usually one's alma mater. However, a great many eminent colleges and universities have neither rare-book libraries nor facilities for using or caring for a collection of first editions and related material. And even if your college or university does have a rare-book library, it may not, for a variety of reasons, want your collection. A university's library, including its rare-book section, must be related to the curriculum being offered and to the interests and needs of the student body and the academic staff. An institution devoted primarily to medicine and science, for example, is unlikely to have much interest in a collection\u2014fine as it may be\u2014of avant-garde literature. By the same token an institution lacking a medical school is a poor place for a collection of landmark books on the history of medicine. And a university in the depths of Idaho might prefer not to have a collection devoted to pictorial material on the history of New York City. Even if the university of your choice does have a legitimate interest in the area covered by your collection, it still may prefer not to accept it because it duplicates books already in the institution's possession. There are several universities both in this country and abroad that have been quietly acquiring all the more unusual literary items as they were issued for the past three or four decades, long before prices for twentieth-century British and American first editions began to skyrocket. Few of these institutions would be particularly interested in taking over a collection that in large measure duplicates their existing holdings, especially if it bears any sort of restrictions\u2014that it be maintained in toto, for example, or never be sold.\n\nThus, before you write a clause into your will leaving your collection to an institution, you should have some serious discussions with the resident librarian. You might, in the long run, do the library more good by having the collection sold, with the library to receive the proceeds. Many collectors naturally like to think of their personal collections living on after them as monuments to their taste and perspicuity. More and more, however, it becomes necessary to endow a library building or a special room, and to furnish maintenance; costs have risen so high that few institutions are otherwise prepared to cope with gifts of rare-book collections. Very few people are wealthy enough for this, even though they may have spent a considerable amount of money putting together an important and impressive library. Therefore, more often than most people realize, an institution will prefer to extract the volumes it needs from a donated collection and quietly dispose of the duplicates. This process is not as reprehensible as it sounds, even though it may go counter to a donor's intentions. Unwanted duplicates do no one any good, especially when they can be turned into cash for the acquisition of needed items. More positively\u2014and any true collector will appreciate the value of this\u2014such dispersal sends many scarce and desirable items back into the market for other collectors and institutions to acquire and enjoy. Some institutions, of course, do not part with duplicates; one of the largest and most venerable of American universities has in its collections as many as six copies of a certain extremely rare book, causing considerable unhappiness to collectors who know of them\u2014frozen, held there to no purpose. A serious discussion with the institution's rare-book librarian, on a frank basis, will often prevent a miscarriage of intentions. If you want your collection to be kept intact, despite possible duplication of holdings, this should be made unequivocally clear before the collection is donated or willed.\n\nOnce an agreement on the library's treatment of the collection has been reached, there are several ways of negotiating the actual transfer. Some universities are both willing and able to purchase large collections en bloc. If you hope to make such a sale, you will need a written, itemized listing of every piece in the collection, with adequate description, along with a specific total price, based on an item-by-item evaluation. It probably will be necessary to go to a professional appraiser, most likely an experienced dealer, for such a summary. (When placing a price on a unified collection that is complete, or nearly so, in special areas of coverage, it is customary for an appraiser to add a bonus for completeness, for intangibles, or for extraordinary condition.) With such documentation in hand, the institution can be approached. The librarian can use the itemized list to determine whether or not he is interested in acquiring the collection; if he is, he can then use it as the basis for a presentation to his library committee, or trustees, or whatever group controls the appropriation of funds.\n\nThe other means of placing your collection with an institution is of course by gift. This can be of benefit to you in terms of tax deduction, but must be planned with care. Many people make occasional minor gifts of books to institutions as a convenient way of disposing of unwanted duplicates, with no thought of any particular benefit to themselves other than, possibly, some much-needed bookshelf space. But a major gift can have important tax consequences. An absolutely basic requirement is to have an itemized appraisal, prepared in triplicate, by a recognized dealer or appraiser. One copy goes to the library with the books; the original goes with your income tax papers; the third copy is for your own files.\n\nBefore you dispose of your collection\u2014whether to a dealer, to another collector, or to an institution\u2014make sure you understand the tax situation. The American tax laws were changed as of January 1, 1978, and now require possession of an item for nine months, rather than six as was previously the case, before the increase in its value can be claimed on resale as a capital gain. Capital gains are taxed at a maximum rate of 50 percent. But the most critical fact to be remembered, one that cannot be stressed too much, is that you must keep some kind of record of the acquisition date and actual purchase price or cost of each item in the collection, in order to be able to prove to the United States Internal Revenue Service the exact amount of profit (or possibly loss) on each item in the collection. Many collectors, especially when they are beginning, don't keep itemized records. With most modern books this is not a serious failing; it is fairly easy to reconstruct the prices paid for books as they were issued, at least in the case of books produced by the major publishing firms, since the price is generally printed on the dust jacket. Nevertheless, small-press publications in many cases do not have such notations, and here some record should be kept. Obviously, it should also be kept on books for which a premium price has been paid. The best thing, from a tax accountant's point of view, is to have the bill of sale from the dealer. A file of these, kept over the years, will forestall many a headache at the time when you dispose of your books, and may avoid\u2014or at least resolve speedily\u2014an IRS audit. If you don't want anyone else to know in the meantime what you have paid for an item, be it friends viewing your books or perhaps even your wife, work out a number code that can be penciled lightly somewhere in the book in an inconspicuous place\u2014for instance, under the rear flap of the dust jacket. Any ten-letter word or phrase\u2014to represent in order the numbers one through nine, plus zero\u2014will suffice as a key so long as there are no duplications of letters. One collector that I knew of early in my collecting days was delighted when he realized that the name of the only author he collected worked out exactly to ten letters with no repeats\u2014Ezra L. Pound. Thus the $185.00 he paid for his copy of A Lume Spento\u2014whose value is now perhaps 3000 percent higher\u2014worked out in code as EULDD.\n\n# CHAPTER SIXTEEN\n\n# DEFINITION OF TERMS\n\nThe terms employed in book collecting are fairly standardized. At the same time they have special uses restricted to this field, and a complete understanding of them is essential, especially when reading auction catalogs and dealers' catalogs. In such publications these terms will be used repeatedly, on the assumption that anyone reading the catalog is familiar with them. The following is a list of terms and definitions commonly used among dealers and collectors of modern rare books.\n\n-ANA A suffix denoting, originally, a collection of sayings, anecdotes, or other material regarding a person or subject. Nowadays it refers to any kind of material about the author or subject to which it is attached. For instance, Hemingwayana means any book or item about Hemingway, but not by him.\n\nAS ISSUED A term indicating that a given book (or some aspect of it) is in the original condition as published, despite appearances to the contrary. The term is most often encountered today in dealers' catalogs in cases where a book being described was published without a dust jacket, the normal assumption being that most modern books are issued with dust jackets.\n\nASSOCIATION COPY A book or pamphlet that has some indication of having belonged to, or at least passed through the hands of, the author or someone closely related to him. Properly speaking, an association copy should carry more than a signed presentation inscription to an unknown person. Any book from the library of an esteemed author, with his annotations, would be an association copy. Likewise, a copy of the author's book presented by him to someone important in his life, such as a wife or mistress; even better, a copy presented to someone who was known to have served as the model for one of the characters in the book. An example of the latter would be a copy of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises with the signature of Harold Loeb, who was the model for the character of Robert Cohn.\n\nBACKSTRIP The covering over the spine of a book. If this has been replaced, the book is spoken of as having been rebacked.\n\nBLIND-STAMPING An impressed mark, decoration, or lettering, not colored or gilded, usually appearing on the binding. A modern example of this can be found in the plays of Edward Albee, published by Atheneum, where all of the lettering on the front covers of the books is blind-stamped. It can also denote an impressed mark or name used by some persons in preference to a written signature. A familiar example of blind-stamping is the old-fashioned notary public's seal.\n\nBOARDS The stiff binding material for most modern books; generally cardboard covered with cloth or paper. In the early days of printed books during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, actual wooden boards were used\u2014hence the term. Nowadays, the term is almost exclusively used to describe books whose covers\u2014or boards\u2014have been covered with paper. If they have been covered with cloth, the single word \"cloth\" is generally used.\n\nBOOK BLOCK The entire book sewn together before it is bound.\n\nBOOK LABEL A label indicating the ownership of a book. It generally bears only the owner's name and is as a rule smaller and simpler than a bookplate.\n\nBOOKPLATE A pasted-in sign of ownership, usually larger and more elaborate than a book label, and often incorporating a design or artwork. Bookplates themselves form a fascinating field for collecting. Probably the most sought-after bookplate in the United States is that of George Washington.\n\nBROADSIDE A single sheet of paper, usually printed on one side only. Originally these were public proclamations or notices, but later became a popular means of distributing songs and ballads. In the twentieth century, the term generally refers to a single poem printed on a fairly large sheet of paper. Since the end of World War II there has been a virtual mania among small press owners for producing broadside poems, with artwork and typography (and poetry) of varying quality.\n\nCANCEL A tipped-in (i.e., pasted-in) page to replace a page removed after a book has been bound. This is done for a variety of reasons, most commonly to correct a serious misprint discovered too late. A recent example of this occurred with the publication of John Updike's The Music School, where three lines of verse occur on page 446. Two of these three lines were transposed, and the error was not discovered until a quantity of copies had been not only printed but shipped. The balance of the edition was then withheld until a new page could be printed with the lines in correct order, the page with the error sliced out, and the correctly printed one pasted in, thus creating a \"cancel.\"\n\nCASE-BOUND This term indicates that a book is hardbound as opposed to a paperback.\n\nCHAPBOOK Properly speaking, a chapbook is a cheaply printed book of the kind sold by street vendors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is today often used to refer to any small pamphlet.\n\nCHIPPED A term used to describe dust jackets or the fragile edge of a paperback where small pieces are missing or fraying has occurred.\n\nCLOTH In many catalogs, the word \"cloth\" used to describe a copy of a book means simply that the book, cloth-bound, lacks the dust jacket, whether or not it originally had one.\n\nCOLLATION Technically, the examination and notation of the physical makeup of a book. By checking for the presence of every leaf or page originally in the volume when issued, a book may be collated as complete. While few modern books will be found to be lacking any printed pages, books issued with illustrations, especially original etchings or lithographs by well-known artists, often, alas, lack one or more of them. Some art dealers make a practice of removing these items and then reselling the book itself. Sometimes there is no indication in the printed text that the illustration should have been present. The unwary neophyte may be trapped into buying an incomplete copy. Aside from those with important artwork, most modern books do not require collation.\n\nCOLOPHON A statement from the printer or publisher appearing at the end of a book. In the early days of printing, when books did not have title pages, the printer placed his personal seal or device on the last printed page of the book. He generally indicated the location of his press and the date the printing was completed, often to the very month and day. Today, when most publishers place their names and sometimes devices on title pages, colophons are usually encountered only on limited editions. They may give the number of copies in the edition, and sometimes such printing details as the kind of paper and the typeface used, especially if these differ from the trade edition. If the edition is signed by the author, the signature usually\u2014although not always\u2014appears here.\n\nCONJUGATE LEAF The unsevered second half of a printed page. Books are generally sewn together in signatures (i.e., groups of pages) made up of anywhere from twelve to sixteen sheets of paper, folded so that one single leaf will bear four pages of print. Thus, in a signature of twelve sheets, the leaf bearing pages 1 and 2 will have as its conjugate the leaf bearing pages 23 and 24.\n\nCUT Many modern books are smooth-trimmed after binding so that all edges are even, or flush. This is described as having been \"cut,\" to differentiate it from books where the edges are left \"rough,\" or slightly uneven. This term is often confused with \"unopened.\" (See uncut.)\n\nDECKLE EDGES Another term for uncut or untrimmed edges. (See uncut.)\n\nDEDICATION COPY The copy of the book inscribed by the author to the person to whom the book is dedicated. Obviously, there can be only one such copy, and it is usually regarded as the most desirable of all possible copies of any book. In recent years there has been a widespread misuse of the word \"dedication\" when the word \"inscription\" is actually intended, when describing a copy that bears an author's handwritten inscription. This misuse probably stems from the fact that in French such an inscription is called a d\u00e9dicace.\n\nDEVICE A printer's ornament. Also an insignia that is the publisher's identifying mark, generally found on the title page and also sometimes on the binding of a book. For instance Random House employs a drawing of a house; Knopf uses a Borzoi dog, and the Hogarth Press a wolf's head. This is also sometimes called a logotype or \"logo.\"\n\nDISBOUND This term refers to a book or pamphlet, once bound, from which the binding has been removed. Not to be confused with \"unbound,\" which refers to a book that has never been bound. The term is usually encountered in connection with older pamphlets that were often bound up together in volumes and have since been separated again.\n\nDUST JACKET A term synonymous with dust wrapper, indicating the usually decorative paper wrapper placed around a book to protect the binding. Dust jackets came into general usage towards the end of the nineteenth century, although they did not come to be considered by collectors to be an integral part of the book until well into the twentieth century. Today it is unwise to purchase a book without its dust jacket. Considerable premiums are now asked for books of earlier vintages that still have their original jackets. Particularly startling, for example, is the difference in price between copies of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby with and without the jacket. The former can be ten times the latter.\n\nENDPAPERS The sheets of paper pasted onto the inner covers, joining the book block to the covers. One half of each sheet is pasted onto the board of the binding, leaving the other half free, creating the front\u2014or rear\u2014free endpapers. These free endpapers are sometimes mistakenly referred to as \"flyleaves.\" (See book block, flyleaf.)\n\nEPHEMERA Plural of the Greek word ephemeron, meaning something that disappears quickly. This is now an omnium-gatherum word that will include anything not easily classifiable under any other heading. Ephemera is perhaps one of the most diverting and intriguing fields for collecting, and is discussed more fully in Chapter Two.\n\nERRATA Mistakes or errors. Generally encountered in the term \"errata slip,\" a small sheet of paper laid in loosely or sometimes glued (or \"tipped\") into a book by a publisher who has discovered the errors prior to publication of the book, but too late to correct them. An errata slip is easily lost, and its presence is generally noted in catalogs as a plus point in the value of a particular copy.\n\nEX-LIBRARY A term used to indicate that a particular copy of a book was once in a library, usually a public or institutional library, or even worse, a lending library. It may be expected to be worn and defaced with call numbers, card pockets, perforated title pages, and other such distressing features. Lending libraries also usually paste the flaps of the dust jackets down to the endpapers. Such copies are to be avoided almost without exception.\n\nEXTRA ILLUSTRATED A copy of a book into which additional illustrations have been bound. This was a popular pastime in Victorian days, when years were sometimes spent in gathering engravings of every person and place mentioned in a book and then having the entire collection rebound. Depending on the type of book, a one-volume affair could bulk up into three volumes by this process. Now looked upon askance, except as a curiosity.\n\nFIRST EDITION Generally used by book collectors and dealers to mean the first appearance of a work in book or pamphlet form, in its first printing. (See pages 111\u20142.)\n\nFIRST SEPARATE EDITION The first appearance as a complete book or pamphlet of a work that has previously appeared as part of another book. For example, Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts first appeared in a book entitled Operas and Plays in 1931. In 1934, after the opera had become a phenomenal success in its American premiere, it was issued separately by Random House\u2014the first separate edition.\n\nFIRST TRADE EDITION The edition produced for general commercial sale, as distinguished from a limited edition. An example of this can be found in the recent books of John Updike, most of which have been issued in both signed limited editions as well as trade editions.\n\nFLYLEAF A blank leaf, sometimes more than one, following the front free endpaper, or at the end of a book where there is not sufficient text to fill out the last few pages. A term often misapplied to the front or rear endpaper. (See endpaper.)\n\nFOXING Brown spotting of the paper caused by a chemical reaction, generally found in nineteenth-century books, particularly in steel engravings of the period. Seldom encountered in twentieth-century books unless they have been stored for a long time in a humid climate such as Florida or New Orleans. While seldom disastrous, foxing does spoil the appearance of a book, and foxed copies are usually to be avoided. However, because of the nature of the paper used in certain books, unfoxed copies may be impossible to find.\n\nFRONTISPIECE An illustration at the beginning of a book, usually facing the title page.\n\nGALLEYS Sometimes called \"galley proofs\" or \"loose galleys\" to distinguish them from bound galleys. (See page 172.) Long sheets of paper bearing the first trial impression of the type. Usually containing two or three pages per strip, they are used to catch typesetting errors before proceeding with the book. Very few copies are printed (or \"pulled\"). In recent years they have become much sought after, particularly if they bear the author's manuscript corrections. Newer offset printing methods, especially those involving computer typesetting, may produce galleys that are photocopied and perhaps already pagebroken.\n\nGATHERING A group of sheets folded together for sewing or gluing into the binding. Also called a signature.\n\nHALF LEATHER A term indicating that the spine and sometimes the corners of a book are bound in leather, while the rest of the binding may be cloth or paper.\n\nHALF TITLE The leaf carrying nothing but the title of the book, usually preceding the title page. The half title was commonly removed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century binders. A modern book may have more than one.\n\nHEADBAND A decorative cloth band, sometimes colored or multicolored, appearing inside the backstrip at the top (and sometimes also bottom) of the spine of a book. Headbands were originally a normal feature of a sewed binding but are no longer required; if they appear at all, it is mostly as a matter of swank.\n\nHINGE The joint (either outer or inner) of the binding of a book\u2014the part that bends when the book is opened. Since this is the part that gets the most wear and tear, it is also the part where most defects occur. This is particularly true of leather-bound books kept in a heated room and never treated with a leather preservative. If the inner hinge is starting to come apart, usually noticeable by the endpaper's splitting, the book is said to be \"starting.\" Cataloguers apparently cannot bring themselves to complete the phrase by saying \"starting to fall apart.\"\n\nHOLOGRAPH A term indicating the handwriting of the author. Thus a holograph letter is a letter entirely in the author's handwriting. The term autograph means the same thing, although in recent years it is generally used to refer to a handwritten name.\n\nIMPRESSION A much misused term, but one that, when accurately employed, means the copies printed during any given press run.\n\nIMPRINT A term that can refer either to the place of publication or to the publisher. Imprint collecting is a popular field, particularly books and pamphlets printed in a given city or state before a specific date. Any book printed in what is now the United States prior to 1776 is a pre-Revolutionary imprint. Books printed in the Confederate States during the Civil War are Confederate imprints, and so forth.\n\nINDIA PAPER An extremely thin yet relatively opaque paper used to help reduce the bulk of what would otherwise be a book of unwieldy size. Most Bibles, for example, are printed on India paper. Thus the synonymous term \"Bible paper.\"\n\nINSCRIBED Usually indicates a book signed by the author, either with an inscription to a specific person or bearing some brief notation along with his signature. An inscribed copy is not necessarily the same as a presentation copy (which is one actually given to the recipient by the author), but it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. Some authors are particularly careful to make this distinction clear. T. S. Eliot, when making an actual presentation to a friend, would write \"For\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013from T. S. Eliot\"; when asked by a stranger to sign or inscribe a book, he would write \"Inscribed for\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013by T. S. Eliot.\" A book bearing only the author's signature is not an inscribed book, but merely a signed one.\n\nINTEGRAL A leaf or page is said to be integral when it is one that was sewn and bound into a book during its manufacture. The opposite of a cancel. (See cancel.)\n\nISSUE Generally synonymous today with \"state,\" referring to the priority of copies within the first edition, if indeed any priorities exist. The earliest copies released are known as the first issue. While sometimes it is a matter of varying colors or types of binding (or even in rare cases of the type of paper on which the book has been printed), issues are usually created by errors that may be corrected during the press run. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, for example, one of the characters says she is \"sick in tired.\" This mistake was caught during the run and corrected to \"sick and tired,\" thereby creating a first and second issue within the first edition. Another type of error created two issues in the first edition of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. The book originally lacked the disclaimer notice about the characters being entirely fictional. Wishing to avoid any possible lawsuits, the publishers stopped the presses before the printing was completed and inserted the notice. Then the press run was completed. The copies without the notice belong to the first issue, those with the notice to the second issue, although both issues are first editions. Anything that distinguishes one issue from another is known as a \"point.\" (See points.)\n\nJAPAN VELLUM A smooth, glossy paper, made in imitation of vellum, generally a light tan color. Quite often used in the production of deluxe editions. Virtually all of the books of the Black Sun Press were printed on Japan vellum.\n\nJUVENILES Books originally or primarily written to be read by (or to) children, although they are usually highly esteemed by adults as well. Treasure Island and Winniethe-Pooh are good examples of juveniles that are collected.\n\nJUVENILIA Work written when an author was extremely young, often a child.\n\nLAID PAPER A handmade paper showing parallel lines of the papermaking frame, visible when held up to the light.\n\nLIMITED EDITION Any book whose publication is deliberately restricted to a comparatively small number of copies, usually numbered, and often signed by the author and\/or the illustrator. Such books generally (although not always) are further distinguished by being printed on better paper than that used for the trade edition, and with a more expensive binding. Occasionally they are issued in a slipcase (sometimes referred to as a publisher's box).\n\nLIMP An adjective describing a flexible binding in suede or imitation leather such as that used on the early titles of the Modern Library. A paperback is not a limp binding.\n\nMADE-UP COPY A copy of a book whose parts have been assembled from one or more defective copies. Made-up copies of modern books are uncommon but may be found. Making up and other forms of tinkering are also known as \"sophistication.\"\n\nMARBLED Paper decorated with an imitation marble pattern. Marbled papers were especially popular for endpapers in the nineteenth century, and today are most often encountered on deluxe limited editions and occasionally on the page edges.\n\nMINT COPY An absolutely perfect copy, as fresh in all respects as the day it was issued.\n\nMISBOUND Pages or signatures sewn together in an improper order. As long as no pages have been omitted, it is not a matter of crucial importance to most collectors, although a perfectly bound copy is, of course, preferable. A misbound copy is not more valuable, as a misprinted stamp might be.\n\nMONOGRAPH A work, generally short, dealing with a single subject and usually issued in pamphlet form.\n\nMOROCCO A type of leather made from goatskins, especially suitable for book bindings because of its durability and beauty. It has a naturally grainy surface texture. When this is pressed to a smoother finish, it is then referred to as \"crushed morocco.\" Morocco can be dyed a wide variety of colors, red, brown, green, and black being the most common. Black is referred to as \"niger morocco\" or sometimes merely \"niger,\" from the Latin word for \"black.\"\n\nOUT OF PRINT A book no longer available from the publisher is termed \"out of print.\" Often abbreviated as \"o.p.\"\n\nPASTE-DOWN The portion of the endpaper pasted to the inner cover of a book.\n\nPIRATED EDITION Any edition of a work issued without permission of the author and without payment of royalties to the author or copyright holder. Until the adoption of the International Copyright Law in 1891, it was common for the work of popular authors to be pirated. This practice virtually died out in the twentieth century until recent years when Russia started pirating the works of British and American authors. Since 1949, a flood of piracies has been coming out of Taiwan, printed by photo offset from the original editions and including even the dust jackets. Since they cannot be legally imported into the United States or the United Kingdom, Taiwan piracies have become, in the peculiar but logical manner of such things, sought after by many collectors.\n\nPOINTS Distinguishing characteristics, usually errors, that occur within a first edition and indicate the priority of copies. \"Points\" differentiate \"issues.\" (See issue.) It should be noted, incidentally, that existence of an error is not necessarily proof of an earlier state. In T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the letter a dropped out of the word \"mountain\" on page 41 approximately halfway through the printing run, so presence of the error is proof of the later state. And certain errors, despite appearances, do nothing to establish priority. For nearly fifty years, many dealers have been cataloguing copies of Faulkner's Light in August as \"first issue\" because they contain an obvious error on page 340, where \"Mottstown\" is called \"Jeffersonville.\" This is not a point, however, since the error was never corrected, and appears in every copy of Light in August ever published, including the Modern Library reprints.\n\nPRESENTATION COPY A copy of a book actually given by the author (or in rare cases by the publisher) to someone of his acquaintance, usually with an inscription of some sort testifying to this disposition. A mere signature of an author does not make it a presentation copy, since most authors are willing to sign numerous copies of their books at readings or other public appearances. Actual presentation copies are relatively uncommon, because authors seldom receive more than a dozen free copies of their books and cannot afford to give away many. Presentation copies are accordingly the most highly valued category of books for the collector. This is particularly true if the presentation is to another well-known author. Prices for such copies may be several times higher than for unsigned or autographed copies of the same book. (See inscribed.)\n\nPRIVATE PRESS A small press, often operated by one person, usually devoted to the production of small quantities of finely printed books. The work is usually of superior quality, and the collecting of \"press books\" is an extremely popular field of endeavor.\n\nPRIVATELY PRINTED This term does not refer to the output of a private press (see private press), but to a book or pamphlet whose printing was paid for by an individual or a group, and which is meant for private circulation, not public sale.\n\nPROOF See galleys.\n\nPROVENANCE The history of ownership or possession of a given book (or painting or other art object). Some extremely rare books have a recorded unbroken pedigree of ownership through the ages. A catalog may, for example, refer to a copy of a book as \"the Hoe-Kern-Goodwin\" copy, indicating that the book at various times formed part of these distinguished collections. Collectors of twentieth-century books rarely discover the provenance of a particular book (unless it can be pieced together from signatures or bookplates or dealers' information), since there are few examples of modern books so rare as to warrant recording the history of ownership.\n\nPUBLICATION DATE The date a book is formally placed on sale. Finished copies may be available as much as a month or six weeks beforehand, and will be in bookstores prior to the publication date. \"Publishing\" a book is the process of placing it on sale, not of printing it.\n\nREADING COPY A copy of a book that is worn or used to such a degree that it is unacceptable to modern collectors, although it may still be textually complete. Such copies are sometimes termed \"working copies,\" and are generally shunned by collectors.\n\nREBACKED A book that has been repaired by getting a new spine and mended hinges. This is seldom done on modern copies; most twentieth-century books are still in condition not requiring repairs, and few are so scarce as to warrant the expense of such work. Rebacking is usually seen only on leather-bound books of the eighteenth century or earlier.\n\nRECASED A book that has been glued back into its covers after having been shaken loose. This process entails, at the very least, the replacement of the endpapers and often more extensive surgery.\n\nRECTO The front side of a leaf in a bound book; in other words, the right-hand page of an opened book. (Recto means \"right\" in Latin.)\n\nREMAINDER When a book has ceased to sell, a publisher may get rid of his overstock by \"remaindering\" the title. Sold in quantity at a reduced price, the books will turn up either in special remainder stores or on bargain counters in regular bookstores at a substantial markdown from their original price. It sometimes happens that a publisher has been holding a certain number of copies \"in sheets\" (i.e., printed but not bound) and, to dispose of them as cheaply as possible, will bind them for remaindering in particularly inexpensive material. Thus while the pages themselves may be from the first printing, the binding is a so-called remainder binding, and a copy so found is less desirable than one in the original binding. SHAKEN An adjective describing a book whose pages are beginning to come loose from the binding. This separation from the casing usually occurs along the inner hinges.\n\nSIGNATURE In bookmaking, this does not mean the author's name written out in his hand. It refers rather to the group of pages produced by folding a single printed sheet, ready for sewing or gluing into a book. A careful look at the top of a book will show immediately whether signatures have been inserted into the binding or whether the edges of single leaves have been glued together to make what is rather incredibly called a \"perfect\" binding. A signature is sometimes called a gathering.\n\nSTATE Closely allied to the definition of \"issue.\" \"State\" generally refers to a change other than a correction of a misprint. It can occur anywhere, either in the printed portion of the book, the binding, or even the dust jacket. For instance, the photo of Hemingway on the rear panel of the dust jacket of For Whom the Bell Tolls bore no photographer's credit. This was noted, and the photographer's name added at some point during the printing of the jackets. Thus while the book itself exists in only one state, the jacket exists in two. An example of a book that exists in four states\u2014none of them due to any error \u2014is Gertrude Stein's Geography and Plays (where, incidentally, her famous \"rose is a rose is a rose\" first appears). It was published in 1922 in an edition of one thousand copies. At that time Stein did not sell very well, and the publisher bound up the sheets in groups of 250 at a time, over a period of ten years. As might be expected, after intervals of several years, he was not able to obtain exactly the same binding materials, thus creating four states of the binding\u2014and none of them remainder bindings. (See remainder.)\n\nSTUB A narrow strip of paper usually remaining where a leaf has been cut away. Cancels are pasted onto stubs. Sometimes a stub is a normal part of the book's construction, as for example when a frontispiece is an etching or engraving on paper other than that used for the printing of the text, and a stub is needed as a base to glue it on. A stub without some reasonable explanation is usually a danger signal that something has been removed from a book.\n\nSUNNED Faded from exposure to light or direct sunlight. This usually occurs on spines (and can occur even through dust jackets), but may happen to any exposed portion of a book. Green and purple are notoriously unstable colors, and books bound in those colors inevitably become sunned quickly.\n\nTOP EDGE GILT Usually abbreviated t.e.g., it means that the top edges of the pages have been covered with gold leaf or a gilt material. This was originally done to make the book easier to dust. Today it is mainly employed on deluxe editions as a form of \"elegance.\"\n\nTRIMMED An adjective indicating that the pages have been cut down to a size smaller than when originally issued. This usually occurs when a book is rebound.\n\nUNCUT One of the most misused terms in book collecting. It means simply that the pages of the completed book have not been shaved down to a uniform surface. (See cut.) It does not mean \"unopened.\" An unopened copy of a book is one whose pages need the service of a paper knife before they can be opened and read.\n\nVERSO The second, or rear, side of a leaf in a book. When the book is opened, the page on the left is the verso (Latin for \"turned\"). The opposite of recto.\n\nWRAPPERS The outer covers of a paperbound book or pamphlet. Not to be confused with \"dust wrapper.\"\n\n# ABBREVIATIONS\n\nA.L.S. autograph letter, signed\n\nBDS boards\n\nD.J. or D.W. dust jacket or dust wrapper\n\nMS manuscript\n\nN.D. no date (of publication)\n\nN.P. no place (of publication)\n\nO.P. out of print\n\nT.L.S. typed letter, signed. It is also an abbreviation for The Times Literary Supplement. The context will indicate which.\n\n# BOOK SIZES\n\nA full sheet of paper used by printers can be folded in such a manner as to make two or more pages in a book, depending on the size of book desired. When the sheet is folded once, it is termed a \"folio\"; when folded twice, it becomes a \"quarto\" (since it then produces four leaves) ; when folded three times it becomes an \"octavo\" (eight leaves) and so on. Since the size of the original sheet may vary, it is possible to have a large quarto, or a small folio, or even a \"Crown octavo,\" the latter indicating a somewhat smaller size than the ordinary octavo. These terms are usually indicated numerically:\n\n4to \u2014 quarto   \n8vo \u2014 octavo   \n12mo \u2014 duodecimo   \n16mo \u2014 sextodecimo\n\nand so forth. A handy way of correlating sizes is to remember that the larger the number, the smaller the book. Another handy device is to remember that most modern novels are 8vo size.\n\nNote that the book sizes described above are largely based on the traditional sheet-size used by printers until this century. Today, most books are printed on presses capable of handling far larger sheets, so that the standard gathering is 16 or even (less commonly) 32 leaves. Yet the books are no smaller, and a novel \"in 32s\" will probably still be described as an octavo (that is, about 8\u00bd\" X 5\u00bd\" to 9\u00bd\" x 6\"), even though it is technically a \"32mo.\"\n\nSize has no bearing on the value of a book, but it is customary in dealers' catalogs to note the size so that the prospective customer will have some idea of the size of the book he is ordering. There is one classic tale, known to almost every American dealer, of the collector who had searched for years for a copy of T. S. Eliot's Ara Vos Prec, and then, when a dealer triumphantly sent it to him, returned it. When the dealer asked why, his reply was that he had not known that it was so large and it simply wouldn't fit on his bookshelves! Few collectors are so obtuse, but it does sometimes help in the search if you know the physical size and appearance of the item you are searching for.\n\n# APPENDIX ONE\n\n# LIST OF BOOK AUCTION FIRMS HANDLING BOOKS OF INTEREST TO COLLECTORS\n\nCALIFORNIA BOOK AUCTION CO. 224 McAllister Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94102\n\nCHRISTIE, MANSON & WOODS INTERNATIONAL, INC. (\"CHRISTIE'S\") 8 King Street, St. James's, London SW1, England\n\nCHRISTIE, MANSON & WOODS INTERNATIONAL, INC. (\"CHRISTIE'S\") 502 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022\n\nSAMUEL T. FREEMAN & CO. 1080 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103\n\nCHARLES HAMILTON AUTOGRAPHS, INC. 25 East 77th Street, New York 10021\n\nHANZEL GALLERIES, INC. 1120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60605\n\nHARRIS AUCTION GALLERIES, INC. 873\u221275 North Howard Street, Baltimore, Md. 21201\n\nHUNTINGTON-MANN BOOK AUCTION GALLERY 467 Alvarado Street, Suite 35, Monterey, Calif. 93940\n\nMONTREAL BOOK AUCTIONS 750 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, PQ, Canada\n\nPHILLIPS SON & NEALE, BLENSTOCK HOUSE 7 Blenheim Street, New Bond Street, London, W1, England\n\nPLANDOME BOOK AUCTIONS 113 Glen Head Road, Glen Head, NY 11545\n\nSOTHEBY PARKE BERNET & CO. 34 & 35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA, England\n\nSOTHEBY PARKE BERNET, INC. 1334 York Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10013\n\nSOTHEBY PARKE BERNET-LOS ANGELES 7660 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif. 90036\n\nSWANN GALLERIES, INC. 104 E. 25th Street, New York, NY 10010\n\n# APPENDIX TWO\n\n# SOURCES FOR MODERN FIRST EDITIONS\n\nABOUT BOOKS 280 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 2A1\n\nAM HERE BOOKS 2740 Williams Way, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93105\n\nAMPERSAND BOOKS P.O. Box 674, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10003\n\nANACAPA BOOKS 3090 Claremont Avenue, Oakland, Calif. 94705\n\nANT OPERA BOOKS P.O. Box 1055, Lawrence, Kans. 66044\n\nARGOSY BOOK STORES, INC. 116 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022\n\nASPHODEL BOOKSHOP 17192 Ravenna Road, Route 44, Burton, Ohio 44021\n\nNELSON BALL 686 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6J 1C3\n\nBARQU BOOKS 216 West 89th Street, New York, NY 10024\n\nBELL, BOOK & RADMALL, LTD. 80 Long Acre, London WC2, England\n\nDEBORAH BENSON BOOKSELLER P.O. Box 947, West Cornwall, Conn. 06796\n\nBLACK SUN BOOKS 667 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021\n\nBROMER BOOKS 127 Barnard Avenue, Watertown, Mass. 02172\n\nJOHN R. BUTTERWORTH 742 West 11th Street, Claremont, Calif. 91711\n\nH. ALAN CLODD 22 Huntington Road, E. Finchley, London N2 9DU, England\n\nCHLOE'S BOOKS PO Box 255673, Sacramento, Calif. 95865\n\nCOLOPHON BOOKSHOP Box E, Epping, N.H. 03042\n\nCOMPENDIUM BOOKSHOP 240 Camden High Street, London NW1 8QS, England\n\nLLOYD CURRY RARE BOOKS Church Street, Elizabethtown, NY 12932\n\nWILLIAM DAILEY ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS P.O. Box 69812, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069\n\nDALIAN BOOKS 14 Remington Street, Islington, London N1 8DH, England\n\nJORDAN DAVIES 356 Bowery, New York, NY 10012\n\nPHILIP C. DUSCHNES 699 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021\n\nI.D. EDRICH 17 Selsdon Road, London E11 2QF, England\n\nELYSIAN FIELDS 81\u201413 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY 11373\n\nJOHN F. FLEMING 322 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10021\n\nFULLER D'ARCH SMITH, LTD. 30 Baker Street, London W1, England\n\nMICHAEL GINSBERG BOOKS, INC. P.O. Box 402, Sharon, Mass. 02067\n\nGOODSPEED'S BOOKSHOP 18 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 02108\n\nGOTHAM BOOK MART 41 West 47th Street, New York, NY 10036\n\nHAMILL & BARKER 400 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60611\n\nHERITAGE BOOKSHOP 847 N. Lacienega Boulevard, Hollywood, Calif. 90069\n\nWILLIAM HOFFER 570 Granville Street, Suite 101, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6C 1W65\n\nJOHN HOWELL BOOKS 434 Post Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94102\n\nIN OUR TIME P.O. Box 386, Cambridge, Mass. 02139\n\nTHE JENKINS CO. P.O. Box 2085, Austin, Tex. 78767\n\nJOSEPH THE PROVIDER 903 State Street, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93101\n\nKENNETH KARMIOLE 2255 Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif. 90064\n\nJAMES LORSON BOOKS Villa del Sol, Suite B-6, 305 N. Harbor Boulevard, Fullerton, Calif. 92632\n\nPAUL GARON\/BEASLEY BOOKS 1533 W. Oakdale, Chicago, Ill. 60657\n\nGEORGE S. MACMANUS CO. 1317 Irving St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107\n\nIAN MCKELVIE BOOKSELLER 45 Hertford Road, London N2 9BX, England\n\nGEORGE R. MINKOFF Rowe Road, R.F.D. #3, Box 147, Great Barrington, Mass. 01230\n\nJAMES MOREL 241 Central Park West, NY 10024\n\nBRADFORD MORROW 33 W. 9th St., New York, NY 10011\n\nKENNETH NEBENZAHL, INC. 333 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60601\n\nMAURICE NEVILLE 835 Laguna Street, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93101\n\nTHE PHOENIX BOOK SHOP 22 Jones Street, New York, NY 10014\n\nBERNARD QUARITCH, LTD. 5\u20148 Lower John Street, London W1, England\n\nBERTRAM ROTA, LTD. 30 & 31 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LT, England\n\nSAND DOLLAR BOOKS 1205 Solano Avenue, Albany, Calif. 94706\n\nJUSTIN G. SCHILLER, LTD. 36 East 61st Street, New York, NY 10022\n\nBARRY SCOTT 15 Gramercy Park S., New York, NY 10003\n\nSERENDIPITY BOOKS 1790 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, Calif. 94709\n\nG. F. SIMS RARE BOOKS Hurst, Reading, Berkshire, England\n\nERIC & JOAN STEVENS 82 Fortune Green Road, Hampstead, London NW6 1DS, England\n\nTHE STRAND BOOKSTORE 828 Broadway, New York, NY 10003\n\nSYLVESTER & ORPHANOS BOOKSELLERS 2484 Cheremoya Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90068\n\nTHE TURRET BOOK SHOP 43 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DW, England\n\nUNIVERSITY PLACE BOOKSHOP 821 Broadway, New York, NY 10003\n\nTHE VILLAGE BOOKSTORE 239 Queen Street, West Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 1Z4\n\nBERNICE WEISS 36 Tuckahoe Avenue, Eastchester, NY 10707\n\nEDNA WHITESON 66 Belmont Avenue, Cockfosters, Hertfordshire, England\n\nJEFF WEINBERG The Beat Bookshop, PO Box 438, Sudbury, MA 01776\n\nSECOND LIFE BOOKS PO Box 242, Lanesboro, MA 01237\n\nJOHNSON & O'DONNELL LTD 1015 State Tower Bldg., Syracuse, NY 13202\n\nJ. HOWARD WOOLMER BOOKS Revere, Pa. 18953\n\nWORDS, ETC. 89 Theberton Street, London N1, England\n\nXIMENES RARE BOOKS 120 East 85th Street, New York, NY 10028\n\nHERB YELLIN 19073 Los Alimos Street, Northridge, Calif. 91324\n\nWILLIAM YOUNG ASSOCIATES P.O. Box 282, Wellesley Hills, Mass. 02181\n\nZEITLIN & VERBRUGGE 815 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069\n\nWith the exception of Fleming of New York, Hamill and Barker of Chicago, and Alan Clodd in England, all of the above dealers issue catalogs periodically, some more frequently than others.\n\n# APPENDIX THREE\n\n# CLUBS FOR BOOK COLLECTORS\n\n# UNITED STATES\n\nTHE ACORN CLUB 1 Elizabeth Street, Hartford, Conn. 06105. Limited to twenty-five members, all of whom must be Connecticut residents. Devoted solely to books relating to Connecticut. Issues occasional publications. Membership by recommendation only, and when there is a vacancy.\n\nTHE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY 185 Salisbury Street, Worcester, Mass. 01609. One of the oldest active clubs of any type in America, having been founded in 1812. Large membership, limited to 325. Some publication activity. Membership by recommendation when a vacancy occurs. Primarily devoted to Americana.\n\nASSOCIATES OF THE JAMES FORD BELL LIBRARY 472 Wilson Library, University of Minnesota, Minn. 55455. Membership of exactly 300, open to anyone paying the annual fee of $7.50. Several annual publications. Devoted primarily to the art of book production.\n\nTHE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS 33 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10023. One of the most famous clubs in the entire world, founded in 1934, devoted solely to the lore of Sherlock Holmes. Open to all who are conversant with the doings of their hero.\n\nTHE BALTIMORE BIBLIOPHILES Evergreen House, 4545 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Md. 21210. Membership limited to 85, new members admitted by recommendation when a vacancy occurs. Three publications per year (for members only). For bibliophiles of all categories.\n\nTHE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA P.O. Box 397, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10017. Membership unlimited, open to anyone. Publishes a quarterly journal as well as occasional papers on the subject of bibliography.\n\nTHE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 22901. Membership of 1,000, open to anyone interested in books, manuscripts, printing, and bibliography. Publishes an annual journal as well as occasional papers.\n\nTHE BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA 545 Sutter Street, Room 202, San Francisco, Calif. 94102. Membership limited to 950, open to the public whenever a vacancy occurs. Publishes a quarterly journal as well as three other books or pamphlets per year. Covers all phases of book collecting.\n\nTHE BOOK CLUB OF DETROIT In care of Robert C. Thomas, Gale Research Co., Book Tower, Detroit, Mich. 48226. Open to anyone interested in book collecting, printing, graphic arts, bibliography, book auctions and sales, libraries, and other book-related subjects. Publishes a journal irregularly.\n\nTHE BROTHERS THREE OF MORIARTY 1907 Fort Union Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Membership limited to 50, by invitation only. No publications. Another Sherlock Holmes club.\n\nTHE CAXTON CLUB 60 W. Walton Street, Chicago, Ill. 60610. Membership limited to 265, open to the public by recommendation whenever a vacancy occurs. Publishes occasional monographs and pamphlets pertaining to literary studies and the art of the book.\n\nTHE CLUB OF ODD VOLUMES 77 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Mass. 02108. Membership limited to men only. No publications.\n\nTHE COLLECTOR'S INSTITUTE P.O. Box 7219, Austin, Tex. 78712. Membership open to anyone interested in book collecting and literary matters. Publishes occasional broadsides and keepsakes.\n\nTHE DELAWARE BIBLIOPHILES 680 S. Chapel Street, Newark, Del. 19713. Membership open to anyone with a love for books or book collecting. Publishes minutes of its meetings as well as catalogs of exhibitions at the University of Delaware.\n\nTHE GROLIER CLUB 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022. Membership limited to 300 resident and 325 nonresident members. Publishes a semiannual gazette and other occasional catalogs and bibliographies. Membership upon recommendation for anyone with a sincere devotion to books or allied subjects.\n\nHROSWITHA In care of Mrs. Sherman P. Haight, Sr., Chestnut Hill, Litchfield, Conn. 06759. Membership limited to women book collectors, by invitation. Publishes occasional books.\n\nTHE LONG ISLAND BOOK COLLECTORS In care of Library Director's Office, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530. Membership by recommendation for any bona-fide book collector. Publishes an irregular journal and occasional catalogs.\n\nTHE MANUSCRIPT SOCIETY 1206 N. Stoneman Avenue #15, Alhambra, Calif. 91801. Membership open to any collector of autograph material. Publishes a quarterly journal as well as occasional volumes.\n\nTHE OLD SOLDIERS OF BAKER STREET OF THE TWO SAULTS 909 Prospect Street, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. 49783. Membership open by invitation only to military men (or ex-military men) interested in Sherlock Holmes. Publishes a journal.\n\nTHE PHILOBIBLION CLUB In care of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213. Membership unlimited by nomination of two members. Occasional publications.\n\nTHE ROUNCE AND COFFIN CLUB 1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, Calif. 90041. Membership upon recommendation for anyone interested in promoting book design and production in the West. Publishes an annual catalog of an exhibition of western-produced books.\n\nTHE ROWFANT CLUB 3028 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115. Membership upon recommendation for anyone interested in any phase of book collecting or study. Publishes an annual yearbook and one or two yearly volumes.\n\nTHE ROXBURGHE CLUB OF SAN FRANCISCO 545 Sutter Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94102. Membership limited to 100 men only, by invitation. No publishing program.\n\nTHE SACRAMENTO BOOK COLLECTORS CLUB 7440 Alexander Court, Fair Oaks, Calif. 95628. Membership upon recommendation for anyone interested in the printed word, especially as it pertains to the West. Publishes occasional pamphlets.\n\nTHE SOCIETY OF BIBLIOPHILES 140 Manning Boulevard, Albany, NY 12203. Membership for anyone interested in book collecting and the art of the book. No publications.\n\nTHE TYPOPHILES OF NEW YORK, INC. 140 Lincoln Road, Brooklyn, NY 11225. Membership limited to 500, by invitation, open only to professionals in the field of publishing. Publishes several pamphlets or chapbooks annually.\n\nTHE WICHITA BIBLIOPHILES 207 N. Pinecrest, Wichita, Kans. 67208. Membership limited to 12, by invitation only. No publications.\n\nTHE ZAMORANO CLUB P.O. Box 465, Pasadena, Calif. 91102. Limited to 80 members, upon recommendation and approval of the board of governors. Publishes a journal, Hoja Volante, three times a year as well as other occasional items.\n\n# BRITAIN\n\nTHE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY In care of the British Library, Great Russell Street, WC1, England. Open to the public. Publishes a journal.\n\nTHE PRIVATE LIBRARIES' ASSOCIATION Ravelston, South View Road, Pinner, Middlesex, England. Publishes a journal.\n\nTHE ROXBURGH CLUB In care of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle, Alnwick, Northumberland, England. Membership upon recommendation. The most exclusive British club (no bookseller may be a member).\n\n# APPENDIX FOUR\n\n# THE FIFTY MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE PUBLISHED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II\n\nThe following is my own list of the fifty most important and influential books published in the field of American literature since the end of World War II. Most of the giants of the first half of the twentieth century were either dead by then or had already produced the main corpus of their works. There were, however, three poets of enormous importance in the years before the war, who continued to publish books that have been so deeply influential that they must perforce lead the list. The three men I refer to are Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. I place them at the head of the list, which is otherwise arranged in alphabetical order.\n\nEZRA POUND The Pisan Cantos New Directions (New York, 1948). These form part of his major work, The Cantos, and are perhaps the strongest and most controversial section of the entire work.\n\nWILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS Paterson. This long poem was published separately in five parts, in successive volumes, by New Directions in 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1958, and subsequently reprinted in 1963 in one volume that also contained unfinished fragments of a sixth section. The impact of Williams on new poets is becoming more widespread as the influence of Eliot declines. Williams' first fame rested mainly on his miniature vignettes, but his main opus, Paterson, while an amalgam, is much more accessible to the general reader than are Pound's Cantos or Zukofsky's A.\n\nLOUIS ZUKOFSKY A. Issued, like Pound's and Williams' long works, serially, over a period of years between 1959 and 1975 (A 1\u201412 Origin Press 1959; A 13\u201421 Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1969; A 24 Grossman Publishers, 1962; A 22\u201423 Grossman Publishers, 1975), the complete work was released in one volume by the University of California Press in 1979. Zukofsky, acknowledged as a peer by both Pound and Williams, is almost totally unknown to the general American and British public. However, his influence on the younger poets, particularly those of the Black Mountain School (Creeley, Duncan, Niedecker, et al.) is widely recognized and acknowledged. He is slowly but surely gaining a wider reading audience.\n\nEDWARD ALBEE The Zoo Story, which first appeared in the March\/ April 1960 issue of Evergreen Review, and had its first performance in Berlin, catapulted Albee into immediate fame and launched him on his meteoric career. He is now firmly established in the ranks of major American playwrights along with Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller.\n\nJOHN ASHBERY Some Trees, which was Ashbery's second book, and appeared in the Yale Younger Poets' Series in 1956, remains Ashbery's most accessible and appealing work. His recent receipt of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award confirms the promise of this early work.\n\nJOHN BARTH The Sot-Weed Factor. Published in 1960 by Doubleday and Company, this was Barth's third novel, and the one on which his fame mainly rests. He is not a ground breaker, but rather a revitalizer of the technique of digression upon digression within a single narrative framework, virtually abandoned in literature since the death of Laurence Sterne. For collectors, this particular book has the added bonus of a dust jacket that is one of the earliest published works of Edward Gorey, now feverishly collected in his own right.\n\nJOHN BERRYMAN Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (illustrated by Ben Shahn; New York, 1956). One of the best poets to come out of the Kenyon College group, Berryman gained the Pulitzer Prize late in his career for his Dream Songs. However, his best work seems to me to belong to his earlier period. This is his fifth book.\n\nELIZABETH BISHOP Questions of Travel (New York, 1965). Miss Bishop was a meticulous worker, never rushing into print until each poem had been finely polished to a gemlike luster. As a result, she issued a book no more often than every few years, but made them so marvelous that it is virtually impossible to single out one as being better than another. However, this title contains much work that is representative of her very best.\n\nJANE BOWLES Two Serious Ladies (New York, 1942). In her tragically short life Mrs. Bowles produced only three books\u2014a play, a group of short stories, and this novel, which while not widely known has attained a cult status. Its artistry is self-evident; it is a book one returns to periodically with ever increasing admiration.\n\nPAUL BOWLES The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (New York, 1950). Bowles has been producing splendid work for nearly three decades and may well be our most underrated author. He has long been a resident of Tangier, and most of his work has a Moroccan background. He is at his best in the short-story form. What is perhaps his best story, \"Pages from Cold Point,\" appears in this volume.\n\nWILLIAM BURROUGHS The Naked Lunch (Paris, 1959). Burroughs' impact on modern fiction technique is undoubtedly the most widespread of any postwar writer's. His \"cut-up\" method, while far from accepted, has revolutionized narrative writing more than anything since the publication of Joyce's Ulysses. This seminal work, his second book, was issued in Paris in the now famous Traveller's Companion series of the Olympia Press.\n\nTRUMAN CAPOTE The Grass Harp (New York, 1951). Capote, at the beginning of his career, was almost universally regarded as little more than a picturesque and slightly decadent aesthete. However, since the publication of In Cold Blood, the critics have acknowledged his gifts both as a consummate storyteller and as a fine stylist, probably the best we now have. The Grass Harp, both as a novel and in its later play version, illustrates Capote's gifts superbly.\n\nTRUMAN CAPOTE A Christmas Memory, which first appeared as a piece to fill out Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958, was not widely known until its television adaptation gave it a life of its own, making it a serious competitor of Dickens' Christmas classic. It is to my mind the finest piece of evocative writing produced in America since World War II.\n\nGREGORY CORSO Gasoline (San Francisco, 1958). By now, the so-called Beat poets are not only here to stay, they have almost become establishment. Their works are being taught in university courses, and many of them have become part-time professors. Corso, who in his private life in many ways resembles Rimbaud, has not produced a great volume of work, but has gained the respect of his peers to an extraordinary degree. Allen Ginsberg once proclaimed that Corso was \"the one true poet of us all.\" Gasoline, his third publication, shows him at his strongest.\n\nROBERT CREELEY A Form of Women (New York, 1959). Creeley is one of the major poets of the now famous Black Mountain School, founded by Charles Olson. His work has been uniformly characterized by a spareness and terseness that no doubt reflect his New England upbringing and clearly follow his own personal speech rhythms. His recurrent theme is that of the love of women, and this book, from his mid-period, is thus far most representative.\n\nDIANE DI PRIMA Memoirs of a Beatnik (New York, 1969). Beyond question the leading female member of the Beat group, di Prima is both a poet and a playwright of extreme sensitivity and perception, and one whose reputation is still growing. Despite the high quality of her poetry at its best, I have selected this volume of memoirs because of its overwhelming honesty, and also because it is the only book I have encountered that presents a totally accurate and at the same time moving account of the Beat period.\n\nROBERT DUNCAN Selected Poems (San Francisco, 1959). Along with Robert Creeley and Denise Levertov, Duncan is one of the triumvirate of Black Mountain poets who are the principal disciples of Charles Olson. Duncan is the most erudite of the group, and his work possesses a richness and density unequaled anywhere else in contemporary poetry. The body of his work is impressive, rendering a choice difficult. This early collection, however, shows him at his best.\n\nWILLIAM EVERSON Known as Brother Antoninus during a long period as a Dominican friar, he has now returned to secular life and is producing work again under his original name. He actually started publishing before World War II, but the bulk of his poetry has been written in the period after it. The major influence on him has been Robinson Jeffers, and his The Poet Is Dead (San Francisco, 1964), a moving tribute to Jeffers, is his strongest and most impassioned book. Like Jeffers, his main preoccupation has been the conflict between man's physical nature and his spiritual aspirations.\n\nLAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI A Coney Island of the Mind (New York, 1958). Ferlinghetti is a first-rate poet whose work has been overshadowed by his importance as the original champion and first publisher of many young poets who are now among the best known in America. Operating from his City Lights Book Shop in San Francisco, he was a major factor in the San Francisco Renaissance, with his \"Pocket Poets Series\" bringing to public attention such figures as Duncan, Corso, Levertov, and most famous of all, Allen Ginsberg, whose epochal Howl first appeared in this series. A Coney Island of the Mind, Ferlinghetti's second book, has been one of the best-selling books of poetry ever issued in the United States. In the twenty years since its publication it has never gone out of print.\n\nALLEN GINSBERG Howl (San Francisco, 1956). Without any doubt, Ginsberg is the figure in postwar poetry, both here and abroad. The publication of Howl marks a watershed in American poetry as definitely as did Leaves of Grass in 1855. Virtually every American poet now writing has been influenced by Ginsberg's modern adaptation of the long, loose line of Whitman, whose spiritual and literary heir he is.\n\nRANDALL JARRELL Little Friend, Little Friend (New York, 1945). Another of the Kenyon group, Jarrell's comparatively early death robbed us of one of our best talents. He was both a superb poet and a critic of exquisite acumen, as well as a witty novelist. \"The Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner,\" one of Jarrell's most famous poems and perhaps the best antiwar poem ever published, appears in this early volume.\n\nRANDALL JARRELL Jarrell is another author who must be represented by two books. His only novel, Pictures from an Institution (New York, 1954), is based on his teaching experiences at Bennington College. For sheer wit and inventiveness, it has had no equal since Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson.\n\nJAMES JONES From Here to Eternity (New York, 1951). While his later work tends to be repetitive and verbose, this first novel deserves its fame as the best American novel to come out of World War II.\n\nLEROI JONES Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note (New York, 1961). Although somewhat sidetracked recently from poetry by his black nationalist activities, Jones (who now prefers to be known as Amiri Baraka) is a poet and playwright of exceptional qualities. This first book of poetry introduced him as the finest black poet since Langston Hughes.\n\nJACK KEROUAC On the Road (New York, 1957). As with Ginsberg among the poets, Kerouac became the novelist of the immediate postwar world. This was his second novel, and it brought him instant and lasting fame. It became the vade mecum for the youth of all countries of the Western world, and has had probably a greater impact on its readers than any other work of fiction in this century.\n\nGALWAY KINNELL Body Rags (Boston, 1968). Kinnell is a younger poet whose reputation is steadily increasing, whose technical accomplishments are staggering, and whose work continues to gain in strength and intensity. This volume contains two of his very best poems\u2014\"The Bear\" and \"The Porcupine.\"\n\nJOHN KNOWLES A Separate Peace (London, 1959). Published in 1960 in the United States, Knowles' first novel bore the endorsement of both E. M. Forster and Truman Capote, the latter an author seldom given to praising the work of a potential competitor. The book deals with the aches and pains of adolescence and the loss of innocence, familiar themes, but in this case handled in a manner unmatched in recent years. To my mind, A Separate Peace is far superior to that other epic of adolescence, Catcher in the Rye.\n\nJERZY KOSINSKI The Painted Bird (Boston, 1965). Polish-born Kosinski, now a naturalized American, writes in English, parallelling the practice of his compatriot Joseph Conrad. His first novel is a brilliant tour de force of terror and horror.\n\nHARPER LEE To Kill a Mockingbird (Philadelphia, 1960). The author's only book to date is one of the most poignant and moving evocations of childhood ever published. It has no peer in the latter half of this century. Interestingly, her childhood companion Truman Capote appears as a character in this book, as she did in his first book, Other Voices, Other Rooms.\n\nDENISE LEVERTOV Here and Now (San Francisco, 1957). Some years back Kenneth Rexroth termed Denise Levertov \"the finest female poet in America under the age of forty,\" obviously meaning to except her elders, Marianne Moore and Louise Bogan, now both deceased. This is her second book, showing her clearly to be a major poet from the very beginning.\n\nROBERT LOWELL Life Studies (New York, 1959). Lowell, the acknowledged heir of T. S. Eliot, was the best known of the \"academic\" poets (as opposed to Beat poets). Much of his work betrays his personal inner conflict and turmoil. His fourth book represents an important stylistic departure from his earlier work, and probably strikes the best balance between his private agonies and his lyric gifts.\n\nMICHAEL MCCLURE Dark Brown (San Francisco, 1961). McClure may be the most interesting of all the San Francisco poets because he dares more than any other. Of course, he is not always successful, but he is never dull, and improbable ventures often yield fresh delights. Dark Brown, an early collection, shows all of his best traits.\n\nCARSON MCCULLERS The Member of the Wedding (Boston, 1946). Although the body of writing she left us at the time of her early death is relatively small, McCullers is assured a permanent position in American literature. This novel, later successfully transferred to the stage, is one of her best works.\n\nNORMAN MAILER The Naked and the Dead (New York, 1948). In his first novel, before he became an instant expert on almost anything topical, Mailer displayed a new style with a telegraphically direct impact.\n\nJAMES MERRILL Nights and Days (New York, 1966). Merrill is that rarest of all literary phenomena, the poet who starts out quietly and steadily improves and grows with each succeeding volume instead of thinning out as the years go by. A recent Pulitzer Prize elevated him to the forefront of American poets, a place he has honored by his unfailing accuracy of eye combined with an exceptional grace and felicity of style.\n\nw. s. MERWIN The Miner's Pale Children (New York, 1970). Merwin belongs to no school or group, making his own way in every sense of the word. He will not accept teaching jobs, believing that poetry should support the poet. Luckily, this has sometimes required him to turn to translating, and he has brought us superb versions of many works, particularly from the Spanish, that we would not otherwise have had. The book cited here is prose and appeared the same year as his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Carriers of Ladders. It is a book of parables and is for me his finest work. It will remain in your mind for the rest of your life.\n\nARTHUR MILLER Death of a Salesman (New York, 1949). For a man who is generally conceded to be one of the century's leading playwrights, Miller's output is relatively small. It is nonetheless excellent, and by general consensus this heartrending portrayal of the tragic defeat of a man is a modern classic.\n\nVLADIMIR NABOKOV Lolita (Paris, 1955). An American by naturalization, Nabokov wrote in English during the latter half of his life. His fondness for puns and word games sometimes carried on in two or even three languages simultaneously are a never-ending challenge to readers. Lolita, with its sensational theme of adolescent sexuality, catapulted him into fame; but it is also an extremely clever, subtle, and profound commentary on American culture.\n\nHOWARD NEMEROV Guide to the Ruins (New York, 1950). Nemerov is a man of multiple talents\u2014a superb poet, a good novelist, an excellent short-story teller, and a knowledgeable critic. Of his several volumes of poetry, all of them excellent, I personally prefer the book cited, if only because it was the first I read and it therefore made the strongest impact upon me.\n\nFRANK O'HARA Meditations in an Emergency (New York, 1957). O'Hara's untimely death in a car accident robbed us of one of the best of the group known as the New York School of poets. He was one of the very few modern poets since Auden who could write good light verse that was not merely lightweight. Some of his best work appears in this book.\n\nCHARLES OLSON The Maximus Poems. Appearing in installments in 1953, 1960, 1961, and 1969, The Maximus Poems are Olson's ongoing long poem. He is the patriarch of postwar poetry, and his position in many respects parallels that of Pound between the two wars. He was the founder of the Black Mountain School, and as a critic propounded the projective verse theory of poetry. The figure of \"Maximus\" is Olson's persona in this long work. It directly influenced many of the major poets now writing.\n\nSYLVIA PLATH The Colossus, and Other Poems (London, 1960). The fact that Sylvia Plath has become the object of cult worship since her suicide in no way negates the fact that her poetry shows extraordinary power. Her first book of poems contains work of such emotional intensity that it is almost impossible to read more than one or two poems at a sitting.\n\nSYLVIA PLATH The Bell Jar (London, 1963). Originally published under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas, this harrowing novel was tragically prophetic. It chronicles a young woman's attempts, eventually successful, to commit suicide. The control Plath displays in this book is nothing short of marvelous.\n\nJAMES PURDY Malcolm (New York, 1959). Purdy, never destined to be a popular writer like Updike, Roth, or O'Hara, may very likely endure much longer than the commercially successful novelists, despite the fact that the content of many of his books seems almost grotesque. The small-town characters who are his specialty are genuine, and his stories have the unmistakable ring of truth, disquieting and troubling as it may be. Malcolm is his third book, his first novel, and remains unsurpassed as yet in his work.\n\nJ. D. SALINGER Nine Stories (Boston, 1953). Despite the enormous popularity of Catcher in the Rye, I feel that his short stories are Salinger's strongest claim to fame. In them, his depiction of a segment of middle-class American life has an accuracy that will rank him with Sherwood Anderson. Nine Stories, his second book, is incidentally also the scarcest of them all.\n\nGARY SNYDER Regarding Wave (Iowa City, 1969). Snyder is one of the most controlled poets now practicing. A longtime Zen Buddhist, he spent many years in the monasteries of Kyoto. This left an indelible impression on his work, which combines in a unique manner the finest traditions of Japanese delicacy of phrasing with the vigor and directness of the American idiom. Regarding Wave\u2014published first in a limited signed edition, and later available in a commercial edition\u2014shows him at the height of his powers.\n\nDIANE WAKOSKI The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems (New York, 1971). While not an active feminist, Wakoski in her work displays the best results of women's liberation. She manages to convey women's feelings accurately without being either maudlin or didactic, and her poems are vigorous and direct.\n\nJOHN WIENERS Ace of Pentacles (New York, 1964). One of the Black Mountain poets, and direct disciple of both Olson and Duncan, Wieners enjoys the recognition of his peers to an extraordinary degree. His recent work has been marred by recurrent personal problems, but of this early book, his second, Denise Levertov remarked that it could be used to show visitors from another planet what the word \"poetry\" meant.\n\nRICHARD WILBUR Things of This World (New York, 1956). Wilbur is a man of dazzling wit and brilliance, who in addition to being one of our very best poets is a skilled translator (especially of Moli\u00e8re), a successful Broadway songwriter (Candide), and a competent critic and editor. His multiple levels of meanings are absolutely astounding, and he has a verve and humor rarely seen in this or any age. This volume was his third, and won him the Pulitzer Prize.\n\nTENNESSEE WILLIAMS A Streetcar Named Desire (New York, 1947). Certainly one of the greatest dramatists of the twentieth century, Williams considers this play his own favorite. It ranks by all standards as one of the finest plays ever written by an American.\n\n# APPENDIX FIVE\n\n# RESOURCES FOR ANTIQUE BOOKS\n\nABEBOOKS.COM RARE BOOK ROOM www.abebooks.com\/books\/RareBooks Includes directories for rare books, antique book fairs, and book appraisers.\n\nANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLERS' ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA www.abaa.org\n\nANTIQUES ROADSHOW: PRESERVING ANTIQUE BOOKS www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/roadshow\/tips\/preservingbooks.html Tips on preserving antique books.\n\nBAUMAN RARE BOOKS www.baumanrarebooks.com\/default.aspx Rare book dealer with information on selling and collecting. Also has a list of first edition books and their values.\n\nBOOK COLLECTING TIPS www.book-collecting-tips.com\n\nBOOK COLLECTORS' GLOSSARY www.tappinbookmine.com\/glosdefn.htm\n\nBOOK VALUES www.djmcadam.com\/book-values.html\n\nBUILDING A RARE BOOK COLLECTION www.maggs.com\/collections\/collecting.asp\n\nTHE CLIFTON WALLER BARRETT LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE www2.lib.virginia.edu\/small\/collections\/barrett\/index.html Includes notable works from 1775 to 1950.\n\nCOLLECTING ANTIQUE BOOKS hubpages.com\/hub\/Become-Book-HoundCollecting-Antique-Books\n\nCOLLECTORS WEEKLY: BOOKS www.collectorsweekly.com\/books\/overview Collector information for vintage and antique books.\n\nDIGITAL LIBRARIAN www.digital-librarian.com\/bookcollecting.html Includes a vast list of websites on book history and collecting.\n\nTHE ESSENTIALS OF BOOK COLLECTING www.trussel.com\/books\/lucas01.htm\n\nFINE BOOKS AND COLLECTIONS www.finebooksmagazine.com\/calendar Includes a list of rare book auctions.\n\nFIRSTS, THE BOOK COLLECTOR'S MAGAZINE www.firsts.com\/index.html Includes an eleven-part essay on collecting rare books.\n\nHOW TO SPOT AND IDENTIFY A FACSIMILE BOOK DUST JACKET www.artbusiness.com\/facsdj.html\n\nHOW TO START AN ANTIQUE BOOK COLLECTION www.ehow.com\/how_2051830_start-antique-book-collection.html\n\nHOW TO IDENTIFY A FIRST EDITION www.emptymirrorbooks.com\/collecting\/firstedition.html\n\nTHE INFOGRAPHY ABOUT BOOK COLLECTING www.infography.com\/content\/426936269470.html\n\nINTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLERS www.ilab.org\n\nINVESTING IN ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS www.historyandnews.co.uk\/article.php?story=20060719122921337\n\nTHE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESERVATION www.loc.gov\/preserv\n\nTHE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RARE BOOK & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS READING ROOM www.loc.gov\/rr\/rarebook Includes a guide to book appraisals.\n\nKEN LOPEZ BOOKSELLER lopezbooks.com\/articles\/trends Includes an essay on modern book collecting.\n\nPOWELL'S BOOKS: RARE BOOK BASICS www.powells.com\/rarebooks\/bookbasics.html Includes interviews, essays, and events for rare books.\n\nTHE RARE BOOK MARKET TODAY www.reeseco.com\/papers\/market.htm\n\nRARE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS SECTION: YOUR OLD BOOKS www.rbms.info\/yob.shtml Answers to questions about rare and older book values.\n\nRARE FINDS\u2014A GUIDE TO RARE BOOK COLLECTING rarebookfinds.com\n\n# INDEX\n\nAAs (author's alterations)\n\nABAA\n\nAB Bookman's Weekly\n\nAB Bookman's Yearbook\n\nabbreviations: list\n\nacetate book jacket\n\nacidity of paper\n\n\"Advance Issue\" of book\n\nadvance review copy of book.\n\nAiken, Conrad\n\nBlue Voyage\n\nAllen, Charles, The Little Magazine (1946)\n\nAmerican Book Prices Current\n\nAmerican literature: important recent bookssee also \"high spot\" collection\n\nAnderson, Elliott, The Little Magazine in America (1978)\n\nanthology\n\nantiquarian book fairs\n\nAntiquarian Bookmarket\n\nAntiquarian Book Monthly Review\n\nAntiquarian Booksellers' Association (Gt. Britain)\n\nAntiquarian Booksellers' Association of America\n\nappraisal of collection\n\nfor auction\n\nfor donation to institution\n\nfor sale\n\nAshbery, John\n\nauctions\n\nappraising collection\n\nbidding\n\n\"buy-backs,\"\n\ndisplay of books\n\nfees\n\nfirms: list\n\nlandmark sales\n\nGoodwin (Jonathan) collection (1977\u20148)\n\nGuffey (Don Carlos) sale (1958)\n\nKern (Jerome) sale (1958)\n\nQuinn (John) sale (1923\u20144)\n\nStreeter collection of Americana\n\npayment\n\nprices\n\nreserves\n\nsale catalog\n\nselling\n\nseparating into lots\n\n\"sold to order,\"\n\nAuden, Wystan Hugh\n\nauthor's friendship with\n\nbibliography\n\nChristmas cards\n\nCollected Poems\n\nmimeographed course syllabus\n\nProkosch pamphlet\n\nrevises reprinted poems\n\nsigning books\n\nSonnet\n\nauthor bibliography, see bibliography, author\n\nauthor collection\n\ninnovative authors\n\nlate start\n\nminor authors\n\nsetting limits\n\nunknown authors\n\nauthor newsletter\n\nauthor's alterations (AAs)\n\nauthor's inscription\n\nforgeries\n\npen used\n\n\"auto pen\" (mechanical signature device)\n\nBAL (Bibliography of American Literature)\n\nball-point pen\n\nBarker, Nicolas\n\nBarnes, Djuna\n\nbarter\n\nof books with dealer\n\nof duplicate copies\n\nbazaars: book sales\n\nBenton, Thomas Hart\n\nBetjeman, John\n\nbibliography\n\nauthor (collective)\n\nlist of\n\nauthor (individual)\n\ncreated by collector\n\nlist of\n\nsections: A (works by author) B (collections) C (periodicals) D (translations) E (miscellaneous, ephemera)\n\nBibliography of American Literature (BAL)\n\nbidding at book auction\n\nstandard increments\n\nbinding process\n\nbindings\n\nas area for book collection\n\ncondition\n\nBlack Mountain School of Poetry\n\nBlack Sun Press\n\nBlanck, Jacob\n\n\"blues\" of a book\n\nbook auctions, see auctions\n\nbook catalogs, see catalogs\n\nbook club(s)\n\nbound galleys sent to\n\nedition\n\nlist of\n\nbook cover\n\nwallet edge\n\nsee also dust jacket\n\nbook dealers, see dealers\n\nbookends\n\nbook fairs\n\nBookfinder, The\n\nbook manuscript, see manuscript\n\nBook Prices Current\n\nbook production\n\n\"blues,\"\n\nbound galleys\n\n\"f and g's,\"\n\nlong galleys\n\nmanuscript copies\n\nprinting and binding\n\nsummary of process\n\ntypesetting\n\nbook repairs\n\nbook reviews\n\nbook searchers\n\nbooksellers, see dealers\n\nbook shelves\n\nbookshops (secondhand)\n\nbook sizes\n\nBradley, Van Allen, Handbook of values\n\nBritish National Bibliography (The)\n\nbroadside\n\nBruccoli, Matthew J., First Printings of American Authors\n\nBrussell, I. R., Anglo-American First Editions\n\nBurroughs, William\n\nNaked Lunch\n\nbuying at auction, see auctions\n\nCabell, James Branch\n\ncalling card\n\nCapote, Truman\n\nIn Cold Blood\n\ncare of books\n\ncontrol of environment\n\nslipcases\n\nCarroll, Lewis [pseud. of Charles Dodgson], Alice books\n\nCarter, John, An Enquiry...\n\ncatalogs\n\nauction\n\n\"Conditions of Sale,\"\n\nsubscription\n\nof book dealers\n\nhow to order from\n\nCather, Willa\n\ncharity bazaars: book sales\n\nchecklists of authors\n\nChristie, Manson & Woods International, Inc. (\"Christie's\")\n\ncatalog\n\ndisplay of books for auction\n\nminimum price for lot\n\nstandard bit increment\n\nChristmas cards\n\nchurch bazaars: book sales\n\nclam-shell box slipcase\n\nClark, C. E. Frazer, Jr., First Printings of American Authors\n\nclimate control\n\nClique, The\n\nclubs for book collectors: list of\n\ncode for price of books\n\n\"collector's editions,\"\n\ncondition of books\n\nbindings\n\ndefective books (\"cripples\")\n\ndescribed in auction catalogs\n\ndust jacket\n\neffects on auction prices\n\neffects on secondhand prices\n\npaperbacks\n\nsoiled pages\n\nCongdon, Kirby\n\nConnolly, Cyril\n\nthe Connolly Hundred\n\nModern Movement, The\n\nContact Press\n\nCoppard, Alfred Edgar\n\ncost of books, see price of books\n\nCrane, Hart\n\n\"cripples\" (defective books)\n\nCrosby, Harry\n\nCrown Octavo series\n\nCummington Press\n\ndampness: effect on books\n\ndealers\n\ncatalogs\n\ndirectories and associations\n\nemployed to bid at auction\n\npricing books\n\nstockpiling copies\n\ndedication copy of a book\n\ndefective books (\"cripples\")\n\ndefinitions of terms\n\nDerain, Andr\u00e9\n\nDirectory of Dealers in Secondhand & Antiquarian Books in the British Isles\n\ndocumentation of collection's value\n\nDodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll): Alice books\n\ndonating collection to institution\n\ndrop case\n\ndust jacket\n\naffects resale value\n\ndeacidification\n\ndoubled on review copies\n\nglassine\n\n\"married\" to book\n\npreservation\n\nedition: definition\n\nEigner, Larry, Look at the Park\n\nEliot, Thomas Stearns\n\nand Haskell House piracies\n\n\"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The,\"\n\nProkosch pamphlet by\n\nTwo Songs\n\nWaste Land, The\n\nephemera\n\ndefinition\n\nerasing marks in books\n\nfacsimiles\n\nfakes\n\n\"f and g's\" (folded and gathered sheets)\n\nFaulkner, William\n\nmanuscripts\n\nMarble Faun\n\nSelected Letters\n\nSoldier's Pay\n\nstatus among book collectors\n\nFeldman, Lew\n\nfelt-tip pen\n\nfilm scripts\n\nfirst books, as area for collection\n\nfirst edition\n\nchecklists\n\nidentifying\n\njustification for collecting\n\npublishers' printing notation practices\n\nsources for: list\n\ntitle-page information\n\nFirst Printings of American Authors\n\nFitzgerald, Francis Scott Key\n\nfolded and gathered sheets (\"f and g's\")\n\nFord, Hugh, Published in Paris\n\nforgeries\n\nfountain-pen ink: removal from books\n\nFreeman, Arthur\n\nFrost, Robert\n\nBoy's Will, A (1913)\n\nChristmas cards\n\ngalleys\n\nbound\n\nlong\n\nGallup, Donald\n\nGalsworthy, John\n\ngarage sales as source of books\n\nGinsberg, Allen\n\nHowl\n\nSiesta at Xbalba\n\ngiving collection to institution\n\nglassine book jacket\n\nglossary\n\nterms to describe condition\n\nGoodwin (Jonathan) book sale (1977\u20148)\n\nGorey, Edward\n\nGrolier Club\n\nGuffey (Don Carlos) book sale (1958)\n\nHargreaves, Alice\n\nHaskell House, New York\n\nHemingway, Ernest\n\nFarewell to Arms\n\nFor Whom the Bell Tolls\n\nin Guffey book sale (1958)\n\nOld Man and the Sea, The\n\nin transition (magazine)\n\nHergesheimer, Joseph\n\nHersey, John, Hiroshima\n\n\"high spot\" collection\n\nHoffman, Frederick J., The Little Magazine (1946)\n\nHorton (Carolyn) Associates, New York\n\nimpression: definition\n\nIndex Translationum\n\ninformation on title page\n\ninnovative authors, as area for book collection\n\ninscription (author's)\n\nforgeries\n\npen used\n\ninvestment\n\nIsherwood, Christopher\n\nissue: definition\n\nJeffers, Robinson\n\nJohnson, Merle\n\nAmerican First Editions\n\nHigh Spots in American Literature\n\nJoyce, James\n\nUlysses\n\nLimited Editions Club edition\n\nmanuscript\n\npaperback edition\n\nsetting type for\n\nKern (Jerome) book sale (1929)\n\nKinzie, Mary, The Little Magazine in America (1978)\n\nLepper, Gary, Bibliographical Introduction to Seventy-five Modern Authors\n\nletters found in books at auction\n\nLevertov, Denise\n\nLibrary of Congress, Register of Copyrights\n\nLimited Editions Club\n\nlimiting scope of author collection\n\nliterature collection\n\n\"innovators,\"\n\n\"little\" magazines\n\nas area for collection\n\nguides to\n\nused to identify promising authors\n\nlittle presses, see private presses\n\nLockwood Poetry Collection\n\nlong galleys\n\n\"lotting\" a collection for auction\n\nLoveman, Samuel\n\nLowell, Robert\n\nLand of Unlikeness, The\n\nLord Weary's Castle\n\nmagazines (\"little\"), see \"little\" magazines\n\nMalamud, Bernard, Dubin's Lives\n\nmanuscript\n\ncollection\n\ndisplay\n\nrough working copy\n\n\"setting copy,\"\n\ntyped, signed forgery\n\nMarkilo Transparent Envelopes\n\nMcAlmon, Robert\n\nMencken, Henry Louis\n\nMerrill, James\n\nMillay, Edna St. Vincent\n\nmimeographed works\n\nfakes\n\nminor authors, as area for collection\n\nmodern: definition\n\nMoore, Marianne\n\nCollected Poems (1950)\n\nfriendship with author\n\nPoems (1924)\n\nand Prokosch pamphlets\n\nrevising reprinted poems\n\nsigning books\n\nvalue of various works\n\nmusical setting\n\nMylar sheets\n\nNemerov, Howard\n\nnewsletter\n\nNew York Public Library: Performing Arts division\n\nNew York Times: Book Review section\n\nOlson, Charles\n\nO'Neill, Eugene\n\nout of print (\"o.p.\")\n\nprices\n\ntrade journals\n\noverlap edge of book cover\n\nownership: mark of\n\npages\n\nsoiled\n\nuntrimmed\n\npamphlets: protection\n\npaperback books: condition\n\npen used to inscribe books 106\n\nPeriodical Index\n\nperiodicals\n\nto identify promising authors\n\nfor secondhand and o.p. books\n\nsee also \"little\" magazines\n\nPermalife folders and envelopes\n\nPEs (printer's errors)\n\nphotograph of author\n\npirated books\n\npoets, as area for collection\n\nPollard, Graham, An Enquiry ...\n\nPorter, Katherine Anne, A Christmas Story\n\nposters for readings\n\nPound, Ezra Loomis\n\nA Lume Spento\n\npromoted for president\n\ntranslations\n\nCall of the Road, The\n\n12 Occupations\n\npresentation copy of book\n\npresses (private), see private presses\n\nprice of books\n\nat auction \"reserves,\"\n\nas determined by dealers\n\neffect of author popularity on\n\neffect on choice of collection area\n\nguidebooks\n\nAmerican Book Prices Current\n\nHandbook of Values\n\nmarked in code in books\n\nprinter's errors (PEs)\n\nprinting: definition\n\nprivate presses\n\nAmerican\n\nas area for collection\n\ndetermining date of imprint\n\nforeign\n\nProkosch, Frederick\n\nprotection of books\n\npublishers: printing notation practices\n\nPulitzer Prize winners\n\nQuinn (John) book sale (1923\u2014 4)\n\nrebinding\n\nrecordings of authors reading works\n\nremainders\n\nbookstores\n\nreprint publishers\n\nreserves (at auction)\n\nrestoration of damaged books\n\nreturning book to dealer\n\nreview copy of book\n\nreview of books\n\nRorem, Ned\n\nRosenbach, Abraham S. Wolf\n\nSalinger, Jerome David\n\nSandburg, Carl\n\nscarce: definition\n\nscope of author collection\n\nsecondhand books\n\nshops\n\nsources\n\nsee also auctions; dealers\n\nselling books\n\nat auction\n\nto institutions\n\nto realize investment\n\nseries, as area for collection\n\n\"setting copy\" of manuscript\n\nsignature (author's) forgeries pen used\n\nSinjohn, John [pseud. of John Galsworthy]\n\nsize of books\n\nslipcases,\n\nclam-shell box\n\ndrop case\n\nhome-made\n\nsolander case\n\n\"Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Books,\"\n\nsolander case\n\n\"sold to order\" (at auction)\n\nSotheby Parke Bernet & Co.\n\ncatalog\n\ndisplay of books for auction\n\nminimum price for lot\n\nstandard bid increment\n\nsources of secondhand books\n\nsee also auctions; dealers\n\nspoken-word recordings\n\nstage productions from novels\n\nStein, Gertrude\n\nin author bibliography\n\nauthor's collection\n\nand Haskell House piracies\n\nIs Dead\n\nMaking of Americans, The\n\nher Plain Edition Press\n\nand Prokosch pamphlets\n\nspoken-word recordings\n\nstein\n\nThree Lives\n\nStevens, Wallace\n\nStreeter collection of Americana\n\nsunlight\n\neffect on books\n\neffect on manuscripts\n\nSwann Galleries, Inc.\n\ncatalog\n\ndisplay of books for auction\n\nminimum price for lot\n\nstandard bid increment\n\nsystematic acquisition of items\n\n\"tag\" sales as source of books\n\nTaiwan book piracies\n\ntax considerations\n\ntelephone order to dealer\n\ntemperature control\n\nterms: definitions\n\nTexas University: Humanities Research Library\n\nThomas, Dylan\n\nforged signature\n\nMap of Love, The\n\nas subject of author collection\n\nin transition (magazine)\n\nUnder Milk Wood manuscript\n\nthrift-shop book sales\n\nThurber, James\n\ntitle-page information\n\nToklas, Alice B.\n\nruns Plain Edition Press\n\nspoken-word recording\n\nas Stein's typist\n\ntrading books with dealer\n\ntransition (magazine)\n\ntranslations\n\ntypesetting\n\nUlrich, Carolyn F., The Little Magazine (1946)\n\nuniversity press publications\n\nunknown authors, as area for collection\n\nUpdike, John\n\nused-book stores\n\nVan Vechten, Carl\n\nwallet edge of book cover\n\nwant lists\n\nwaxed paper as dust jacket protection\n\nwhims in book collecting\n\nWhitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass\n\nWilliams, Tennessee\n\nWilliams, William Carlos\n\nPoems (1909)\n\nWindham, Donald\n\nWise, Thomas J.\n\nWoburn Books\n\nYeats, William Butler\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nGrateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:\n\nFarrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and Faber and Faber Limited: \"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner\" by Randall Jarrell, as handwritten by Jarrell on the front page of the book LITTLE FRIEND, LITTLE FRIEND and reprinted in THE COMPLETE POEMS. Copyright 1945 by Mrs. Randall Jarrell. Copyright renewed 1972 by Mrs. Randall Jarrell. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and Faber and Faber Limited.\n\nThe Grolier Club of New York: Two pamphlets forged by Thomas J. Wise late in the nineteenth century. From the collection of the Grolier Club of New York. Used by permission.\n\nHarcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber and Faber Limited: \"Two Quatrains for First Frost\" by Richard Wilbur. Copyright \u00a9 1959 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted from his volume ADVICE TO A PROPHET AND OTHER POEMS by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Faber and Faber Limited.\n\nThe Limited Editions Club: Page from The Limited Editions Club edition of ULYSSES by James Joyce. Copy number 804, signed by James Joyce and Henri Matisse. Courtesy of The Limited Editions Club.\n\nNew Directions: Inscription by Ezra Pound. All rights reserved. Published by permission of New Directions, Agents for the Trustees of the Ezra Pound Literary Property Trust.\n\nSotheby Parke Bernet, Inc.: Sample page from catalogue courtesy Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc.\n\nJill Faulkner Summers: Inscription by William Faulkner on page from INTRUDER IN THE DUST, Random House, copyright \u00a9 1948 by William Faulkner, copyright renewed 1975 by Jill Faulkner Summers. Previously unpublished poem by William Faulkner on page 55 copyright \u00a9 1980 by Jill Faulkner Summers.\n\nPhotographs on pages 9, 13, 26, 29, 33, 35, 41, 45, 47, 98, 173, 177, 193, 195, 205, and 207 were taken by Coe Younger and Ben Asen.\n\n# A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nRobert A. Wilson was proprietor of the   \nPhoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village   \nin New York City. He is a passionate   \nwriter; author of bibliographies of   \nGertrude Stein, Gregory Corso, and   \nDenise Levertov; and specializes   \nin rare books and manuscripts.\n\n# A NOTE ON THE TYPE\n\nThe text of this book   \nwas set in Waverley, a typeface   \nproduced by the Intertype Corporation.   \nNamed for Captain Edward Waverley,   \nthe hero of Sir Walter Scott's first novel,   \nit was inspired by the spirit of Scott's   \nliterary creation rather than actually   \nderived from the typography   \nof that period.\n\nComposed by   \nAmerican-Stratford Graphic Services, Inc.,   \nBrattleboro, Vermont   \nDesigned by Betty Anderson\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n\u00a9 2016 by Greg Jobin-Leeds\n\nForeword \u00a9 2016 by Rinku Sen\n\nAfterword \u00a9 2016 by Antonia Darder\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nNo part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.\n\n\"Hard Time Out\" by David Goodman (pages 63\u201364) was previously published in _Mother Jones_ , August 2008.\n\nReprinted by permission of the author.\n\nPhotographs on pages 171\u2013173 by Osvaldo Budet\n\nRequests for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to: Permissions Department, The New Press, 120 Wall Street, 31st floor, New York, NY 10005.\n\nPublished in the United States by\n\nThe New Press, New York, 2016\n\nDistributed by Perseus Distribution\n\nLIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA\n\nJobin-Leeds, Greg, author.\n\nWhen we fight, we win!: twenty-first-century social movements and the activists that are transforming our world\/Greg Jobin-Leeds, pages cm\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN 978-1-62097-140-6 (e-book) 1. Social reformers--United States. 2. Political activists--United States. 3. Social action--United States--History--21st century. 4. Social movements--United States--History--21st century. I. Title.\n\nHN59.2.J625 2016\n\n303.48'40973--dc23\n\n2015022368\n\nThe New Press publishes books that promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and to a more equitable world. These books are made possible by the enthusiasm of our readers; the support of a committed group of donors, large and small; the collaboration of our many partners in the independent media and the not-for-profit sector; booksellers, who often hand-sell New Press books; librarians; and above all by our authors.\n\nwww.thenewpress.com\n\n_Book design by AgitArte_\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\nTo all the activists and artists in this book, and my parents, Lilo Leeds and Gerry Leeds (1922\u20132014), for showing us how to fight for what we love, and, no matter how dark the times, how to win our humanity\n\"Radicals are in many ways social artists. They restate the hidden truths of society through working with people and social movements. . . . They teach people to see with a fresh vision . . . laying bare the full absurdities of treasured hypocrisies.\"\n\nJudith Nies, author of _Nine Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition_\n\n\"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. . . . Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.\"\n\nFrederick Douglass, author and slavery abolitionist, 1857\nCONTENTS\n\nFOREWORD _BY RINKU SEN_\n\nINTRODUCTION: INSPIRATION FROM STORIES\n\n1. RECLAIMING WHOLENESS: THE LGBTQ MOVEMENT\n\n2. GROUNDED IN COMMUNITY: THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION\n\n3. TRANSFORMING VISIONS: ENDING MASS INCARCERATION\n\n4. THE POWER OF STORIES: THE DREAMERS AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS\n\n5. \"WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!\": THE STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC POWER\n\n6. ENVIRONMENTAL WARRIORS: GOING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM\n\nEPILOGUE: SOLIDARITY\u2014A GATHERING\n\nAFTERWORD: STORIES OF LOVE AND FURY _BY ANTONIA DARDER_\n\nDESIGNERS' NOTE _BY AGITARTE_\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nTHE _WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!_ TEAM\n\nNOTES\n\nINDEX\nFOREWORD\n\n_RINKU SEN_\n\nBy the time I discovered racial justice organizing at the age of seventeen, the social movements of the 1960s had waned. Sit-ins and protests had given way to the work that comes after victory: implementing the many changes brought into being by the civil rights, black power, women's, and peace movements. My generation was the first to benefit from those changes. Indeed, I owe my very presence in the United States, and thus my identity as an American, to a historic piece of legislation reflecting the anti-discrimination ethos that pushed this country forward in 1965. The civil rights movement and power movements among black, brown, red, and yellow people had successfully asserted equal treatment as an American value. I've devoted my whole adult life to figuring out how to create social movements of a similar scope and depth.\n\nWhen I started on this road in the mid-1980s, I didn't realize that a mere twenty years had been more than enough to craft a distorted popular retelling of movement history, and to establish that distortion as fact. The political stories I heard as a child featured deeply misleading \"lessons\" about massive social progress sparked by individual acts of heroic resistance. Before I knew better, what people called \"movements\" often seemed to have been led by exceptional charismatic men, working in concert with other exceptional charismatic men.\n\nThese were fantasy versions of movements, in which the mundane was deleted in favor of the dramatic, and the collective in favor of the individual. Popular movement stories also frequently delete the poor, the female, the queer, and the nonwhite. To get access to the full range of questions and answers, to the reflections that would actually help me act in ways that fostered movement, I had to push past revision to get to reality. I busted through this fiction in no small part by reading books like _When We Fight, We Win!_\n\nThe world and the United States are unquestionably in a turbulent time, as communities rise up to assert their right not only to exist but also to thrive with every expectation of safety and self-determination. In 2014 and 2015, thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Ferguson, Baltimore, and too many other places to count, facing down tear gas and tanks while protesting the systemic inaction that enabled yet another police killing of an unarmed black teenager.\n\nIn these pages, we see Native Americans reminding the nation that they are still here and still fighting. We meet people who are stretching and bending the gender binary in ways that make its abolition seem certain. We encounter both the difficulties and the joys of fighting to save humanity by reviving our stewardship of the earth.\n\nIn _When We Fight, We Win!,_ contemporary movements become the sources of the lessons I sought as a young organizer\u2014lessons that I still seek.\n\nSome of the efforts featured here are so nascent that they have yet to win their ultimate prize. Some of these efforts are pre-movements, still in those years of toiling that create the organizations, the consciousness, and the platform for change that undergirds any successful movement. We don't have comprehensive immigration reform, even after more than a decade of fighting. As a global society, we have not yet committed to the sacrifices required to stop climate change. We still incarcerate people, the vast majority black and Latino, at the highest rates of any industrialized country in the world.\n\nWhether or not we win will be based on many things other than our own strategy and strength. Even strong, huge movements sometimes fail. There is, however, no path to victory without trying.\n\nThe real-time lessons of movements, whatever their current shape, are critical if we want more movement. At the cliff edge of history is as good a place as any from which to mine insights that can help all those brave enough to attempt making the kinds of changes that can seem impossible.\n\nThis is the true beauty of this book: its offering of movements in progress, long before they are co-opted into the endless narrative of American individualism. The voices of veteran organizers and emerging leaders alike reveal the ingredients that make modern movements inclusive, radical, and effective. These voices can fuel our growing vision, improve our daily practice, and, most important, make us feel hopeful for the future of our world.\n\nFrom there, all we need to do is act.\n\nNew York City, May 2015\n\n_Rinku Sen is the president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation and the publisher of the award-winning news site_ Colorlines _. Sen co-chairs the Schott Foundation for Public Education with the author, Greg Jobin-Leeds._\n\n   **HANDS UP DON'T SHOOT. Molly Crabapple, Brooklyn, New York, 2014**\n\n\"Hands up, don't shoot!\" became the people's cry for justice and accountability in the aftermath of several killings of unarmed black people by police and vigilantes across the United States. The phrase was coined by Ferguson and St. Louis protesters in the wake of Michael Brown's murder in 2014 to illustrate the circumstances of his death. As reported in the news and later in grand jury testimony, Brown was shot while his hands were in the air. Currently, both the gesture and the phrase are widely used across the nation as powerful protest symbols against racism and police brutality.\nINTRODUCTION INSPIRATION FROM STORIES\n\nSame-sex marriage, #BlackLivesMatter, the DREAM Act, the People's Climate March, End the New Jim Crow, Occupy Wall Street . . . today, ordinary people are taking on extraordinary problems, gaining traction, and making the impossible possible. For five years, I asked leaders of these and other thriving social movements: \"What are the lessons you've learned that you would like to pass on to new activists?\" Themes began to emerge. Their answers became captivating stories that told of their visions and victories, communities and allies, adversaries and disappointments, and unique practices and strategies for change.\n\nStorytelling\u2014in words, song, and art\u2014is one of the vital practices that activists use. Storytelling is a connective tissue of social movements used to teach each other how to fight. Through stories we identify what we are fighting against, what we are fighting for, and how to take action. Stories ground us and inspire activists to keep fighting. Through the tradition of telling stories, we create a collective powerful \"we\" to build courage and take on entrenched and often alarming adversaries who are blocking change. Stories are used to share visions and reshape language and political debates. Stories in words and art are the medium we use in this book.\n\nWe think differently about what is possible when we learn of activists' victories large and small and when we hear their successful and inspiring visions that offer alternatives to the inequities of our economy, climate destruction, the school testing mania, deportations, and the exploding police and prison systems. Twenty-first-century activists offer inspiring conceptualizations of families and gender, new language and ways of thinking, teaching, and acting. These visionary movement leaders share how they created their successes and recovered from their failures. _When We Fight, We Win!_ is about their transformations and twenty-first-century movements that are shaping and inspiring a generation across the globe.\n\nReal people are making change right now. We can too.\n\nThis book spans from 2000\u20132015, the beginning of the twenty-first century, a fertile era of activism. _When We Fight, We Win!_ is part of a multigenerational struggle for liberation, for the democratization of power, so all of us can participate in deciding the fate of our lives and communities.\n\nWHY I WROTE THIS BOOK\n\nIn 2006, I was working on a successful fifteen-year campaign for New York's children. A network of organizations was helping to nurture a strong statewide parent crusade focused on building the public and political will to provide every child an opportunity to learn. We were on the cusp of winning systemic change that resulted in the largest historical increase in public school funding. The equitable funding would support preschools, teacher professional development, library books, class-size reduction, and other proven and desperately needed educational resources in struggling communities and low-income school districts. Parents were succeeding in the media, the community, the courts, and the legislature.\n\nThrough political pressure, New York governor Eliot Spitzer\u2014who had opposed the parents and kids on funding issues when he was the state attorney general, two years before\u2014now became our champion. The New York State Legislature (one of whose members had sworn that these parents would not win \"in our lifetime\") voted for billions of dollars to flow to the highest-need children and schools.\n\nThe multipronged legal, media, legislative, community organizing, and donor campaign was effective. It received the Champion Award from the Center for Community Change and the Critical Impact Award from the Council on Foundations. Case studies were written about this victory that had been won by determined parents, students, teachers, and their allies.\n\nJust a few years later, schools would be in worse shape in almost every urban setting in New York State and around the country.\n\nIn 2010, the New York State legislature voted to cut back funding and resources for inner-city schools. In 2011, New York's Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, reduced taxes for the extremely wealthy and, with New York City's Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, halted the advances. The progress we had made over many years was quickly reversed. In my beloved New York City, as well as Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities across the country, teachers were fired, art and gym programs cut, and class sizes increased. President Barack Obama, governors, legislators, school boards, and mayors increased punitive testing and closed more and more schools, mostly in already devastated communities of color. They demonized teachers, students, and parents as the cause of our educational problems.\n\nI had been a high school teacher; seeing the rapid disinvestment in and decline of public schools was heartbreaking. I watched in horror as the political and public conversation moved from providing kids with the opportunities they needed to focusing on school closures, high-stakes testing, and unproven, billionaire-promoted charter schools. The devastating impact of New York education cuts and all the budget cuts throughout the country still horrifies me as I think of the millions of children who are being denied a fair opportunity to learn and will suffer a lifetime of consequences.\n\nWhy did we lose momentum? What could we have done differently? Was our analysis of the political reality that far off?\n\nMany people working on other issues were raising these same questions. I began to examine how we could more effectively do our work of changing political and public will and the day-to-day reality for children and families. I took a step back to investigate the historical roots, deepen my analysis, and study successful strategies for change. During this time I searched for a book of cross-cutting lessons, culled from past social movements. I asked one of my favorite authors if such a book existed. She replied, \"No. Why don't you write it?\"\n\nWith the help of a few friends and fellow organizers, I examined broad-scale social change, focusing on three key questions:\n\n\u2022 How do we create real and enduring change?\n\n\u2022 What have successful organizers done that works, and what doesn't work?\n\n\u2022 How can anyone get involved and make a difference?\n\nI posed these questions to hundreds of activists, academics, political organizers, and movement leaders. They offered gripping stories and surprising answers. I found crosscutting lessons that helped me understand how transformative change happened and is happening today. These leaders talked of practices, traditions, and attributes of movement building that cut across each of today's struggles and those of the past. This led me to rethink and reprioritize. Colleagues asked me to write and speak about these lessons. From that beginning, this book took shape.\n\nThis is neither a comprehensive study nor an instruction manual; it is stories and observations based on interviews and experiences in the United States.\n\nTHE _WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!_ TEAM\n\n_When We Fight, We Win!_ emerged from a partnership with a design and editorial team that has evolved through many years of friendship and shared struggles with Antonia Darder, Jos\u00e9 Jorge D\u00edaz, David Goodman, Deymirie Hern\u00e1ndez, and Rinku Sen. This book reflects their clear thinking and visionary voices. They all shared their organizing knowledge, introduced us to remarkable activists, and read and challenged me on every chapter.\n\nAgitArte created the art narrative through images, captions, artist interviews, and the overall design, which amplifies the stories and gives light to the breadth, power, and vision of movements. AgitArte is an organization of artists and organizers whose mission is to create cultural projects and practices in solidarity with grassroots struggles of the working class and communities of color for social and economic justice. Deymirie Hern\u00e1ndez, an educator, architect, and puppeteer, designed the book, curated the art, and researched and wrote the captions. Jos\u00e9 Jorge D\u00edaz, the artistic director and founder of AgitArte, led the artist interviews and edited the entire book. Jorge and I have worked with each other for more than twenty years and he helped me write the first version of this book as a letter to colleagues and I have helped him with AgitArte since its early days. Jos\u00e9 \"Primo\" Hern\u00e1ndez designed the cover and partnered with Dey on the layout.\n\nThe Foreword is the voice of Rinku Sen, author of the organizing manual _Stir It Up_ , publisher of _Colorlines_ , and executive director of Race Forward. Rinku has co-chaired the board of the Schott Foundation for Public Education with me for eight years, and we have toiled together for many more.\n\nThe Afterword is by Antonia Darder, author of the books _A Dissident Voice_ , _After Race_ , _Freire and Education_ , and many other inspiring writings. She is a dear friend and longtime activist and holds an endowed chair in ethics and moral leadership at Loyola Marymount University.\n\nI created the story narrative, using the voices of cutting-edge leaders who are addressing the root causes of inequities and injustices as well as voices from the larger movements that are building the infrastructure of change. These stories, based on interviews, are from organizers who are actively involved in some of today's most flourishing social change organizations. David Goodman, a master storyteller, was my writing advisor and helped create these tales. An award-winning journalist for national publications, David is the author of ten books.\n\nWhile these five certainly do not agree with everything written here, they have been my editorial and artistic guides.\n\nTHE GATHERING\n\nIn August 2014 and November 2015, many of the activists and artists from the stories in this book gathered together with the editorial and design team to celebrate our movements, reflect on the challenges we all are facing, and contribute to the collective wisdom reflected in the epilogue and throughout these pages and social media platforms.. Though I do not speak for them, most of the activists interviewed in this book read early drafts of the chapter in which their work is featured, adding to and updating the story and sharpening our analysis.\n\nThis powerful collaborative process contributes to the \"we\" in _When We Fight, We Win!_ Working together has been an exciting, critical, and creative process, resulting in a beloved learning community of activists, artists, and authors.\n\nIt's an ongoing collaboration\u2014all the struggles in this book continue.\n\n_WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!_\n\nThe book's title comes directly out of the experiences of AgitArte, whose members heard the phrase while working on a Boston anti-eviction fight. _When We Fight, We Win!_ drives home the overarching points of the book: winning requires a \"we,\" a community, a group, an organization. And transformative change, in the face of powerful forces, requires a fight.\n\nAction, reflection, art, and storytelling keep the fight alive through generations.\n\nWhen we fight, we often move ourselves out of our comfort zones to face forces and people that view the world differently and may not be ready to change. When we fight\u2014building an organization, joining a community of activists\u2014we win not only communal victories but also our own personal transformation, enabling us to discover common root causes to problems that had seemed unconnected before. Understanding root causes can ally us with others\u2014across issues, cultures, identities. This aggregates individual fights into broad movement struggles, and by working in solidarity together we can realize far-reaching, systemic change. Winning lies not in a single victory, but in many victories and the lifelong struggle to change injustice and create a future based on a bold, transformative vision. Claiming our humanity and right to fight, by standing up for justice and building a community of activists, is a win in itself.\n\nWhen we fight, we participate in creating the future. We become part of the inspiring history of movements. We learn from history and we are creating it.\n\nEach story and piece of art shared here is a small taste of the massive number of organizations and people in this global struggle to create a just world. Author and activist Paul Hawken calls it the \"blessed unrest\"\u2014the ongoing work that has to be constantly regenerated and reinvented.\n\nWHAT IS TRANSFORMATIVE ORGANIZING?\n\nMany have contributed brilliant perspectives on the essential ingredients of movement organizing and transformation. Excellent work has been done by Grace Lee Boggs, Antonia Darder, Robert Gass, Adria Goodson, Taj James, Eric Mann, Judith Nies, Manuel Pastor, Rinku Sen, Ella Baker, Howard Zinn, Paulo Freire, AgitArte, the Zapatistas, the black power movements, and so many others. They inform this moment in history and this book.\n\nI chose seven attributes of transformative organizers that emerged from the interviews and structured stories and a chapter around each. Transformative organizers:\n\n\u2022 Build organizations that are grounded in the most impacted communities\n\n\u2022 Create transformative visions\n\n\u2022 Tell powerful stories\n\n\u2022 Go to the root cause of problems\n\n\u2022 Reclaim the intersection of our struggles and identities\n\n\u2022 Disrupt power, changing who has it and what to do with it once reclaimed\n\n\u2022 Build solidarity and stand together\n\nEach chapter, and the epilogue, show these attributes in action. Transformative organizers share these seven attributes and many more. These contemporary activists organize with a core group of people, develop an alternative vision of the future, interrupt cultural narratives, enroll allies, and develop global perspectives and broad networks. Transformative organizing transforms activists from bystanders or victims into drivers of change. It involves many levels of transformation: personal and spiritual, organizational and communal, cultural, and political.\n\nTransformative organizing focuses on systemic change that addresses root causes, not just reforms that allow the same systems to reproduce themselves. Transformative organizers link systems of oppression together for all to see. Many may have started their activism by focusing on a single personal grievance; over time they saw the interconnection of their issues with others. Thus, transformative organizing builds solidarity. While they may pursue incremental improvements and reforms, transformative organizers place their work within a much larger vision and strategy.\n\nAs he helped me with the interviews, the veteran author David Goodman often called these transformative organizers and artists \"transformers.\" These transformers build the infrastructure of social movements.\n\nThese are their stories.\n\n**Chapter 1, Reclaiming Wholeness: The LGBTQ** Movement.** Paulina Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez at Southerners on New Ground and Rea Carey at the National LGBTQ Taskforce show us the cutting edge of a movement in which new conversations and definitions about sexuality, gender, and identity are emerging. Marriage equality is one step in a larger liberation movement that is thinking beyond the traditional fragmented male\/female, gay\/straight either\/or binary. Conversations with these transformers reveal something equally profound: their identities go beyond sexuality into race and class as well. As they celebrate their love, they help us all reclaim a sense of wholeness.\n\nLGBTQ refers to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and\/or queer\/questioning.\n\n**Chapter 2, Grounded in Community: The Fight for the Soul of Public Education.** In Chicago, teachers, students, parents, and community leaders are creating a social and economic movement, energized by a community-based teachers union, to defend public education. The power of their alliance illustrates the importance of being grounded in community and underscores that transformative movements are led by those most impacted. Up against a powerful mayor and would-be \"reformers\" seeking to privatize public education and close schools in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, Chicago's organizing has become a nationally visible, exciting beacon of hope.\n\n**Chapter 3, Transforming Visions: Ending Mass Incarceration.** The United States has more people in prison than any other country on the planet. The prison-justice movement is achieving incremental and important victories, as their transformative visions challenge us to understand the racist and capitalist underpinnings of the prison industrial complex and to imagine a world without jails. Patrisse Cullors-Brignac (one of the founders of #BlackLivesMatter), Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and Walidah Imarisha powerfully illustrate incarceration's relationship to social control, and their words, stories, art, visions, and actions inspire us to imagine what seemed impossible.\n\n**Chapter 4, The Power of Stories: The DREAMers and Immigrant Rights.** A youth-led immigrant group marched from Florida to the White House, building on decades of organizing that had come before them; they were cheered on along their journey, carrying the hopes of parents for their immigrant children. Inspiring thousands of immigrants to come out of the shadows, shatter the silence, and tell their own stories, the DREAMers are no longer afraid or ashamed of being undocumented. The Trail of DREAMs is one of their stories. They energized and brought attention to a national effort to make it possible for immigrant youth to remain in the United States and go to college. Their organizing is succeeding. Their stories are helping transform a broken immigration system and restore dignity to millions of undocumented Americans.\n\n**Chapter 5, \"When We Fight, We Win!\": The Struggle for Economic Power.** The organizing of Occupy Wall Street, anti-eviction activists, and restaurant workers are three stories that inspire increasing activism. The modern economic justice movement dramatically escalates the public discourse around inequality. Thanks to their bold organizing and the larger movement, the notion of the 99%, the need to democratize who holds economic power, and alternatives that put people before profits are now part of the public narrative. These economic justice organizers are fighting to disrupt and change the inequitable status quo.\n\n**Chapter 6, Environmental Warriors: Going to the Root of the Problem.** A global networked environmental movement is on the rise. Indigenous activist Clayton Thomas-M\u00fcller, the LA Bus Riders Union, and 350.org are three of their stories that delve into how transformative organizing goes to the root causes of problems, as opposed to focusing only on short-term solutions. Bill McKibben speaks of \"the perverse logic of capitalism: the fact that it's extremely profitable to pollute. . . . There can be no real answer to our climate woes that doesn't address the insane inequalities and concentrations of power that are helping to drive us toward this disaster.\"\n\n**Epilogue: Solidarity\u2014A Gathering.**\n\n_First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out\u2014_\n\n_because I was not a socialist._\n\n_Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out\u2014_\n\n_because I was not a trade unionist._\n\n_Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out\u2014_\n\n_because I was not a Jew._\n\n_Then they came for me\u2014and there was no one left to speak for me._\n\nThis famous quote from Martin Niem\u00f6ller, a German pastor and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, dramatizes the necessity of movements that speak up, in solidarity, to injustice. Twenty of the transformative organizers and artists from these pages all converged for two days and stood side by side in their struggles. The epilogue is the story of that gathering and some key takeaways that show these transformers' unity and wisdom.\n\nThough each of the modern-day visionaries in this book are in different stages of the struggle, and speak up on different issues, they are participants in one global movement for social justice. Their tales show many of the complex and driving forces behind transformation in a way that demonstrates how you can join in. There are no shortcuts to becoming an organizer or to building organizations and movements. Effective organizing requires action, followed by training, more action, critical reflection with others, more action, more reflection. This is called praxis. These transformative organizers analyze past actions and history, and this inspires and shapes their practice, creativity, and strategy.\n\nTHE ART OF TRANSFORMATIVE MOVEMENTS\n\nArt is a critical element, an integral part of social movements and storytelling. The art throughout the book includes examples from struggles that use iconic images and performance art to engage and inspire, to enrage and move people to action. Each chapter concludes with an artist interview. Art allows those of us seeking change to step outside the current landscape of injustice to imagine a different world.\n\n\"Artists are here to disturb the peace,\" writes author James Baldwin. Art helps us render things visible that we might not have been able to express. It gives us audacity. Art can develop a culture of solidarity, celebration, and liberation.\n\nWHO THIS BOOK IS FOR\n\n_When We Fight, We Win!_ is for all those who yearn for big changes, or have taken some action, or have tried to make some societal change, whether you have succeeded or failed.\n\nIt is for those who wrestle with authority, who question why our country's vast resources and opportunities are so inequitably shared, who seek more potential in their actions. It is for those who often get discouraged but who also sense the possibility of achieving major, enduring social, environmental, and economic change and a fairer, healthier world for all of us.\n\nThis book is also for my kids and their friends, all in their teens and early twenties. Like many young people around the country, they want to make the world a better place. Gaggles of them pass through our home, many asking me for the next chapter of this book before it was done, hungrily gobbling up the stories and images and helping me edit.\n\nSometimes a fight takes you five steps forward, and then you get pushed ten steps back. Losses require us to engage even more. Occupy Wall Street, #BlackLivesMatter and the prison justice movement, the DREAMers and the immigration movement, the environmental justice movement, the LGBTQ movement, and the increasingly powerful parent, student, and teacher networks all grew out of eras of many losses\u2014and only by continuing to fight, do our movements gain strength. In dark times, we all need to add our presence.\n\nHere is mine.\n\nAdd your voice, your passion, your story\u2014join the fight.\n\nOrganizing for transformation is within reach of everyone. We can be inspired by these experienced leaders to stand up, join in at this historic moment, and make a difference.\n\n   **DECOLONIZE WALL STREET. Ernesto Yerena, Oakland, California, 2011.**\n\n_Decolonize Wall Street_ evokes the history of the Dutch colonization of native peoples. After Manhattan Island was \"purchased\" by the Dutch in 1626 from the Canarsie People, the settlers built a wall to protect themselves from the First Nation People. The path, named Wall Street, became a busy commercial zone, and later was home to the New York Stock Exchange. Ernesto Yerena uses cultural icons, rebels, and everyday people to express his stance against colonization and oppression.\n\n* LGBTQ refers to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and\/or queer\/questioning.\n\nRECLAIMING WHOLE-NESS: THE LGBTQ MOVEMENT\n\n   **REINA. Trans Day of Action, New York City, 2012 (Photo by Sabelo Narasimhan)**\n\nIn the photograph, Reina Gossett, a trans activist and artist who works at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, courageously carries a sign proclaiming, \"This is Our Life, This is Our Time,\" affirming that bodies in all their differentiation can exist outside of society's norms. Critiquing the policing and criminalization of trans bodies and communities is central to Reina's activism. Violence is ever-present in her life and the lives of all those who must struggle against patriarchal and heteronormative structures. Our bodies are asked to perform and navigate through oppressive social conditions of class, race, gender, and sex. Sabelo Narasimhan is a queer trans organizer and photographer.\n\n* * *\n\n   **UNTITLED. Pride Festival, San Francisco, 2013. Banner from original poster art, _Don't Stop at Marriage! Queers Are Getting Deported!_ , by Julio Salgado (Photo by Jes\u00fas I\u00f1iguez)**\n\nMore than 1.8 million people celebrated the approval of same-sex marriage in the state of California in 2013. In the photograph, marchers during the San Francisco Pride Festival hold a banner emphasizing that marriage equality does not address all problems. LGBTQ immigrants are at risk when applying for marriage visas, since the visa process includes an investigation by federal immigration officers into the validity of a marriage. This process can be invasive and risky to individuals who may not be out within their immediate community, and most detention centers are not equipped to protect the safety of LGBTQ immigrants. By June 2015, the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land.\n\n* * *\n\n_O_ _ne of the most culturally transformative movements of the twenty-first century is about the freedom to love and build family._\n\n_Fifty years ago, gay sex was a crime in every state in the United States. The federal government would not hire openly gay people. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) did not consider these discriminatory practices a problem._\n\n_Forty years ago, homosexuality was considered a mental illness._\n\n_Thirty years ago, President Ronald Reagan's communications director, Pat Buchanan, argued that AIDS was \"nature's revenge on gay men.\"_\n\n_In 1996, 68 percent of Americans opposed gay marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed, explicitly defining marriage in federal law as a union of one man and one woman._\n\n_In 2000, no U.S. state allowed same-sex couples to marry, and forty states had constitutional or legislative prohibitions to \"defend\" traditional marriage._\n\n_Acceptance of gays and lesbians\u2014let alone transgender and bisexual people, or marriage equality\u2014seemed more aspirational than achievable._\n\n_LGBTQ** activism in the last half-century has forged ahead despite setbacks, winning crucial victories:_\n\nLGBTQ refers to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and\/or queer\/questioning. Throughout this chapter, speakers often use LGBT as shorthand. Sexuality and gender identity are fluid, and so is the acronym. LGBTQIA is also used by some, with _I_ denoting \"intersex\" (someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female) and _A_ for \"ally\" or \"asexual.\" _Queer_ is often used as an umbrella term, though by no means always. We honor and celebrate all of these identities, as well as new ones yet to come.\n\n\u2022 _In 1970 and 1971, gay and lesbian activists converged on the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to protest the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1973, the APA removed homosexuality from its_ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) _, ending the official designation of homosexuality as a mental illness._\n\n\u2022 _In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in_ Bowers v. Hardwick _that anti-sodomy laws were legal. In 2003, following a multiyear grassroots campaign to raise awareness that included the work of a range of legal organizations and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself in_ Lawrence v. Texas _and declared anti-sodomy laws to be unconstitutional._\n\n_In this century, attitudes toward LGBTQ people have continued to transform with remarkable speed:_\n\n\u2022 _In 2011, the U.S. State Department announced passport application changes. Gone were questions about an applicant's mother or father. Instead, applicants only list \"parent 1\" and \"parent 2.\" The State Department reported that this was done \"to provide a gender neutral description of a child's parents and in recognition of different types of families.\"_\n\n\u2022 _In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional._\n\n\u2022 _As of 2014, more than half of people in the United States\u2014and 78 percent of people ages eighteen to twenty-nine\u2014support marriage equality, according to a Gallup poll._\n\n\u2022 _By early 2015, well over half the states plus the District of Columbia had legalized same-sex marriage._\n\n\u2022 _By June 2015, the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land._\n\n_How did LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage go from being radioactive to mainstream? What underlies the change in attitudes toward the rights of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and\/or queer\/questioning? What can other movement organizers learn from this change? Is same-sex marriage transformative? What lies ahead for queer liberation?_\n\n   **QUEERS DEMAND SERIES. Roan Boucher, Philadelphia, 2013**\n\nThe Queers Demand series is celebratory artwork of some of the issues that radical queers push in the class struggle: abolition of prisons, an end to militarism, gender self-determination, and universal health care. Queers, particularly queers of color, trans people, and gender-nonconforming people, are hit particularly hard by capitalism, which devalues the lives of working-class people and their mass movements for collective liberation. Roan Boucher is a self-taught printmaker whose work is inspired by queer resilience, social justice movements, and community building.\n\n_The answers from organizers and leaders held many surprises. In the news, the struggles of white gays and lesbians for same-sex marriage were often portrayed as a single-issue fight, separate from other movements. The transformative activists and artists interviewed in this chapter viewed their work in a larger context. They see police violence as an LGBTQ issue. They see economic policies that make it harder for LGBTQ folks to make ends meet, immigrant deportations, incarceration, and public education funding cuts as LGBTQ issues. They know that when queer people are in prison or deported they will be treated even worse than others in the same situation. And when that person is poor or black or brown, the problems cascade. These transformers reveal how to unify twenty-first-century social movements._\n\n_This chapter tells the story of two organizations, the National LGBTQ Task Force and Southerners on New Ground, which work at the intersections of heterosexism, racism, sexism, and economic inequality. They see overlapping oppressions in the experiences of black, brown, and poor white lesbians, gay men, and transgender people who are suffering multiple forms of injustice. They are demonstrating how to reclaim the wholeness of each life\u2014and of all lives that have been diminished, segmented, socialized, and sorted into distinct and separate markets and human-constructed categories of race, gender, and class. Their organizing, along with that of many others, is transforming that reality._\n\nEvann Orleck-Jetter, a twelve-year-old girl from Thetford Center, Vermont, strode confidently up to the microphone in the Vermont State House. It was 2009, and Evann didn't recall when she had last been there, but her mother did: she had brought Evann in 2000 when her daughter was just three years old to persuade lawmakers to make Vermont the first state to legalize civil unions, a form of legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.\n\nNow Evann was back, this time to testify to a joint House-Senate committee to urge them to become the first state legislature to legalize same-sex marriage. Evann Orleck-Jetter was a striking sight: a child addressing her elders. When Evann began speaking in the packed House chamber, it was she who did the teaching:\n\nI have a wonderful family. I live with my little brother, my grandma and two moms who are with me all the time and support me in whatever I do. I love them very much, and I wish that having to stand up here right now in front of this committee wasn't an issue anymore. We should be past this. . . .\n\nI have been studying the civil rights movement in school, and I've learned all about the countless acts of bravery that blacks performed to get their rights. But we still haven't reached the Promised Land that Martin Luther King wanted us to reach. . . . We still don't accept that two people of the same gender can be together, married with kids of their own. We need to reach the Promised Land. . . .\n\nIf my parents could just have the right to get married, this would make such a difference. It hurts me sometimes when I feel invisible, because few people understand my feelings about my family, and few people want to ask about families with two moms. It's time to ask, it's time to understand, and it's time to accept and honor families like mine.\n\n_\"It hurts me sometimes when I feel invisible, because few people understand my feelings about my family . . . It's time to ask, it's time to understand, and it's time to accept and honor families like mine.\"_\n\nA few weeks later, the Vermont legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto and legalized same-sex marriage. Several legislators noted that the stories and statements of Evann and other children swayed them.\n\n\"Today, love won,\" declared Jason Lorber, a Vermont state representative who is gay.\n\nLGBTQ people have given moving personal testimonies in state after state in an effort to tear down the closets and make their love undeniable. They have made history.\n\nBut before anyone could offer impassioned testimony or any lawmakers could vote to legalize same-sex marriage, organizers had spent decades preparing the ground. Traveling the road toward liberty and equality has demanded hard work, networks and alliances, sacrifice, civil disobedience, thousands of political campaigns, careful strategy, and the courage to share personal stories of love.\n\nROOTS IN AN UPRISING\n\nRea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, traces the modern marriage equality movement to the Stonewall Riots. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar in Greenwich Village. Crowds of people swarmed the streets outside the bar and attacked the police. Sporadic fighting between police and members of the LGBTQ community continued for days.\n\n\"With the cops holed up inside Stonewall, the crowd was now in control of the street, and it bellowed in triumph and pent-up rage,\" recounted historian Martin Duberman in a history of the Stonewall riots.\n\n\"People were mad, they were fed up, and that launched what most describe as the modern era of the LGBTQ movement out of anger and out of the discrimination and the violence that was happening,\" Carey says.\n\nIt wasn't just that LGBTQ people fought back at Stonewall. It was also _who_ fought back. \"At the bar that night were not privileged people, by and large. There were a lot of drag queens, a lot of people of color, a lot of young people, and they launched this movement,\" Carey explains. People experiencing multiple oppressions, like in all transformative movements, led the way.\n\n_It wasn't just that LGBTQ people fought back at Stonewall. It was also who fought back. \"At the bar that night were not privileged people, by and large. There were a lot of drag queens, a lot of people of color, a lot of young people, and they launched this movement.\"_\n\n\"In the early years, so much of the movement was focused on the violence we were experiencing, the discrimination that was going on, the lack of access to basic human needs for the LGBT community, and the fact that at that time it was still on the books that homosexuality was a mental illness.\"\n\nCRISIS AND OPPORTUNITY: AIDS AND MARRIAGE ORGANIZING\n\nThe modern marriage equality movement was energized by unlikely circumstances. \"We wouldn't have moved as quickly on marriage progress if it weren't for HIV\/AIDS,\" reflects Rea Carey.\n\n\"There were a lot of men\u2014including men in urban areas who had some level of class or race privilege\u2014who were being denied access to their partners as they were dying in hospitals because they weren't 'family.' This experience resulted in a broader understanding of the impact of not being able to be legally married. AIDS provided a very tangible experience for thousands of gay men that they too could experience severe discrimination.\"\n\nAcquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a disease in the United States in 1981. Gay men, among others, were suddenly dying at alarming rates. The disease was poorly understood at first and was erroneously stigmatized as the \"gay men's cancer\" and \"gay-related immune deficiency\" until it later became known that heterosexuals were contracting the disease too. Fear and anti-gay discrimination were hallmarks of the early era of AIDS. A 1985 _Los Angeles Times_ poll revealed that about half of adults favored a quarantine of AIDS patients and identity cards for those who tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), while 15 percent favored tattooing people with AIDS. These were draconian measures reminiscent of fascist eras of the past.\n\nOrganizers used a variety of tactics to get needed medical care and bring attention to the crisis. Rea Carey talked about how some of the organizers would lobby on AIDS in the morning, then change out of their suits and participate in actions with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), which launched \"die-ins\" and blocked streets, spilled fake blood while interrupting TV shows, wore the pink triangle (the badge that homosexuals were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps), and echoed a phrase that would become emblematic of this era: Silence = Death. On the streets they pasted posters of a bloody handprint over the words \"The government has blood on its hands\u2014one AIDS death every hour.\" It was a powerful moment that gave a sense of urgency to the nascent LGBTQ movement.\n\n   **NO PRIDE FOR SOME OF US. Micah Bazant, San Francisco, 2013**\n\nWhen Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Ray Rivera\u2014homeless black and Latina trans women and self-proclaimed \"street queens\"\u2014ignited the Stonewall Riots in 1969, they changed LGBTQ politics forever. In the early 1970s, Marsha and Sylvia founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.). The activist organization had a house on the Lower East Side of New York City that provided food, shelter, and clothing to support young drag queens and trans women. Micah Bazant's illustration, _No Pride for Some of Us_ , honors Marsha Johnson and the dream of an anti-racist, transgender, and queer liberation movement.\n\nLike immigrant-rights activists today who defiantly declare themselves undocumented, ACT UP boldly reclaimed its identity from what had been symbols of shame and oppression. Its members stood up, fought back, and were willing to be hated for it in order to draw attention to the AIDS crisis. Their direct actions and shaming were meant to create a moral predicament for the government and for mainstream America about the humanity of gays.\n\nLGBTQ people were also fighting for their humanity by challenging sodomy laws. Prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of anti-sodomy laws in _Bowers v. Hardwick_.\n\nThe Supreme Court's anti-gay ruling galvanized the LGBTQ movement. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force launched the Privacy Project to challenge anti-sodomy laws in every state. As scholar Elizabeth Sheyn observed:\n\nFrom 1986\u20131991, the Privacy Project did not successfully persuade any state legislatures to repeal existing sodomy laws. However, it was able to establish and expand the reach of statewide LGBT organizations, bring together gay and lesbian individuals, educate the public about gay rights issues, and put a human face on the gay rights movement. These achievements, when combined with the work of litigators, historians, and other LGBT organizations, and with the passage of time, ultimately set the stage not only for the subsequent repeal of a majority of state sodomy laws, but also for the total invalidation of _Bowers_ by the Supreme Court's decision in _Lawrence v. Texas_.\n\n_\"The government has blood on its hands\u2014one AIDS death every hour.\" It was a powerful moment that gave a sense of urgency to the nascent LGBTQ movement._\n\nDIVERSE LEADERSHIP, BROADER GAINS\n\nOne glaring deficiency of many of the large national LGBTQ equality organizations can be seen in their overwhelmingly white male leadership. \"The leadership reflected who the donors were comfortable with,\" says Rashad Robinson, director of Color of Change, who formerly worked for GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), the LGBT media advocacy organization (for more on Color of Change see Chapter 3, \"Transforming Visions\"). \"That has continued to play and have a real damaging effect in terms of the fact that none of the big national organizations has ever had a black leader.\n\n\"The racial piece is really challenging,\" he says. \"As marriage equality gets passed in states, the question is, what is the fight for the LGBT rights space?\" He notes that in Connecticut, \"the statewide LGBT advocacy organization closed down after marriage equality was passed. They said their work was done. . . . But marriage equality passing in Connecticut\u2014how does that change life for a black gay boy or girl growing up in Bridgeport?\"\n\nAndy Lane, executive director of the Johnson Family Foundation and a longtime LGBTQ funder, agrees. \"There had been some efforts over time to try to diversify the movement, but it has proven to be very challenging . . . and slow. I will say from a funding perspective the vast majority of the largest institutional donors to this movement are gay white men, or are foundations controlled by gay white men or staffed by gay white men, myself included. . . . We have a disproportionate role in helping set policy and strategy.\n\n\"We are advancing aggressively on multiple fronts, one of which is around law and policy. So that's: Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal [at the federal level], that's marriage in [many] states plus D.C. But we are also really in the midst of a cultural revolution in the way LGB people, principally, are portrayed in the media . . . That helps create an environment in which law and policy change are possible.\"\n\n* * *\n\n**MARRIAGE EQUALITY:** A PRIMER\n\n* * *\n\nEvan Wolfson is a pioneer in the marriage equality movement and the founder and president of Freedom to Marry, which is dedicated to winning marriage equality nationwide. He asserts that \"gay people have always fought for the freedom to marry.\"\n\nWolfson explains that by 1971, two years after Stonewall, \"there were three major cases brought by couples in court systems in different states, all challenging the denial of the freedom to marry. This country just wasn't ready for it. The conversation had not been had. All those cases were denied.\n\n\"Then a second wave of marriage litigation began in the very late 1980s and early 1990s. This wave went on to launch an ongoing global movement that has made it possible for gay people to share in the freedom to marry in most of the United States and eighteen countries on five continents.\n\n\"Why did the first wave fail, and why did the second wave launch this extraordinary success and momentum? The answer is because of what happened between those two waves. That was AIDS. AIDS broke the silence about gay people's lives and really prompted non-gay people to think about gay people in a different way. It prompted gay people to embrace this language of inclusion, most preeminently marriage. That, in turn, accelerated our inclusion in society and the change in attitudes.\n\n\"AIDS changed our movement from a movement fighting just to be let alone\u2014don't harass us, don't attack us, don't beat us up, don't blackmail us\u2014into a movement not just to be let alone but being let in. Let us into the protections and safety net of marriage, of family. That really set the stage for the robust, rich marriage conversation that we've been pursuing. It prompted gay people to understand how vulnerable we are when our lovers are not considered our family, are not treated as who they are to us under the law.\"\n\nThere were also other drivers of the push for same-sex marriage. Historian George Chauncey argues that a \"lesbian baby boom [in the 1980s], as much as AIDS, led growing numbers of lesbians and gay men to start thinking the unthinkable: that lesbians and gay men needed and deserved the rights and protections of marriage.\"\n\nWolfson has written that while the fight for marriage equality may look linear and strategic, \"much has been a response to history and other forces, and the undeniable reality that the work of social justice and inclusion is never done.\" There have been many challenges, defeats, and imperfections along the way, and Wolfson lists several lessons. \"If you can't say what winning is, you're not going to be able to get there as effectively as you need to, because (1) you may not be going in the right direction, and (2) you won't be able to inspire and encourage others to come in and join you. [Winning the freedom to marry made space for] a transformative language that . . . would make everything we seek more attainable. . . . Our fight to win it would be an engine of change. . . . It needed to be multi-year, multi-state, and multi-partner.\" And, he writes, \"the strategy needed to operate multi-methodologically,\" a phrase he took from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. \"We needed to combine litigation and legislation and direct action and public education and personal persuasion and storytelling and engagement. And we needed to roll those out in synergy.\"\n\nWolfson says that opposition within the LGBTQ community to focusing on marriage falls into two camps. \"One camp embraced the argument that we shouldn't be fighting for the freedom to marry because we should be pursuing a much more diverse, bigger, much more expansive idea of what family is altogether. Marriage and participation within marriage were just too limiting. We should be fighting to redefine the family. We should be fighting for everything, for everybody, instead of any one particular institutional embodiment of family structure.\n\n\"The other ideological camp of resistance was more anti-marriage. They had the idea that marriage is a patriarchal institution, a hierarchical institution, an excluding institution. It's one that's been oppressive to women and reflects privilege.\"\n\nScot Nakagawa, a former organizer at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force who blogs at racefiles.com, elaborates on this important point: \"The freedom-to-marry fight is a legacy of the ideological frame that drove the American revolution: a fight for independence that preserved slavery. . . . It's how we frame the notion of liberty and equality that keeps all within an idea of governance that is more about free markets than free people.\"\n\nWolfson adds that marriage \"is the central social and legal institution of this and virtually every other society . . . That's precisely why most gay people, like most non-gay people, want to participate. It's precisely what's so wrong about excluding gay people from such a central and mainstream institution. . . . We're not fighting for mandatory marriage. We're fighting for the freedom to marry.\n\n\"Fundamentally this is about preventing the government from discriminating and denying gay people the same freedom of choice . . . to participate in such an important institution as anyone else.\"\n\nWolfson says that the LGBTQ struggle continues to evolve. \"You always have to be vigilant. You always have to keep educating. You always have to keep fighting for the next piece and the next person, who may not have yet been fully brought into the gains you've won. I think that is one of the clear lessons of history. It's never really over.\"\n\nIn June, 2015, Freedom to Marry and other organizing efforts contributed to the Supreme Court ruling that mandated marriage equality. Wolfson says, \"I do believe that it's about getting people to take a stand and speak up and think anew, in Lincoln's words, and engage with others and move things. That's what we've been able to do and I believe that is the story of every movement. You have to get up and speak out and work and trust that you can get people to rise to fairness. Then you have to do the work of helping them get there.\"\n\n* * *\n\nLane adds, \"I was very intentional in saying LGB because . . . the reality is that transgender persons have very different life experiences, very different paths, and face different obstacles. So the law and policy that we need to change related to gender identity is somewhat different than the law and policy that we need to change related to sexual orientation. We also understand that transgender representations in media and popular culture are way, way, way, way behind LGB representations.\"\n\nRea Carey and the National LGBTQ Task Force that she leads have clear views on changing the movement leadership and representations. \"Leadership for me is tied to this question of vision . . . and a desire for wholeness. . . . We can't ask someone to be an undocumented immigrant one day, a lesbian the next, and a mom the third day. . . . Our vision is about . . . transforming society so that she can be all of those things every single day and that there would be a connectedness among social justice workers and among the organizations, and agendas, if you will, to make her life whole.\"\n\nCarey is determined that the LGBTQ movement should expand its efforts beyond marriage equality. \"We are not a single-issue movement,\" she says. \"The challenge for us as a movement is to refocus people's attention on the baseline needs of our communities,\" she continues, noting that health care, racial and economic justice, and immigration reform are also critical. \"I . . . see the connectedness between our work in prison justice, in immigration, public education, and activism on Occupy. The vision for me personally does start with this inner connectedness of our lives and the wholeness of who we should be able to be as humans.\n\n\"We and other progressive organizations in our brother and sister movements have had to work very hard to connect the dots both for our own constituencies, and also sometimes for the funders of our movements.\"\n\nCarey says that working across different issues \"is challenging to do in the United States with the economic structure that we have. But I think there has been a lot of hope over the last couple of years with some of the successes around the labor movement, the voices that Occupy put forth. . . . In this next era, the opportunity of it has to be around connecting across movements . . . where we can work cross-issue to address the systemic oppression and injustices that very specifically have to do with economic well-being.\"\n\n_\"We can't ask someone to be an undocumented immigrant one day, a lesbian the next, and a mom the third day.\"_\n\nShe notes that of the eleven million undocumented immigrants in the United States, hundreds of thousands are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and\/or transgender. When LGBTQ folks are locked in detention centers, the abuse they suffer is often worse than what other detained individuals encounter. Immigrants \"need a real pathway to citizenship and the American dream now\u2014not the nightmare of gridlock.\"\n\nTo underscore her message, Rea Carey has put her body on the line. In September 2013, Carey was arrested in Washington, D.C., with more than a hundred other women demanding immigration reform.\n\nCarey says, \"We are seeing a real palpable hunger in LGBTQ people's hearts not just to be out, but to bring their entire selves. . . . And there is a deep desire for more change, to look beyond marriage equality, with millions of us still facing formidable barriers in every aspect of our lives: at school, in housing, employment, in health care, in our faith congregations, in retirement, and in basic human rights.\"\n\nThis represents an evolution in the movement. There have been some in the LGBTQ community who have not always embraced cross-issue organizing. Carey recalls that in 2011 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force sent out a press release lamenting the failure of the student immigrants' DREAM Act to pass in Congress. \"Sadly, at that time we got emails and posts on Facebook from LGBT people saying, 'Why in the world are you working for those people?'\u2014meaning immigrants.\"\n\nCarey says the pushback represented \"a lack of understanding that we too are immigrants as LGBT people, and our parents are immigrants as LGBT people. . . . We've had to . . . educate a broader set of people that immigration is an LGBT issue.\"\n\n   **FIGHT PATRIARCHY. Favianna Rodr\u00edguez, Oakland, California, 2010**\n\nPatriarchy and its structures of gender oppression are entrenched in our culture and society. They are based on a system of hierarchical and unequal power relations, where men control women's production, reproduction, and sexuality. Favianna Rodr\u00edguez developed this print to expose the many ways in which women, mostly women of color, are affected by the political decisions made by men, mostly white, in power. The National Women's Law Center's Analysis of 2013 Census Poverty Data insists that poverty is a women's issue. Nearly six in ten poor adults are women, and nearly six in ten poor children live in families headed by women. Poverty rates are especially high for single mothers, women of color, and elderly women living alone.\n\nThe Task Force is also working to change the face and the public image of the LGBTQ movement. The organization ensures that leadership training is available to those who are historically most excluded\u2014\"people of color, transgender people, women, and other groups of people who tend to be underrepresented in the movement\"\u2014and trains thousands of people every year to make sure \"that there really is a diversity of people who are good in the skills that they need to be able to run organizations, run campaigns.\"\n\nCarey asserts, \"I am certainly not among those people that believe, 'Oh, people are born leaders and it's inevitable.' . . . Some of us happen to have access to more privilege or more influence or more platforms to express leadership, but I truly believe that everyone has the capacity to express leadership.\"\n\nCarey says it's a strategy grounded in their holistic principles of sexual identity, racial justice, and economic justice.\n\nWHAT DOES AN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENT HAVE TO DO WITH LGBTQ LIBERATION?\n\nThe LGBTQ movement has succeeded in recent decades in turning losses into victories. This is being put to a new test in the South, as organizers tackle a range of progressive issues.\n\nPaulina Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez is a queer immigrant and executive director of Southerners on New Ground (SONG). She and her family moved from Mexico to the United States when she was twelve, after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1994. (For more on the effects of NAFTA, see Chapter 4.)\n\nWhat does an international trade agreement have to do with LGBTQ liberation? North American companies that were subsidized by the U.S. government began aggressively exporting to Mexico and were able to undersell Mexican-owned companies. As a result of NAFTA, her parents' business, like many other small businesses and farms, just collapsed. Her father came to the United States in search of work. Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez learned English quickly, and she began helping her mother, who had started an adult literacy group for Latinos.\n\n_The involvement of LGBTQ activists in other issues has resulted in a \"cross-section between what it means to do anti-oppression LGBT organizing and also connects to a lot of the historical struggles in the South and a lot of the historical freedom struggles here.\"_\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez's mother became associated with the Highlander Research and Education Center, the legendary school for organizers in Tennessee that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and generations of labor, civil rights, and environmental activists attended. At nineteen, Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez got a job as a youth organizer and trainer at Highlander.\n\nNot long after she began organizing, a number of southern states began passing voter referendums banning same-sex marriage. This was happening just as she herself was coming out as queer. For Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez, coming out meant coming together with other people and issues. \"By being around a lot of other gay, lesbian, and trans folks, [I saw] how a lot of them actually were not coming out of LGBT organizing or only just gay stuff, but they were coming out of [organizing around] school-to-prison pipeline [and] immigrant rights.\"\n\nThe involvement of LGBTQ activists in other issues has resulted in a \"cross-section between what it means to do anti-oppression LGBT organizing and also connects to a lot of the historical struggles in the South and a lot of the historical freedom struggles here. . . . Our mission [at SONG] has been . . . helping to support other LGBT people to have a political home where they feel like a lot of the intersectional approaches and shared understanding help push our community to have some external wins, and to actually be able to name some things that in the South we think are possible.\"\n\nAt SONG, Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez is \"trying to bring this intersection around immigrant rights work and southern LGBT organizing and thinking about how those two movements are connected, and how some of the reemergence and rebirth and reimagination of what's happening around immigrant rights work in the South right now is also pretty entrenched and connected to a lot of the southern LGBT stuff that's been happening as well. There's a watershed moment around both movements because there's already so much shared leadership.\"\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez argues that LGBTQ \"quality of life\" issues should not be separate from \"life or death\" issues. She says there is a need for a deeper \"connection of the LGBTQ movement to broader anticriminalization struggles . . . around race, the targeting of gender nonconforming folks, mass incarceration, and the detention and deportation crisis. I see these as key to the roots of sexual liberation. Stonewall itself was an anti-police riot.\"\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez and SONG are finding ways to make progress even when they lose. SONG was involved in organizing in North Carolina against Amendment 1, a 2012 ballot measure to enact a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions. The anti-gay measure passed with 61 percent of the vote. Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez and her colleagues knew that there was little chance of defeating Amendment 1. But they showed up and did the hard work, focusing on \"building a progressive infrastructure\" in North Carolina.\n\n\"We had an internal goal of having one million conversations throughout the state,\" she says. \"Our work was measured not just by a ballot win, but by building political alignment and unity.\"\n\n_\"[We] try to interrupt that narrative, to structurally help create powerful political spaces where people do get to test their own power.\"_\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez sees LGBTQ organizers as having an important impact in North Carolina. \"Committing to actually have a million conversations with North Carolinians about the future of our state, and about the divisive tactics of the Right, and about the reality of how integrated LGBT communities in North Carolina actually are to immigrant communities, to other communities of color\u2014it really just became a huge opportunity for us, and I would say a success in terms of helping not just amplify the grassroots organizing that makes moments like that possible, but to say it does matter.\n\n\"Part of our role has been to push back on this notion that the Right has inevitable control in the South and we're in a trajectory that can't be broken. [We] try to interrupt that narrative, to structurally help create powerful political spaces where people do get to test their own power, to get to see that there is momentum, to . . . learn from people that are doing things that are working well in small towns and rural communities.\"\n\nSONG is testing that power by organizing to expand the rights of immigrants, workers, and LGBTQ people. One show of the strength of this emerging intersectional alliance came in organizing against HB87, an anti-immigrant law passed in Georgia in 2011 that was based on a similar law in Arizona. HB87 authorizes police to demand papers demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops and criminalizes Georgians who interact with undocumented people.\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez explains, \"We were able to organize the LGBTQ community in a pretty strong way to come out both in opposition of HB87, but also in support of the mass mobilizations in a way that at least in my experience has really transformed the way that we see what's possible here in Georgia.\"\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez believes that organizing can help people to change the sense of the possible. She challenges the assumption \"that because we work in a hostile region, then it's just inherently hostile at every single turn\u2014it's not. There are so many people that want to move and are willing to move and just need that extra push or need to see other people take brave moves before they're able to make some brave moves themselves.\" In doing this kind of organizing, \"training is crucial . . . in order to take that level of risk together.\"\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez is critical of mainstream LGBTQ organizations that focus exclusively on marriage equality campaigns and fail to link with other progressive issues. \"I'm gay married, not in a state that actually validates it, but I don't think my marriage is going to liberate anybody. I don't think my marriage is going to pull anybody out of poverty. I don't think my marriage is going to stop anybody from getting killed on the streets.\"\n\n   **STOP C.R.A.C.K. Cristy C. Road, Brooklyn, New York, 2011**\n\nThis poster features art by Cristy C. Road and was produced by INCITE! Reproductive Justice Task Force. INCITE! is fighting against what is ironically named C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity), a national organization that encourages the sterilization of women who suffer from substance abuse. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national organization of radical feminists of color who are advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue, and grassroots organizing.\n\n   **I AM UNDOCUQUEER. Julio Salgado, Oakland, California, 2012**\n\nThe marginalization of undocumented LGBTQ people is manifested through social discrimination and systemic disparities caused by anti-immigrant policies. The series portrays many of the activists working with these issues. Each portrait is set up against a solid, bright backdrop to highlight a personal quote that reflects the interlocking identities that constitute LGBTQ undocumented immigrants, or \"undocuqueers.\" This community has played a prominent role in the immigration rights movement. Julio Salgado designed the art project to promote alliance building, in conjunction with the Undocumented Queer Youth Collective and the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project.\n\nPower lies in linking issues, she says. \"If we're going to be out here trying to fight this [anti\u2013equal marriage] amendment, let's actually also help amplify our community's ability to tell their stories and talk about what else is going on in our community . . . that's bigger than same-sex marriage.\" (We interviewed Helm-Hernandez before the June 2015 Supreme Court ruling that mandated marriage equality in all states.)\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez works in North Carolina with white, Latino, and African American communities. The black-brown divide troubles her. \"Poor people [are] being pitted against each other,\" she observes. \"As new immigrant people, we were very much being asked to assimilate.\" Prejudice quickly surfaced, and she recalls people in her community saying, \"'At least we're not black, or at least we're light-skinned.' That just became a huge turning point in terms of how I understood the world and the South and what it meant to want to change things both around racial justice, but also around economic justice. A lot of other young people my age were also being politicized through hip-hop, and really understanding the connection between what new immigrants were experiencing and what poor white people have been experiencing in the past, and then what black folks had been experiencing in this country.\"\n\nFor Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez, capitalism is personal. \"The kind of people that capitalism has always considered disposable, cheap labor are hardworking migrant folks. You don't have to pay for their health care. You don't have to do anything. All you have to do is use them until they're broken and then you can throw them away. Those are my parents and that's my family and that's me.\"\n\n_\"The kind of people that capitalism has always considered disposable, cheap labor are hardworking migrant folks. You don't have to pay for their health care. You don't have to do anything. All you have to do is use them until they're broken and then you can throw them away.\"_\n\nLike Rea Carey, she asserts that the movement needs to focus on the economy's systemic problems. She likens the billionaires of today, who drive the media and political campaigns, to darker ages. \"Capitalism is a child of slavery. It's a child of colonialism. And it's a child of feudalism. This idea that some feudal lords can have whatever they want at the expense of the rest of us . . . I do think we have to dismantle capitalism if we really want to see true economic justice in this country and in this continent and probably in the world.\"\n\nWinning LGBTQ and immigrant rights and racial and economic justice in the South is a consuming passion for Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez. She recognizes the historical work that organizers have done to get the movement to where it is today and how the ongoing work has to be constantly regenerated and reinvented. \"To organize is a huge spiritual calling,\" she says. \"It's about fulfilling your destiny. It's about being accountable to your ancestors for their suffering, for their sacrifice.\n\n\"How do we as organizers take that really seriously? . . . When people are taking risks, they know that we have their backs. And they know that there's an entire movement behind them to actually help further those wins.\"\n\n   **GENDER SUBVERSION. CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (CWC), Salem, Oregon, year unknown**\n\nPart poster, part zine, part coloring book, the Gender Subversion Kit is an educational tool for undermining patriarchal institutions. Inside pages feature illustrations for both children and adults that experiment with stepping outside the constraints of gender normativity. The art is inspired by and adapted from the _Boys Will Be Girls Will Be Boys_ coloring book by Jacinta Bunnell and Irit Reinheimer, which deconstructs traditional gender roles in a funny, provocative way. CrimethInc is \"a decentralized anarchist collective composed of many cells which act independently in pursuit of a freer and more joyous world.\"\n\n* * *\n\n\"WE STAND BEFORE THIS MIRROR WHOLE\"\n\n* * *\n\nThe LGBTQ movement continues to reinvent itself and gather new energy, as all successful movements must do. Today many activists question the rigid images and identities that our culture prescribes. They are offering new ones.\n\nWhen we interviewed Che Gossett, a transgender activist of color, for the prison chapter, Gossett asked to be referred to as \"they\/them\"\u2014rejecting the binary language of man and woman and instead embracing an identity not based on gender. In this and other ways, Gossett is part of a movement that is blazing a path and creating space for transgender people and any of us who may not want to be forced into a biologically defined category. Language frames thinking. Changing how we speak and write enables us to imagine the future in new ways.\n\nUrvashi Vaid, a professor at Columbia Law School who has held leadership positions at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Arcus Foundation, emphasizes that the LGBTQ movement has already spawned a post-marriage generation that views sexual preference and gender identity on an evolving spectrum. \"What I think is really dynamic and amazing about the time we live in right now and the idea of twenty-first-century movements is that all these struggles . . . have produced a younger generation that does not . . . think about identity in the same way. . . . They're very fluid in their identity construct. The idea of 'queer' speaks to them more for that reason, because a straight person can be queer. It's a stance towards the mainstream. It's a relationship to hetero normal activity that is articulated through the use of the word _queer_. It's not just a sexual or gender identity, and I find that encouraging.\n\n\"I also feel that the kind of rejection of mainstream politics that happens periodically among progressive, younger activists usually cycles into an engagement,\" Vaid continues. \"I think we are engaged in a power struggle against right-wing forces. And the objective of every progressive person, whether they're queer or straight, has to be the defeat of the right-wing cultural war.\"\n\nVaid sees hope in a more unified fight against the right-wing attacks on workers and affirmative action, and against the patriarchal teachings of conservative churches. She reflects on how the movements of the 1970s left out so many allies and made the mistake of not joining economic issues with issues of racism and gender politics. \"Those who were so concerned about economic rights, the traditional Left, failed abysmally because [they] rejected women's liberation. [They] ran away from gay and lesbian liberation. Identity organizes and moves people. Identity means something to people.\"\n\nVaid sees hope for a more united progressive movement that embraces shared values as well as identity and LGBTQ issues. \"You can see it within the character of the immigrant rights movement: [it's] young, it's pro-gay, has tons of women leaders, [and] it's not a bunch of lawyers sitting in Washington.\" She says that the same character is true in the reproductive justice movement and the prison abolition movement.\n\nLike others in the visionary LGBTQ liberation movement, Vaid sees the importance of the connectedness among social justice agendas that go beyond equality to reclaim the wholeness of a broader movement.\n\nMichael Bronski, professor of practice in Media and Activism in Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University, says, \"Liberation and equality are really quite different things.\n\n\"The Gay Liberation Front back in 1969 . . . comes out of the anti-war movement, the sexual liberation movement, feminism, and comes out of, to some degree, the more radical race-based movements,\" explains Bronski. \"Gay liberation really has very little to do, sexually and also politically, with what we now think of as the LGBT movement, particularly if it's around marriage equality or anti-discrimination laws, or any number of other legislative or judicial approaches.\"\n\nBronski says gay liberation activists would have rejected marriage equality. They \"would be shocked that anybody would actually want a campaign that would have the state involved in putting the okay upon your own personal life decisions and your sex life. The gay liberation movement agenda would . . . not be fighting for equal rights, but fighting for what I would call social justice. Fighting for a wider range of things than simply making LGBTQ people equal in the eyes of the law as it now stands. So much of an equality movement is simply about equality under the law as it now stands, not to mention that the law as it now stands may not be a very good one.\"\n\nScot Nakagawa thinks that the LGBTQ struggle suggests possibilities for broader movement successes. \"Our future needs to be global. We need to think beyond our borders and we need to question the validity of our borders and we need to think about how the economy has transformed the world and how best to respond to it.\" He is concerned that LGBTQ gains in the United States are in stark contrast to the erosion of rights internationally. \"[As conservatives] see the sun setting on the issue of same-sex marriage for their side in the United States, they are moving their fight globally, to places like Russia and Uganda and Brazil, and are hoping to build a base there that they can use to turn around and attack us from.\"\n\nFor Nakagawa, the future of the LGBTQ struggle lies in tending to some unfinished business. He says that our \"identities were either imposed upon us for the purpose of exploitation, or chosen by us in order to define us as something other than simply exploitable categories. We have been busting out of the oppressive boxes that were created for us ever since they were first created, even without conscious effort. After all, we never fit in them to begin with.\"\n\nNakagawa says LGBTQ people benefit from\u2014and can help expand\u2014the embrace of pluralism in U.S. culture:\n\nOne of the reasons that LGBT people have been as successful as we have is that we are able to actually live with difference in a way that many people throughout the world cannot. I think that's not to be underestimated as a really important value in this country and one that we should be building upon.\n\nColonialism and capitalism, industry and empire put a shattered mirror before us in which we saw and internalized a picture of ourselves as mere fragments of what it means to be whole in our humanity; an image in which our connections were but jagged edges best kept separate. But that's just an illusion. We stand before this mirror whole. To see that, we need to be compelled to look away, and that will require us to be prophets, not just critics.\n\nThe transformative organizers in the LGBTQ movement and throughout the other movements in this book create unity across issues of racial, economic, and gender justice. They are showing that when we fight together as a single movement, we win. Together, they are linking issues and reclaiming our wholeness.\n\n* * *\n\nPhoto by Jes\u00fas I\u00f1iguez\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nJULIO **SALGADO**\n\nUNDOCUMENTED AND UNAFRAID, JULIO SALGADO IS A QUEER \"ARTIVIST\" AND CO-FOUNDER OF DREAMERS ADRIFT. JULIO'S UNDOCU-LOVE AND UNDOCU-QUEER ARTWORK IS A STAPLE FOR DREAMERS NATIONALLY. HIS MOST RECENT COLLABORATION WITH WRITER TINA V\u00c1SQUEZ IS THE COMIC STRIP _LIBERTY FOR ALL_ , PUBLISHED WEEKLY ONLINE ON _CULTURESTRIKE_.\n\nI work with a lot of organizations on posters, both independently and as part of an organization called _CultureStrike_ , directed by Favianna Rodriguez. I'm also part of a media group called Dreamers Adrift that does a lot of video work and uses humor, art, music, and everything to do commentary on what's going on in immigration.\n\nFor the month of June 2014, Dreamers Adrift released a weekly video series titled _Secrets and Borders: Our Stories Are All We Have_. We collaborated with undocumented and queer writers. For me personally, just speaking out on anything can be a little hard to do. So I have to create something. The way I speak up is through art.\n\nRight now, I'm working on a weekly comic strip called _Liberty for All_ that is published on the _CultureStrike_ website about an undocumented queer writer who graduates from college and is trying to figure out her life. I brought my friend Tina V\u00e1squez in because I really love her writing. She has helped me develop a lot of the characters, a lot of the writing of the actual comic strip. We've taken _Liberty_ to another level. We really wanted to do this because a lot of times when the mainstream media talks about queer issues, they only talk about either gay marriage or gays in the military. I feel that as queer people of color, we also care about poverty and a lot of us get deported, and so art allows us to tell different stories that may not be out there or not being told or heard by \"mainstream\" or gay media.\n\nThe beauty about _Liberty for All_ is that we also get to collaborate with folks from other communities. There's a black female character whose story we cannot write since that's not our experience. Tina invited her friend Erica Huffnagle to develop and write the character's story lines. With _Liberty,_ we want to refrain from doing the thing we criticize: to speak for others.\n\n**How do you see the role of art and cultural works and their transformative power in the movements of the twenty-first century?**\n\nOne of the reasons I started doing art in the first place was because I felt, in 2010 when there were a lot of sit-ins and all the things that undocumented students were doing, that the media covering it were saying, \"Illegal immigrants are trying to get rights.\" Or, \"They're trying to get themselves arrested. How dare they?\" As somebody who creates culture and art and who has studied journalism, I felt this story needs to be told from our perspective.\n\nFor me, the role of art is about how can I be used both as a tool and a collaborator to help tell other people's stories in a really creative way. Through our personal stories, we're going to call attention to whatever is going on. Aside from the important work of organizers, I feel that that's where art becomes a useful tool to change culture.\n\nAs immigrants, we are complex human beings. It's important to put those stories out there because when we do that, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and show our complexity. But it is also that we can change the way that we are seen. Because a lot of people get their ideas of who undocumented people are, who queer people are, through the media.\n\nI like to create art that gives a full picture of what's going on. Sometimes it's easy to do, sometimes it's not. We are really lucky to be able to use creativity because not everyone can. I know I can't be an amazing organizer but I can do this. I am a creative person. I get messages from folks who are dealing with these issues and they tell me, \"Yo, thank you so much for making me think about this\" or \"for putting my experiences out there, that I can now use and share with somebody else and be able to tell a story a different way.\"\n\nI CREATE BECAUSE I EXIST!\n\nArt by Julio Salgado in collaboration with Yosimar Reyes, Oakland, California, 2012\n\n* LGBTQ refers to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and\/or queer\/questioning. Throughout this chapter, speakers often use LGBT as shorthand. Sexuality and gender identity are fluid, and so is the acronym. LGBTQIA is also used by some, with _I_ denoting \"intersex\" (someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female) and _A_ for \"ally\" or \"asexual.\" _Queer_ is often used as an umbrella term, though by no means always. We honor and celebrate all of these identities, as well as new ones yet to come.\n\nGROUNDEDIN COMMUNITY: THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION\n\n   **CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION STRIKE. Chicago, 2012 (Photo by Jeff Haynes\/Reuters)**\n\nThe 2012 strike by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) focused on issues at the heart of debates over educational policies: school closings, excessive testing, increased class size, protection of benefits, teacher professional development, job security, and increased evaluation. In the photograph, Chicago teachers hold placards as they walk the picket line outside the headquarters of Chicago Public Schools. In a district of 675 schools and more than 400,000 students, the CTU strike has shown that broad attacks on public schooling by corporate-inspired privatization reformers will confront the rising power of workers.\n\n* * *\n\n   **MAESTRA COMBATIVA (Combative Teacher). Papel Machete, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2008 (Photo by Isamar Abreu)**\n\nThe Combative Teacher was originally created by the street theater collective Papel Machete to support Puerto Rico's teachers during their strike in 2008. The puppet joins teachers at schools, marches, and other activities of the Puerto Rico Teachers Federation (FMPR). The Combative Teacher celebrates the struggle of thousands of teachers, mostly women, who have been the face of this and many other resistance movements. This photo was taken at a teachers' demonstration on October 17, 2011, when Arne Duncan made the first official visit by a U.S. secretary of education to Puerto Rico in eighteen years. FMPR protested plans to privatize education by installing charter schools on the island.\n\n* * *\n\n_W hen Karen Lewis became president of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010, the city's public schools faced an unprecedented crisis. Neighborhood public schools were starved of resources and dozens were being closed; students were regularly being shuffled to new schools. Privately run charter schools were proliferating and making money off widespread student dislocation. Teachers were demoralized. Student performance lagged._\n\n_Chicago is but one example\u2014or victim\u2014of a nationwide corporate takeover of public schools that masquerades as \"reform.\" High-stakes tests, charter schools, and school closures are hallmarks of the conquest, which has been championed by corporate kingpins such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and the Walton family, founders of Walmart._\n\n_For all the upheaval and displacement of students, there has been no improvement in the quality of education with charters and privately run schools. In Chicago, for example, according to Chicago scholar-activists Pauline Lipman and Rico Gutstein, \"only 18 percent of the replacement schools were rated high performing, and nearly 40 percent are at Chicago public schools' lowest rating.\" As a 2014_ Nation _magazine editorial on charter schools summed up: \"Charter school advocates and others who claim the mantle of education reform have now seen their ideas put into practice in a number of areas\u2014from high-stakes testing to digital learning to the takeover of struggling public schools. . . . The results are in. How are they doing? Suffice it to say, if this were a high-stakes test, they'd fail.\"_\n\n_A national grassroots movement has risen up to challenge corporate school reform. From Los Angeles to Philadelphia, teachers, unions, parents, and students are working together to fight high-stakes testing and to reclaim their schools and demand that schools be responsive to local concerns._\n\n_This is the story of how Chicago teachers, their union, parents, students, and their besieged communities have fought side by side to defend not just teachers' jobs but also public education itself. Reflecting an important dimension of transformative organizing, these activists are grounded deeply in their community. They have transformed their consciousness beyond the individual heroism of the dominant U.S. culture. They show how successful transformation comes communally from the ground up._\n\nIt was May 2013 and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel had just announced plans to close fifty Chicago public schools, the largest number ever in a single school district. Almost all the schools closed were in African American and Latino neighborhoods, and people of color bore the brunt of the impact: 87 percent of students affected by school closings since 2001 were African American.\n\nThe mayor expected some pushback. He just didn't anticipate who would be leading the charge against him.\n\n\"Rahm Emanuel thinks that we all are toys. He thinks he can just come into our schools and move all our kids all over gang lines and just say, 'Oh, we can build a building right here. Let's just take this school out. We don't care about these kids.'\"\n\nThe high-pitched voice rang out in Chicago's Daley Square, ricocheting off the sparkling high-rises of Chicago's financial center. The speaker was not a battle-hardened veteran of Chicago's labor wars. He was a new breed of activist: a pint-sized nine-year-old fire-brand by the name of Asean Johnson. He was a third grader from Marcus Garvey Elementary School, which the mayor's hand-picked school board had declared should be closed.\n\nDressed in cherry red basketball shorts and a red T-shirt\u2014the color of the Chicago Teachers Union, whose members surrounded him\u2014the impassioned young African American orator sporting a buzz cut stood on a folding chair and leaned toward the mic. His neck veins bulged as he whipped the crowd into a chanting, coordinated protest machine. He directed his comments at Mayor Emanuel.\n\n   **SCHOOL TO JAIL TRACK. Youth Justice Coalition, Inglewood, California, 2009. Original artwork, _Prison vs. College_ by Khalil Bendib**\n\nMass incarceration and youth criminalization are primary forms of racial oppression and control in the United States. Instead of allocating dollars for improving schools, policy makers spend public dollars on excessive security procedures, overuse of suspensions, expulsion for minor infractions, and police intervention and other \"disciplinary\" policies that push youth into juvenile corrections and adult prisons. These zero-tolerance policies disproportionately target youth of color and feed the school-to-prison pipeline. The Youth Justice Coalition uses direct action organizing, political education, advocacy, transformative justice, and artivism to bring about change inside and outside the prison system.\n\n\"You should be _investing_ in these schools, not _closing_ them. You should be _supporting_ these schools, not _closing_ them. . . . This is racism right here.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. That's right,\" the crowd responded, in an age-old pattern of call and response.\n\n\"We shall not be moved today!\" Asean continued. \"We are going to City Hall. . . . We are not toys!\" His mother nodded approvingly by his side.\n\n\"We are not going, not without a fight!\" he said, his soprano voice rising in intensity.\n\nThe crowd followed his lead. \"Education is a right! That is why we have to fight! Education is a right! That is why we have to fight! Education is a right! That is why we have to fight!\"\n\nWithin hours, videos of Asean Johnson's forceful challenge to the mayor went viral. He appeared as a guest on CNN. He addressed the Chicago Board of Education. He later spoke at the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.\n\n\"You are slashing our education. You're pulling me down. You're taking our educational opportunities away,\" Johnson told the board, tears streaming down his cheeks. \"You need to go tell the mayor to just quit his job.\"\n\nOn May 22, 2013, hours before a final vote by the Board of Education, the head of the Chicago Public Schools announced that Marcus Garvey Elementary School would be spared.\n\nAsean Johnson, and a movement, had stood up to America's relentless \"education reform\" machine.\n\nTHE PUSH TO PRIVATIZE\n\nThis protest against school closures was another round in a struggle over the soul of public education in the United States. The epicenter of this battle is Chicago, a city that has served as a laboratory for a model of school reform that touts charter schools as a cure for what ails many local public schools. Charter schools receive public funding but they are independently run, and instead of answering to local school boards, many are operated by for-profit private companies or private boards. When they were first introduced in the early 1990s, charters were touted as incubators to test new local ideas with an eye toward improving public education. But they have quickly morphed into lucrative markets for a corporate takeover of public education. As of 2013, there were about six thousand charter schools in the United States serving 2.3 million students\u2014an 80 percent increase in the number of students served since 2009.\n\n_\"You should be investing in these schools, not closing them. You should be supporting these schools, not closing them. . . . This is racism right here.\"_\n\nAs of 2014, Mayor Rahm Emanuel had closed, converted, or phased out more than 150 public schools, almost all of them in low-income neighborhoods of color. In their place, he had sanctioned the opening of more than a hundred charter schools.\n\nCharter schools have a dubious record: compared to public schools, they do not have better educational results on average, despite the fact that they suspend and expel a much higher percentage of students and have fewer special education and English-language learners. Charter schools typically emphasize high-stakes tests, and many push out low-performing students, as well as high-needs students and those with disabilities. Charter school teachers generally cannot join a teachers' union. As public schools are converted to charters, schools have gone from being public trusts to profit centers for private corporations, with little accountability and often evidence of mismanagement.\n\nCommunity organizations in Chicago have a long and strong history but had been waging an uphill fight to stop the wave of public school closures. Despite community opposition, one school after another in the poorest neighborhoods were being targeted for closure. The community groups could rally besieged parents and students, but they lacked a broad coalition aligned with teachers that had the clout to force a powerful mayor to listen and negotiate\u2014and, they hoped, collaborate\u2014instead of dictate. As neighbor-hood groups struggled, public education was choked.\n\nEnter a team of about twenty classroom teachers who had been working in the communities most affected by the cuts. Among them was Karen Lewis, who went on to be elected president of the thirty-thousand-member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) in 2010. In a break with her union predecessors, Lewis and the CTU have not limited themselves to just defending teachers' jobs. The new CTU leadership has mobilized the union and joined forces with parents and other community activists in a reinvigorated coalition of community and educator organizations. The result was a grassroots, community-driven movement to resist corporate-driven reforms and revitalize neighborhood schools that would serve the needs of all of Chicago's families.\n\nWhen the mayor pushed back, the CTU led Chicago's first teachers' strike in a quarter-century. Parents and community leaders stood arm in arm with Chicago's teachers and fought the mayor and his corporate school reformers.\n\nChicago's battle for the future of public education had become a fair fight.\n\nA MOVEMENT STARTS WITHIN\n\nKaren Lewis has been blazing trails since her student days. She grew up in Chicago and attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she was the only African American woman to graduate in the class of 1974. She vividly remembers when she was a child going to piano lessons by way of the unemployment office, where she patiently stood in line with her father who had been laid off from a manufacturing job. By the time she was ten, her parents had both become teachers. Lewis attended medical school, but in the late 1980s, at age thirty-seven, she changed course and became a high school chemistry teacher.\n\n_CORE was initially composed of teachers who advocated reforming the CTU and making it more responsive to classroom educators and community, rather than having the union decisions be driven from the top down, by union bosses._\n\nTeaching high school \"gave me a lot of experience in thinking about things from a variety of different ways,\" says Lewis. Her first school taught a program of reading great books and conducting Socratic dialogue, in which small groups of students discuss and debate questions and ideas. \"The kids flourished,\" she says, and the teachers were very engaged with the students and one another. It was a style of collaborative teaching and leading that she would continue to use.\n\nLewis served as a delegate in the CTU in the 1990s, but her involvement in union affairs was limited. That changed in 2009, when she joined what began as a study group that soon morphed into the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). CORE was initially composed of teachers who advocated reforming the CTU and making it more responsive to classroom (aka rank-and-file) educators and community, rather than having the union decisions be driven from the top down by union bosses. CORE advanced the idea of linking teachers' demands to a broader movement and creating \"union members in the CTU who saw the struggle as one for what CTU president Karen Lewis calls 'the soul of public education.'\"\n\nIn 2010, the CORE caucus\u2014just two years old\u2014challenged the union's leadership, which had ruled for some forty years. CORE won the CTU election and took the union in a new direction. The days of focusing on narrow business issues were over. CTU joined forces with community groups, other unions, students, and parents in an effort to empower both communities and educators to have a voice in improving education. A local educational justice movement was blossoming.\n\nIn 2012, the CTU linked contract demands to the growing chorus of outrage over school closings and underresourced schools. It was a decision aimed at aligning the union with larger issues of social and racial justice and allying with the organizations most affected by school closings, especially in communities of color. The reenergized CTU posed a direct challenge to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the billionaire school reformers who were directing the drastic makeover of Chicago's schools.\n\nKaren Lewis does not suffer fools, no matter how wealthy or powerful they may be. She tells us, \"These business guys have this notion that teachers should just be compliant and . . . do what they're told and then that will be the end of the problems.\"\n\nA NEOLIBERAL MODEL OF EDUCATION\n\nThe Chicago model of education reform, involving replacing public schools with charters and penalizing schools based on high-stakes testing, has become a national blueprint for transforming America's schools.\n\nThe seeds of the Chicago model were planted in 1995, when Mayor Richard Daley successfully persuaded the Illinois legislature to place the city's public schools under mayoral control. The mayor appointed the school board, and he replaced the post of superintendent with that of a CEO who had free rein to impose an agenda. Daley appointed his budget manager and close ally, Paul Vallas, the first CEO. Vallas has been described in _Education Next_ as a \"charismatic bully [who] . . . does what he wants\u2014sometimes rashly\u2014and bristles at any whiff of opposition.\" Vallas set about converting a number of struggling inner-city schools into military academies, and began a process of high-stakes testing, copying what was being done in Texas under Governor George W. Bush. This became the basis for what became President Bush's signature education policy, known as No Child Left Behind. These testing policies were also championed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.\n\nPauline Lipman, a leader of the Chicago chapter of Teachers for Social Justice and professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois\u2013Chicago, has been deeply active in the Chicago community for years. Lipman explains, \"Chicago and Texas became the two models for No Child Left Behind (NCLB)\u2014the whole top-down accountability, punishing schools, teachers, principals, and students for so-called failures and holding everyone to these very simplistic measures of achievement.\"\n\nIn 2005, assistant secretary of education Diane Ravitch championed NCLB. Four years later, she renounced the law. Ravitch wrote: \"The basic strategy [of NCLB] is measuring and punishing. And it turns out as a result of putting so much emphasis on the test scores, there's a lot of cheating going on, there's a lot of gaming the system. Instead of raising standards it's actually lowered standards because many states have 'dumbed down' their tests or changed the scoring of their tests to say that more kids are passing than actually are.\" She lamented, \"I came to realize that the sanctions embedded in NCLB were, in fact, not only ineffective but certain to contribute to the privatization of large chunks of public education.\"\n\n_\"Chicago and Texas became the two models for No Child Left Behind\u2014the whole top-down accountability, punishing schools, teachers, principals, and students for so-called failures and holding everyone to these very simplistic measures of achievement.\"_\n\nThe Chicago model was part of the wave of education reforms that swept the country in the 2000s under President George W. Bush. A 2004 program under Mayor Richard Daley called Renaissance 2010 provided a playbook for solidifying and proliferating the Chicago model. Renaissance 2010 was based on recommendations from the Commercial Club of Chicago, a powerful organization of influential CEOs and business leaders of some of Chicago's biggest and oldest corporations. This corporate-driven reform was a thinly veiled plan to reap a private windfall from a treasured public asset.\n\n\"This was a clearly articulated market model, neoliberal model for education in Chicago,\" says Lipman.\n\nNeoliberalism is an economic model whose advocates support privatizing public institutions, deregulating business, promoting free trade, eliminating labor unions, cutting social services, and generally freeing private enterprises from any public oversight. Lipman explains:\n\nNeoliberalism came as . . . the response of big business to the successful labor, women's and civil rights movements of the 1920s\u20131960s that had advanced working-class rights. The goal of neoliberal capitalism is to remove all holds and regulations restricting banks, business, and big media so that wealthy investors can invest wherever they want. These investors and large corporations can use whatever business practices they wish and can find new ways to make money by turning over public assets to businesses in order to create a profitable new market.\n\nIn education, charter schools are exactly that privatization\u2014public assets turned over to private operators.\n\nWhat's the problem with this? Private companies are designed to meet the needs of their owners and investors. But public services, like public schools, are designed to serve a common good, not a private one. Privatization, in the case of charters, means that public dollars intended to meet student instructional needs are diverted to make profits for private investors, often with little oversight. In the Chicago model, this has led to many problems including corruption: in 2014, the biggest charter network in the state, United Neighbor-hood Organization, and the largest charter network in the world, Concept Charter, were investigated for fraudulent activity.\n\nCLOSING SCHOOLS, OPENING PROBLEMS\n\nPublic school teacher, scholar, and activist Rico Gutstein and scholar and activist Pauline Lipman described the impact of the Chicago Model and the school closures:\n\nIn many cases schools are anchors in neighborhoods stressed by poverty, racism, dismantling of public housing, foreclosures, and social exclusion. Schools are often . . . \"the heart of the community.\" School closings also contribute to the disproportionate loss of experienced black teachers who know the community and families well. Overall, the percentage of black teachers in CPS [Chicago Public Schools] declined from 40 percent in 2002 to 27 percent in 2012.\n\nSchool closings and privatization are also part of . . . development policies centered on real estate . . . corporate subsidies, and privatization that has restructured the city for capital accumulation and has pushed out low-income communities of color. In neigh-borhoods slated for gentrification, closing schools contributes to pushing out the people who live there. The schools are then refurbished and rebranded for a middle-class clientele.\n\n_The United States now focuses on the wrong drivers, using test results to reward or punish individual teachers or schools, technology innovations, and charter schools. We have become the world leader in prisons now, instead of schools._\n\nDespite its lack of results, the privatization model of school reform was given an even higher profile in 2009 when Arne Duncan, then CEO of Chicago Public Schools, was named by President Obama to be U.S. secretary of education. It was a sign that neoliberal school reform had become all-American school reform.\n\nUp until the 1970s, the United States was a world leader in graduating students. The opportunity and achievement gaps were steadily closing as schools were integrated and badly needed resources were targeted to programs like Head Start, Title I, and other successful systemic anti-poverty strategies. The United States was focusing on effective educational \"drivers\": steadily building capacity of the teaching profession, fostering \"intrinsic motivation of teachers and students,\" and engaging \"educators and students in continuous improvement of instruction and learning and inspiring collective team work.\"\n\nToday, with the corporate takeover of education, the United States now focuses on the wrong drivers, using test results to reward or punish individual teachers or schools, technology innovations, and charter schools. We have become the world leader in prisons now, instead of schools.\n\nJohn H. Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, says the test mania in the United States is the wrong driver for real reform. He captures the absurdity of the current system this way: \"In Singapore, Ontario, Finland, and other high-performing countries, if a classroom is cold, they put in a heater. In the United States, they put in another thermometer!\" Or they close the school and open a charter.\n\n   **EDUCATION VS. INCARCERATION. Jason Killinger for Maskar Design, Philadelphia, 2012**\n\nThe federal, state, and local governments have chosen to expand expenditures for the military, police, and prisons at the cost of quality education, health care, child care, affordable housing, and job training and creation. This infographic compares the cost of education to the cost of incarceration. Studies confirm the benefits of investing in education over incarceration, and of educating the incarcerated. The United States is ranked twentieth in educational attainment globally, but first in incarceration rate. With only 5 percent of the world's population, the U.S. holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners.\n\nJOINING TOGETHER ACROSS THE GLOBE\n\nEducational reforms that feature school closings, charter schools, and punishment for struggling schools have appeared across the globe. Wherever the model has traveled, there has been popular resistance, and visionary organizers link these popular struggles into an international whole.\n\nIn May 2014, the Chicago Teachers (CTU) Union hosted the eleventh Trinational Conference, bringing together educators from Mexico, Canada, and the United States, including Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony, is too often ignored by many U.S. social movements, but has had powerful, successful student and teacher strikes. Right-wing policies of privatization from the U.S. mainland are often field-tested in Puerto Rico. The CTU has a strong alliance with the Puerto Rico teachers union, which has a tradition of activism. The Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education, which has held biennial conferences since 1993, links people who value public education and \"its contributions to democratic society to defend it against privatization.\" Coalition organizers said they hoped for \"coordinated resistance . . . to spread across the continent.\"\n\nMaria Elena Lara Fonta\u00f1ez, president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation, spoke of teachers who had their teaching licenses\u2014and thus their livelihoods\u2014revoked for life by the government in retaliation for organizing against education reform.\n\n_\"We would look for the people who were being politicized by that process and try to get them to join this growing movement. These were rank-and-file teachers who were upset about the school closings and the lack of union engagement.\"_\n\nIn Mexico, death threats, targeted killings of union leaders, and violent police repression are a chilling reality of the country's political history and its current climate. In 2014 alone, forty-three student activists in Mexico were murdered while en route to a demonstration; Mexican police were implicated in their deaths. Despite the threat of violence, Mexican teachers have continued to organize.\n\nBUILDING A NEW MOVEMENT FROM THE OLD\n\nFor Chicago teachers troubled by school closures, high-stakes testing, and corporate takeovers, building a progressive alliance to take on the city's political machine was a methodical process. In the mid-2000s \"the union didn't have people who were sympathetic to the fight,\" recalls Jessie Sharkey, a teacher and early member of the CORE caucus. (Sharkey was a CTU vice president when we interviewed him and is now president.) \"We wound up building a healthy, deep relationship with people in black neighborhoods [and] poor neigh-borhoods who were doing work in their local school council.\"\n\nJackson Potter, another former high school teacher and CORE activist who is now a CTU official, told us, \"We would look for the people who were being politicized by that process and try to get them to join this growing movement. These were rank-and-file teachers who were upset about the school closings and the lack of union engagement.\"\n\nAs a student at Chicago's Whitney Young High School in 1995, Potter led a walkout to push for equitable funding for schools in Illinois. He later became a teacher at Englewood High School and was the union delegate there when former Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan said the school had a \"culture of failure\" and started to phase it out in 2005. Potter and Al Ramirez formed CORE in May 2008 and shortly thereafter joined the Grassroots Education Movement, a coalition of community organizations that were working on defending and strengthening Chicago's public schools.\n\nBecause of their long-standing connection, teachers and local communities were natural political allies. On the South Side of Chicago, the teachers had already been organizing with veteran community organizer Jitu Brown of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO). Brown is now national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, with offices in KOCO's space, located next door to an abandoned storefront.\n\nThe South Side of Chicago has a prominent place in African American culture. \"This was one of the two black metropolises of the twentieth century,\" Brown explains in the bustling KOCO offices, where community members come and go and groups of students spend their after-school hours. \"There was Harlem, New York, and Bronzeville,\" a historically black neighborhood on the South Side. He ticks off a list of African American luminaries who hail from here, including Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Louis Armstrong, Minnie Riperton, and Muddy Waters. He casually mentions another familiar local, an eloquent young Illinois state senator who once represented this district\u2014Barack Obama.\n\nThe decline of the South Side can be seen in the fate of its schools. Jeanette Taylor, a parent and longtime school activist, describes a series of \"redevelopment\" plans for the area that proposed closing twenty of the twenty-two schools in the neighborhood.\n\nAs went the schools, so went the neighborhood.\n\n\"How do you kill a community?\" says Taylor, her voice rising in indignation. \"First you take away the housing. And then you take away the schools.\"\n\nTaylor is a member of her local school council, akin to an advisory community school board, for Mollison Elementary School. In 2010, Mollison appeared on a list of schools to be closed by Chicago Public Schools. Taylor and her community organized to fight. They teamed up with KOCO, mobilized parents, and turned out almost four hundred students, parents, teachers, grandparents, and community members for a school closure meeting on a frigid winter day in 2010. Shortly after, the community won a victory: Mollison was removed from the closure list.\n\n\"It's like you have to go to war with your own school district to have a quality school in your neighborhood,\" says Brown.\n\nThe school closings have been enormously disruptive to students. At times, the dislocation has resulted in violence. Diamond McCoullough, a seventeen-year-old student at Dyett High School on Chicago's South Side, says that following a wave of school closings in 2003, students from other neighborhoods were abruptly shifted into her high school. With gangs competing for territory, the reshuffling of students \"increased the violence. Eventually, someone got killed in [Dyett High] school. In 2008, Dyett had, like, an uprising.\"\n\n_\"How do you kill a community?... First you take away the housing. And then you take away the schools.\"_\n\nIn response, students created a nationally acclaimed restorative justice program in which peers and teachers, victims and offenders\u2014not police\u2014determined appropriate ways to repair the harm they had done, based on the needs of the victims, offenders, and school community. \"People were coming from all over the nation to get trained by Dyett students,\" Diamond says. \"We had the largest decrease in student arrests, despite CPS [Chicago Public Schools] not investing in our school. Eventually, the restorative justice program got cut, because it was from a private funder, and CPS didn't want to fund it.\"\n\nToday, Dyett High School is once again in limbo. It has no school library and no art, gym, or music classes. In a particularly cruel twist, the school competed for and won a 2011 contest sponsored by ESPN to have its gym refurbished. What Dyett's students needed, the school's coach told ESPN, was a chance. ESPN aired a TV special in October 2011 chronicling the four-week makeover of Dyett's athletic facilities.\n\nThe euphoria was short-lived. In 2012, CPS announced it was \"phasing out\" Dyett High School. Shortly after, Dyett's students could no longer access the gleaming new gymnasium. \"We don't use the gym,\" says Diamond, a junior. \"It's just there. We don't have a gym teacher.\"\n\nThese glaring inequities spurred KOCO, the Grassroots Education Movement, and other community groups to march on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house in 2012 to demand an end to school closures and to change the Chicago school board from being appointed by the mayor to being democratically elected. The community groups reached out to the Chicago Teachers Union to join with them. This labor-community alliance was a turning point.\n\n   **DREAM ACT MURAL. Francisco \"Enuf\" Garc\u00eda, Phoenix, Arizona, 2011 (Photo by Ms. Phoenix)**\n\nInspired by the cover art for the March 19, 2009, issue of the _Phoenix New Times,_ which ran the feature \"Are Your Papers in Order?\" by Michael Lacey, Phoenix muralist Francisco \"Enuf\" Garc\u00eda painted the _DREAM Act_ mural. A student holding a sign reading \"Education Not Deportation\" is juxtaposed with the face of Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and a Maricopa County deputy in a mask holding a gun. In the background is a deportation van next to the city of Phoenix. The artist's intent was to convey the intimidation and fear of deportation constantly experienced by undocumented immigrants under Arizona's racial profiling law, SB 1070. The mural shows the divided nature of the community, depicting the hopeful face of Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers and a group of people marching for immigration reform and the DREAM Act.\n\n\"We had to do the type of action that we felt would embarrass the mayor and would begin to unify people across community and labor,\" explains Brown. \"Before that action, the CTU was not able to get hundreds of teachers in the street, because they had just come into power and the teachers were demoralized.\"\n\nThe march also highlighted gaping inequities between the city's schools. \"When we did the march to the mayor's house, we marched from Lakeview High School to his house,\" Brown recounts. \"To kind of expose the discrimination, we did a cross comparison between Dyett and Lakeview. Lakeview is about two blocks from the mayor's house with . . . [much higher] white enrollment. Lakeview had twelve Advanced Placement courses; Dyett had none. Lakeview has darkroom photography, studio art, advanced chorus, beginning chorus; Dyett students had to take art as an online class.\"\n\nBrown says CTU leaders were initially reluctant to participate in the march. But when the teachers finally did come, they were transformed by their experience. \"You had teachers and students and parents holding hands,\" recounts Brown. He told the teachers, \"This sets the tone for the big fight that we need to have, because you're not going to talk with these beasts with one protest. This is what a movement is: a protracted engagement of people.\" Following the march, Brown says, CTU leaders told him \"it was the best thing they ever did.\"\n\nSTRIKE\n\nMayor Emanuel joined the national chorus of leaders who blamed educational problems on the teachers' union, not on his campaign of community disinvestment. The mayor's attacks poisoned the waters with teachers.\n\n_\"Education is dangerous. Because an educated mind is not a mind that you can easily lull into complacency.\"_\n\n\"The mayor of the city was publicly disrespecting teachers,\" Karen Lewis recounts at CTU headquarters. \" _The teachers got raises, kids got the shaft\u2014_ that was a front-page headline. The level of hostility and animosity just kept growing and growing and growing to the point that . . . I don't even know if we could have _not_ had a strike.\"\n\nIn the summer of 2012, the CTU announced it was going on strike. The teachers linked their demands over working conditions with conditions in the schools. Tens of thousands of community members joined the raucous protests.\n\nPresident Karen Lewis and the CTU led the teachers into the streets. She offers this tutorial on how to make change. \"The whole notion of change is based on a level of discomfort. . . . Pressure isn't from writing opeds or from just having relationships with a couple of legislators. The pressure is on when two thousand and three thousand\u2014and then five thousand and ten thousand\u2014people show up at your offices and say, 'You're out of control.'\n\n\"Part of what we have to do is to empower people to take the next step. And the next step is always about organizing, mobilizing and being there, and truth-telling.\"\n\nLewis, a fixture at rallies of teachers and community members, argues that unions need to do more than protect their own economic interests. \"We're trying to defend _public education_. You can't do that by just focusing on jobs, because publicly funded public education is about kids and their communities. If we don't draw those kinds of alliances, then we have no real power.\"\n\nLewis says that the process of change \"is incremental, just like learning is incremental. . . . It takes time. It takes practice. . . . Very few people pick up a violin and are immediately virtuosos. It doesn't work like that. You have to put that time in.\"\n\nProof of this movement-building approach came during the teachers' strike. \"Teachers' strikes are notoriously unpopular because they inconvenience the heck out of parents,\" says Lewis. \"There has never been a teachers' strike in which the parents overwhelmingly approved of it. It's just unheard of.\" In a remarkable show of solidarity, two-thirds of parents of schoolchildren supported the strike in Chicago. Some parents joined teachers on picket lines across the city. \"That was all foundation work. It was all about having relationships with people in the community so that they supported us.\"\n\nFor Lewis, the fight for quality education is the leading edge of a much larger struggle. Education is \"the last bastion of a real democracy in this country,\" she argues. \"Education is dangerous. Because an educated mind is not a mind that you can easily lull into complacency. In order for this system to work, [corporate bosses] need a lot of people who are going to be okay with hovering around the poverty line and being insecure. Because when you're insecure, [big business] figured out that that's a motivator for getting people to do work, especially mind-numbing work or work that's not particularly fulfilling. In order for [big business] to succeed, they need to be able to push education in the direction they want it to be in.\"\n\nLewis has a different view of education. \"I am concerned that we have conflated education now with vocational training. There's this notion that schools should reflect whatever the global economy is demanding. I don't think that's what education is. I think that what education does is it prepares you to become a citizen of the world, and that means that you participate in your community and you make your community better.\n\n\"Our vision is to develop a system that has equity, [which is] what democracy is: that parents and students have a say in what their schools look like and how they are governed.\"\n\nIn 2014, Karen Lewis was on the verge of making a new direct challenge to the powerful institutions that controlled her city and were blocking democracy: she launched an exploratory campaign, running for mayor against incumbent Rahm Emanuel. But in October 2014, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She asked Jesus \"Chuy\" Garcia to run in her stead. He jumped in, and the community, including many education activists in this chapter and the teachers' union, backed him. Though heavily outspent by the developers and corporations who funded Emanuel, Garcia forced a dramatic runoff election that Emanuel eventually won in April 2015.\n\nThe CTU is credited by many union activists nationally with revitalizing the labor movement. \"The Chicago Teachers Union and its leader, Karen Lewis, have modeled a new breed of union leadership by responding to privatization aggressively and reimagining public education collaboratively,\" reported _The Nation_.\n\nLewis offers this lesson: \"Organizing is hard work. It requires people to have one-on-one conversations. . . . It's about point-by-point-by-point planning, sticking to a plan, and if things don't work, coming back around and being able to adjust.\n\n_\"We're trying to defend public education. You can't do that by just focusing on jobs, because publicly funded public education is about kids and their communities.\"_\n\n\"What I would say to any young or experienced organizer is: take a deep breath before you jump in. Understand what your possible wins and losses are and what real wins look like. A lot of people think that you don't get a win until you get everything you want. Or you don't get a win until poverty is completely gone.\"\n\nShe shakes her head and smiles, recalling the many battles she's lost. She says it's important to savor each victory, no matter how small. \"You have to stop and constantly pat yourself on the back for the good work that you have done.\"\n\nCOLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES\n\nThe national and international public education movement is growing stronger every day. At the same time, organizing on college and university campuses throughout the country has escalated powerfully, particularly in response to the unprecedented levels of student debt and dramatic funding cuts to public universities, all part of the same neoliberal wave. In the United States, the 40 million people saddled with over $1 trillion in student debt are demanding change. Some have blocked highways, occupied administration offices protesting tuition hikes, and others have launched debt strikes. Strike Debt (debtstrike.org) is a debt-resistance movement and an offshoot of Occupy. Among its demands are for Congress to provide free public education\u2014including college\u2014for all. (For specifics on the immigrant college student movement see Chapter 4, \"The Power of Stories.\") In 2011, university students in Puerto Rico, like in other parts of the United States, protested a tuition surcharge. In Puerto Rico, they did so by taking over buildings and closing ten of eleven campuses of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). The protests built on a 2010 strike that shut all UPR campuses for two months and succeeded in reinstating tuition waivers for athletes and honors students. Administrators attempted to preempt the 2011 strike by banning all student protests and having a police presence on campus for the first time in three decades.\n\nUPR students challenged the prohibition on protests by staging massive marches around campus that grew as students streamed out of class. Police responded with almost daily violence and arrests. The public responded to the repression with outrage and widespread sympathy for the student movement.\n\nThe UPR strikes coupled student militancy with educational and artistic activities, featuring theater, puppets, and performance. Students disseminated their messages by creating their own media, including pirate radio stations, websites, and a student press center. Many participants of the 2010\u201311 protests cite the political learning process itself, within a broader long-term struggle against neoliberalism, as their main achievement.\n\n\"They fear us because we aren't afraid\" ( _Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo_ ) was a rallying cry of the protests. The UPR president resigned during the 2011 protests and police crackdown. In 2013, following continued student pressure, a new governor of Puerto Rico delivered on a campaign promise to repeal the tuition surcharge.\n\n   **TEACHER SOLIDARITY. Overpass Light Brigade, United States (nationwide), 2012 (Internet Campaign, Overpass Light Brigade FB Page)**\n\nOn September 11, 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike after Mayor Rahm Emanuel failed to reach agreement with the teachers on a new contract. The fight for educational justice received widespread public support as a necessary action despite what Emanuel characterized as \"a strike of choice.\" The protest shut down the nation's third-largest school district for more than a week. The Overpass Light Brigade, one of forty affiliates of the nationwide Light Brigade Network, took its creative efforts to the streets, expressing solidarity with teachers, students, and parents who were fighting the dismantling of the public school system. Its explicit political messages shed light on issues often ignored by the corporate media.\n\n* * *\n\nTHE MISSING INGREDIENT: LOVE\n\n* * *\n\nWhen the Chicago Teachers Union struck back, it helped further a vision of a different future. The teachers, parents, students, and community were dreaming\u2014and acting\u2014big. The fight in Chicago was led from the beginning by African American and Latino parents, students, and community organizations, in alliance with educator groups.\n\nTogether they have forged a new Chicago model\u2014of resistance. \"Neoliberal hegemony rests in part on the conviction that there is no alternative to the market, and there is no other way to imagine society,\" Lipman and Gutstein have written. \"What is emerging in Chicago is a reaffirmation of public education with values of fairness, justice, democracy, interdependency, and the common good.\"\n\nLipman describes witnessing parents, students, and teachers in the streets during the 2012 Chicago teachers' strike holding homemade signs expressing their demands and dreams:\n\nWe need more art, more music, more gym.\n\nWe need air conditioning.\n\nStop the testing.\n\nSchools are not businesses.\n\nOur children are not products.\n\nParents have had enough. Students have had enough. Teachers have had enough.\n\nWe're standing up. We're saying no. Enough.\n\nLipman says that the teachers' strike in Chicago \"ignited people across the country. . . . It gave an example nationally of what a social movement teachers union could look like and it provided a national example that you could actually organize to fight these things. Just as importantly, it has really sparked the beginnings of very similar campaigns in a number of cities around the country.\"\n\nJackson Potter of the CTU itemizes some highlights of the current public education movement: \"new militant teacher union leadership just elected in L.A. and Massachusetts, open bargaining with parents in St. Paul, takeovers of the Board of Education in New York City and Chicago, Pittsburgh rejecting charter expansion,\" to name a few.\n\nStudent unions have joined teachers' unions on the front lines. In 2014, the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) led thousands of students in a walkout of classes to protest teacher firings, school closings, and the slashing of extracurricular programs. University of Pennsylvania researchers Jerusha Conner and Sonia Rosen chronicle that the PSU is pioneering a new style of youth activism:\n\nPSU members work hard to \"flip the script\" by altering how young people are portrayed in the media and viewed by the general public. . . . Framing youth as empowered agents of change fundamentally contradicts the discourse of neoliberal education reform. Neoliberal ideologies view these mostly low-income, mostly Black and Brown urban youth as undeserving beneficiaries of a wasteful system. . . . In this model, young people are positioned as both the cause of the problem and the objects of reform. They become spectators in a show that repeats itself with each new crisis.\n\nYouth organizing, on the other hand, disrupts this pattern of spectatorship. Instead of remaining the objects of reform efforts, PSU members, who view themselves as organizers and leaders, force their way onto the reform stage in order to play central roles in determining what changes are made in schools and across the district.\n\nAdourthus MacDowell, an activist with Chicago's KOCO and a school parent, expresses the alternative vision of grassroots activists. \"We're not addressing the corporate agenda. We are addressing the neigh-borhood agenda,\" he insists. \"We need a new urban educational agenda for the twenty-first century, and we're not talking about charter schools. . . . We will not rest until every neighborhood grade school and high school has a world-class, state-of-the-art facility, as well as becomes a community institution so that [students of] the community learn their history, as well as what they need to be college-ready and beyond in the twenty-first century.\"\n\nJohn H. Jackson, president and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, which works to support equity in education, notes the significance of labor's reemergence in Chicago as an agent of radical change. \"There was a time over the last five to ten years that there was a belief that labor couldn't and wouldn't push back, or that labor and community couldn't work together to push back. I think [Chicago] represents the reemergence of an impactful partnership where labor, civil rights, and community come together to try to create a better reality. We don't see that happening enough, but it represents what's possible when it does happen.\"\n\nJackson says that the CTU has had a significant impact, helping highlight big questions around resources and providing all kids the opportunities to succeed.\n\n\"If we keep schools open, how are we going to make them better? If we don't suspend our young people and we keep them in the schools, what are the additional supports? How do we get those? And how do we keep their communities safe? . . . Chicago still has serious challenges [and] policy makers are not presenting the types of policy proposals needed to resolve them.\"\n\nThe CTU is not only a fighting union, it offers a vision of what education in Chicago could look like. _The Schools Chicago Students Deserve_ is CTU's blueprint for school reform. \"Every student in Chicago Public Schools deserves to have the same quality education as the children of the wealthy,\" begins the report, which goes on to highlight \"research-based education that is fully-funded and staffed in an equitable fashion throughout the city.\"\n\nCommunity and youth activists view the CTU as a welcome new ally in a larger struggle for justice. Raul Botello, associate director of Communities United, a grassroots group in a largely Latino neighborhood of Chicago, says that CTU is \"playing a really critical role in not just public education, but in de fining and recalibrating the scope of what public service is. . . . Their message about equity and incorporating class and race into their rhetoric is something . . . a lot of community organizations have been [saying] before.\"\n\nMany point to the CTU as the cutting edge of a broader working-class struggle and fight-back against the war on the middle class. When a major labor union trumpets the message of community activists, \"it's a big elephant in the room,\" says Botello. \"The establishment has to respond to them. In some ways, they've catapulted a lot of the work that a lot of the movements in the past have been attempting to do or were doing already.\"\n\nBotello offers an example. \"We're trying to reform the school discipline code to be more than just suspensions and arrests in our schools, and [we were raising the issue of] the school-to-prison pipeline. Previous union administrations would never touch that . . . because the teachers are in the classroom and in some ways, they're the biggest initiators of that discipline. But [teachers'] hands are tied\u2014these are just bad policies.\"\n\nWhen Karen Lewis and her team took the reins of CTU, says Botello, \"we didn't even have to convince them. This was something that inherently they believe: that black and brown men and boys are being disproportionately kicked out of our public schools.\" (See the box about the school-to-prison pipeline on page 63.)\n\nEducation secretary Arne Duncan and attorney general Eric Holder announced in January 2014 a federal initiative on discipline to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Noting that schools now suspend or expel two million students per year, Holder declared, \"Too often, so-called zero-tolerance policies, however well-intentioned they might be, make students feel unwelcome in their own schools; they disrupt the learning process and they can have significant and lasting negative effects on the long-term well-being of our young people, increasing their likelihood of future contact with the juvenile and criminal justice systems.\"\n\nBotello notes that CTU has made crucial links between issues. \"What CTU has brought in is a much more explicit analysis of race and class into policies that impact public education\u2014but equally important is just their impact on the city as a whole.\"\n\nLipman explains the connection: \"We have to challenge racism in order to fight neoliberalism and capitalism . . . and defend public education in Chicago. We have to find ways for white parents to see that their concerns about schools are very much tied to what's happening to black and Latino students, and that even when they are not facing [school closures, racism, and privatization] themselves, they have to stand up against that. Those things are intimately connected.\" Lipman notes that during the teachers' strike, parents and students from some predominantly white schools joined protests against funding cuts, large class sizes, and testing.\n\nOne lesson from the Chicago struggle, Botello observes, is that there must be \"more cross-collaboration of movements, because I think it's taken a while. I think it took too long for the LGBT movement and the immigrant rights movement to come together, or the education folks working with civil rights groups. It's always good to start from your base and where you're at, but there could be a much more intentional, aggressive way to collaborate. There's so much richness to be learned from each other. That will only help everyone.\"\n\n\"Parents don't just want high test scores,\" argues Lipman. \"They want their children treated with respect. They want to be treated with respect when they come to the school. They want the school to be a center of community. . . . They want their school to have the full resources.\n\n\"We need a system of mutual accountability,\" she adds. \"While we are holding teachers accountable and schools accountable and parents accountable . . . we have never held the policy makers accountable, the corporations accountable that deindustrialized whole areas of the city, moved elsewhere for cheap labor, and left a huge unemployed population, produced poverty, and affected the schools. The kind of accountability that we need is a collective community accountability in which the communities and the schools set standards for what they want their children to have.\"\n\nMovements start from within the most affected communities and take the time to build on local leadership. The antidote to the corporatization of our society is this type of organizing, grounded in community.\n\nOn the South Side of Chicago, where the education wars have raged hottest, \"the future that we are working for is one that's rooted in self-determination,\" says Jitu Brown. \"I think that communities have to have the right to control the institutions that are in their neighborhoods. . . . If we don't have [educated young] people in our community, who becomes the dependable elected officials? Who becomes the teachers, the principals in our community?\"\n\nBrown reflects, \"A missing ingredient that nobody talks about in all this is love. I know that when you are working with someone or a group of people that you love, you're going to work harder. You're going to pour in every resource, because you care about them. You recognize that your future is linked to theirs.\" Living this truth about transformative organizing, in September 2015, Jitu Brown and Bronzeville parents went on to lead a hunger strike, putting in every resource they had and succeeded in saving Dyett High School.\n\nA MULTIGENERATIONAL MOVEMENT\n\nNine-year-old Asean Johnson marched alongside Jitu Brown as they demanded a strong community role in education decisions. Asean has taken his message from the streets of Chicago to a national stage.\n\n\"Every child deserves a great education. Every school deserves equal funding and resources,\" Johnson told a large crowd in Washington, D.C., at the fiftieth-anniversary March on Washington. He said he was participating in the march \"for education, justice, and freedom.\"\n\nEchoing Jitu Brown's call for local leaders, Karen Lewis has already endorsed Asean Johnson for mayor of Chicago\u2014in 2025, when he turns twenty-one. In the struggle for the soul of public education, the next generation is already leading the fight.\n\n* * *\n\n   **EDUCATION IS A RIGHT. Meredith Stern, 2009**\n\nThis print by Meredith Stern combines images, narrative, and liberatory educational practices. The print portrays two young students in a classroom working together to envision a just education system. In the artist's words: \"I wanted to make a print that addressed the systemic, institutionalized racism that exists in the American school system and present a print that celebrated a better value system for improving the quality of education that we should be giving to every single child in our society.\"\n\n   **ESTUDIANTE MILITANTE (Militant Student), Papel Machete, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2010 (Photo by Isamar Abreu)**\n\nJanuary 11, 2011, marked the return of the student strike in Puerto Rico after the winter break. With a massive crowd of supporters including professors, alumni, and supporters of public education, the students wore masks and held shields to defend themselves from persecution by university administrators and police violence. They commemorated the anniversary of the birth of Eugenio Mar\u00eda de Hostos, a towering figure of the late nineteenth-century Caribbean independence struggles. The activity was followed by a vigorous march to protest the rise of tuition fees at the University of Puerto Rico. _Estudiante Militante_ , the fourteen-foot puppet in this image, is a symbol of the student movement. The puppet was created by Papel Machete in collaboration with the students, as a gesture of solidarity during the student strike of April\u2013June 2010. _Estudiante Militante_ traveled across the eleven campuses of the university accompanied by the Working People's Band.\n\nPhoto by Leonardo March\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nJOS\u00c9 JORGE **D\u00cdAZ ORTIZ**\n\nAGITATOR, CULTURAL WORKER, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER, DJ, AND PUPPETEER JOS\u00c9 JORGE D\u00cdAZ ORTIZ IS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND A FOUNDING MEMBER OF AGITARTE AND PAPEL MACHETE. AGITARTE CREATES PROJECTS AND PRACTICES OF CULTURAL SOLIDARITY WITH GRASSROOTS STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE. PAPEL MACHETE'S CULTURAL WORK IS COMMITTED TO CREATING COUNTERPROJECTS TO HEGEMONY.\n\nI am the co-director of Papel Machete and artistic director of AgitArte. I am a cultural worker, an artist, and a puppeteer. And I'm also a community organizer. Papel Machete is a radical puppet, mask, and music collective of workers based in Santurce, Puerto Rico. That's our laboratory where we experiment in the context of theater for and by the working class and produce puppetry, masks, and objects for communities, the theater, and the streets. We started performing on May 1, 2006, during a government shutdown that the government used to justify the imposition of a regressive sales and service tax on the island.\n\n**How do you see the role of art and cultural work and its transformative power in twenty-first-century political movements?**\n\nMy main goal is to create an effective counterproject to hegemony. Hegemony refers to the institutions parallel to the state, like schools, civic organizations, and the media, that support the ideology and culture of the ruling class. We battle those institutions by breaking from the content and forms that shape the way we think and view the world and what we believe is true and possible in our lives and society.\n\nOur art works against this hegemony. In a broader sense, we strive for a culture that comes from radical perspectives and practices of liberation from the capitalist, imperialist, white-supremacist patriarchy that is destroying our lives and community. The transformations that we are interested in are revolutionary.\n\n**How does your political work relate to the collective, and how is it similar to or different from your individual work?**\n\nThe way that I started identifying myself as an artist was through the work of organizing collectives that take on the kind of art and the kind of productions that we want to see in the streets. We see the production of art as a collective, and the methods that we use and the processes that we engage as fundamental to the artistic work that we do. There would be no artistic proposal if it wasn't a collective proposal.\n\nAlienation is a main problem in our daily lives. There are many advantages [to] and beauty in being able to work together and create together to combat alienation and get ourselves back to being creators as human beings, and creating together to figure out how we're going to solve the problems that directly affect our lives. That's something that is totally against this system and considered dangerous.\n\n**How do you measure success in your cultural work, and how does it relate to the expectations of organizations or the movement?**\n\nA lot of times we focus on the subjective experience or the experience of the people at the moment, which sometimes goes against the \"measurables\" and the product-oriented mentality that we have because of the society that we live in. People are used to seeing a product.\n\nWhat I am particularly interested in is success being tied to how we as artists of color of the working class, artists of liberatory movements, are going to create long-term institutions and long-term possibilities so that we can really talk about our success in the future, really talk about success at another level in our lives. Now is the time for us.\n\n\u00a1CON PAPEL Y CON MACHETE ARMAREMOS EL FUTURO!\n\nFREE OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA. Papel Machete, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2013. Photo by Javier Maldonado O'Farrill\n\nTRANSFORMING VISIONS: ENDING MASS INCAR-CERATION\n\n   **Die-In for Mike Brown, #DREAM4JUSTICE March, New York City, 2015. Banner art by Athena Soules (Photo by Erik McGregor)**\n\nWhite supremacy in the United States is starkly revealed in the verdicts in cases of black or brown bodies awaiting justice. The decision of the grand jury not to issue an indictment after Michael Brown's killing by the police on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, has renewed a nationwide dialogue about issues of police accountability and racism in cases of police brutality. This four-and-a-half-minute die-in for Mike Brown corresponds to the four and a half hours that the young, unarmed black man lay in the street after his murder by white officer Darren Wilson. On the national holiday commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., #DREAM4JUSTICE marched \"honoring Dr. King's legacy and reclaiming the stolen dreams of our Brothers and Sisters whose lives were taken by the police. We were reminded that our power lies in our community and we are the ones we have been waiting for!\"\n\n* * *\n\n   **WE SEE YOU. #IndictAmerica: Turn Up for Mike Brown!, Ferguson Solidarity March, Boston, 2014 (Photo by Farhad Ebrahimi)**\n\nThe criminalization of immigrants is related to the proliferation of detention centers and growth of the prison industrial complex in the United States. In the photograph, thousands of demonstrators gather in front of South Bay House of Correction to show solidarity with detainees. This county jail houses immigration detainees pursuant to an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The action, led by #BlackLivesMatterBoston, took over a major highway following a call heeded in dozens of cities around the nation.\n\n* * *\n\n_T he United States today has the world's largest population of imprisoned humans. Some 2.2 million people are incarcerated in state and federal jails and prisons\u2014a 500 percent increase over the past thirty years._\n\n_Coming out of the darkest and most traumatized depths of our society, the growing movement to end mass incarceration advances a bold transformative vision, fiercely challenging and attacking the root causes that collectively prop up our \"injustice system.\" The stories in this chapter highlight an emergent movement that is grounded in the most impacted communities, transforming powerlessness into power and building links among activists on many issues around a transformative abolitionist vision. These transformers are raising social consciousness, radically changing how we define problems and solutions, and transforming our ability to envision a new future._\n\n_Legal scholar Michelle Alexander makes the powerful case that mass incarceration functions much the way slavery and Jim Crow** laws did in past generations: it is a racialized system of control over people of color. The root causes of the recent escalation go back to deindustrialization and high unemployment in low-income communities, when black and brown workers, who had moved north when needed for World War II factory jobs, were later rendered \"disposable\" by global capital's move to cheaper labor markets abroad. Policy drivers that fuel the \"prison industrial complex\"\u2020\u2020 include the racist and class-biased war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, anti-immigrant crackdowns, stop-and-frisk tactics, \"tough on crime\" policies such as mandatory sentences, and the prison industry. As Alexander says:_\n\n\"Jim Crow\" refers to racial segregation laws enacted in the U.S. South following the Civil War. These laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities and disenfranchised blacks. Jim Crow remained in force until 1965, when the federal Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act officially outlawed such discrimination.\n\n\"The term 'prison industrial complex' was introduced by activists and scholars to contest prevailing beliefs that increased levels of crime were the root cause of mounting prison populations,\" explains Angela Davis in her book _Are Prisons Obsolete?_ \"Instead, they argued, prison construction and the attendant drive to fill these new structures with human bodies have been driven by ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit. Social historian Mike Davis first used the term in relation to California's penal system, which, he observed, already had begun in the 1990s to rival agribusiness and land development as a major economic and political force.\" Angela Davis. _Are Prisons Obsolete?_ (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), 84.\n\n_Communities are poor and have failing schools and broken homes not because of their personal failings, but because we've declared war on them, spent billions building prisons while allowing schools to fail, targeted children in these communities, stopping, searching, frisking them\u2014and the first arrest is typically for some nonviolent minor drug offense, which occurs with equal frequency in middle class white neighborhoods but typically goes ignored. We saddle them with criminal records, jail them, then release them to a parallel universe where they are discriminated against for the rest of their lives, locked into permanent second-class status._\n\n_The confluence of these forces has resulted in African American males being six times more likely to be incarcerated during their lives than white males, while African American women are incarcerated at three times the rate of white women. Transgender people and other cultural minorities are also disproportionately incarcerated: 21 percent of all transgender women, and half of African American transgender women, have been incarcerated at some point._\n\n_Today a movement to end mass incarceration in some of the most ravaged communities links diverse constituencies, ranging from traditional civil rights groups such as the ACLU and NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to newer groups such as #BlackLivesMatter, the Formerly Incarcerated People's Movement, All of Us or None, Critical Resistance, the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow, several thousand progressive black churches working together in the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and many organizations featured in this book, from LGBTQ to immigration to education and economic justice groups. This growing movement has had notable achievements:_\n\n   **CONTROL UNIT TORTURE. Kevin \"Rashid\" Johnson, California, 2006**\n\nThe artist, Kevin \"Rashid\" Johnson, is a prison organizer whose art became the symbol of the California prisoners' hunger strike in 2011. In _Control Unit Torture_ , the artist raises his voice against the oppression of solitary confinement. Johnson has been in the \"hole,\" segregated from the general prison population, for eighteen years. He calls for \"an end to the psychological warfare that is being waged against humanity by the capitalist regime.\" Johnson reminds us, \"Through solidarity and struggle we will overcome.\"\n\n\u2022 _New York, New Jersey, and California reduced their prisoner populations by about 25 percent between 1999 and 2012. Notably, violent crime rates in these states fell faster than the national average._\n\n\u2022 _In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in_ Miller v. Alabama _that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional._\n\n\u2022 _From 2002 to 2013, New York City police made more than five million stops, disproportionately targeting young black men, even in low-crime neighborhoods. In 2014, following a years-long campaign by community and civil rights groups, newly elected New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ended the routine racist police practice of stop-and-frisk._\n\n\u2022 _In 2015, following hunger strikes by tens of thousands of inmates and a landmark court case, California agreed to end its routine use of solitary confinement in prisons._\n\n_Behind each of these statistics, and thousands like them across the country, are individual lives that have been devastated, prisoners in jail and their extended families, and entire communities that are impacted for generations._\n\n_In their inspiring stories are the seeds of the visionary movement to reclaim our humanity._\n\nMonte Cullors was nineteen when he landed in Los Angeles County Jail. Arrested for joyriding in his mother's car and leading police on a car chase, he was sentenced to thirty-two months in jail. What happened next permanently changed his life. And his family's.\n\nA sheriff's deputy in the L.A. County Jail told Cullors to get in line.\n\n\"I am in line,\" retorted the stocky teenager.\n\nThe sheriff pushed him. Cullors instinctively pushed back. Suddenly Cullors was surrounded by deputies. They began beating him with batons. He was shot with Tasers. He recounted how they choked him until he was unconscious.\n\n_\"If it was another country, we'd call it torture,\" Cullors-Brignac says. \"But because it's the United States, they call it 'excessive force.'\"_\n\n\"When I woke up there was just a pool of blood and I guess they busted that blood vessel and I bled out from my ears and nose,\" he said. \"I just remember there was . . . blood and my head was ringing.\"\n\nCullors was the latest victim of sheriff violence in the notorious L.A. County Jail. Los Angeles County has the largest jail system in the world, with an average daily population of 22,000 inmates.\n\n\"No jail in the nation matches the level of pervasive, savage, long-standing, and notorious deputy-on-inmate violence of the kind we see in the Los Angeles County Jail system,\" asserted Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU's National Prison Project.\n\nAs Monte Cullors was suffering in silence inside the jail, his family was desperately looking for him. \"On the outside, we were trying to get hold of the sheriff's department and ask about my brother because my mother had been trying to visit him and they just kept giving us the run around,\" recounts Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, Monte's sister. \"By the time we did see him, he was completely emaciated. They had drugged him on psychotropic drugs . . . and he had never had any history of psychiatric issues previous to his time there.\" She says that her brother \"was starved\u2014they gave him no food and they turned off his water in his cell. He was forced to drink from the toilet.\n\n\"If it was another country, we'd call it torture,\" Cullors-Brignac says. \"But because it's the United States, they call it 'excessive force.'\"\n\nMore than a decade later, Monte Cullors still bears the scars of his incarceration. \"My brother battles with mental illness now,\" his sister notes. \"We don't know whether he was prone to it or not, but something deeply shifted for him while he was incarcerated there.\"\n\nPatrisse Cullors-Brignac is now on a mission to spare others from what happened to her brother. \"I'm an organizer and activist, so I have been basically on the front lines of his care. Advocating for him is great. But there are larger structural changes that need to happen, and that's what we're in this for.\"\n\nTHE NEW JIM CROW\n\nHow did the United States morph into a vast prison colony for blacks and Hispanics?\n\nMichelle Alexander, who worked as an attorney for the ACLU, was initially reluctant to embrace sweeping explanations for why people of color are so much more likely to end up in jail. But the more she examined the data about the war on drugs, launched in the 1980s by the conservative movement and championed by President Ronald Reagan, the less she could turn away from its implications. She writes in her book _The New Jim Crow_ :\n\nThe stark and sobering reality is that, for reasons largely unrelated to actual crime trends, the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history. . . . Mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the new Jim Crow and . . . all those who care about social justice should fully commit themselves to dismantling this new racial caste system.\n\nIncarceration is dramatically skewed by race. More than 60 percent of those in prison in America are people of color. According to the Sentencing Project, which promotes sentencing reform and alternatives to incarceration, the likelihood that a white man will spend time in prison in his lifetime is one in seventeen; for Latino men, the likelihood is one in six, and for black men, it is one in three.\n\n_Keeping human beings behind bars is both a massive industry and a profitable business. And business is very, very good._\n\nWomen, who account for 7 percent of prisoners, represent the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. Race is again the distinguishing feature of women's incarceration: Latino women are 69 percent more likely to be incarcerated than white women.\n\nThe seemingly inexplicable mad rush to lock up citizens turns out to have a cold logic: keeping human beings behind bars is both a massive industry and a profitable business. And business is very, very good.\n\nThe Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the biggest operator of private prisons in the country. CCA has had a 500 percent increase in business in the last two decades. Private prison companies have spent millions to lobby state and federal legislators for tougher laws and harsher jail terms to keep the conveyor belt of prisoners humming.\n\nIn 2009, CCA worked with the shadowy right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is bankrolled by the billionaire Koch brothers and other corporate contributors, to draft model immigration legislation that became the notorious 2010 Arizona anti-immigrant bill SB 1070. This law required local police to determine a person's immigration status during routine stops, thus legalizing racial profiling and resulting in thousands of arrests and deportations. Private and public prisons were ready to receive the surge of new inmates.\n\nIn its 2005 annual report, CCA gave its investors a heads-up about developments that could affect its bottom line:\n\nThe demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.\n\n   **TRAYVON MARTIN \u2013ELLA BAKER. Ricardo Levins Morales, Minneapolis, 2013**\n\nThe shooting of Trayvon Martin sparked mass protests across the country among communities of color and their allies. Martin, an unarmed black teen, was killed on his way back to his father's home from a trip to a convenience store on June 26, 2012. His killer, George Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch captain, would claim that Martin's hoodie made him suspicious. The hoodie became a symbol of solidarity and protest in a case that shone a spotlight on racial injustice and gun control. Ricardo Levins-Morales juxtaposes the face of the young Martin wearing a hoodie with a quote by civil rights leader Ella Baker on the value of a black mother's son.\n\nCCA is always exploring new ways to boost incarceration and generate business. In 2012, the company sent letters to forty-eight governors proposing to take over their state-owned prisons. But there was a catch: the states had to guarantee that the jails would be 90 percent full, or taxpayers would be forced to pay for the unused beds. The prison industry has ensured it will cash in whether crime rates rise or fall.\n\nActivists are now taking aim at the financial underpinnings of the prison industrial complex. In April 2014, ColorofChange.org announced that it had convinced three large investment companies to divest from CCA and the GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies. ColorofChange.org, which has grown to 850,000 members and describes itself as \"the nation's largest online civil rights organization,\" reported that it had \"urged company executives to reconsider the financial, moral, and political implications of private prisons and divest.\" The investment companies\u2014asset management group Scopia Capital, Amica Mutual Insurance, and the DSM Netherlands pension fund\u2014announced they were divesting $60 million from CCA and GEO.\n\n\"CCA and the GEO Group, Inc. push hard for criminal justice policy and lucrative contracts that allow them to turn a profit while harming our communities and further corrupting our criminal justice system. We've had enough,\" said Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange.org. \"With more and more frequency, the business community, the public, and politicians are taking action to dissociate from the industry and protect our society from its devastating model.\"\n\nThe prison divestment campaign is a tactic directly aimed at the companies that profit from mass incarceration. Anti-apartheid activists successfully used this tool to raise awareness and end support for South Africa's white supremacist government in the critical years before apartheid toppled. Climate change activists are leading similar divestment campaigns. Prison justice activists continue this strategy of disrupting the powerful status quo. Their hope is to cleave a fissure into the once seemingly impenetrable edifice of white supremacy: the prison industrial complex.\n\n_\"There is a current and ever-present epidemic of violence in this country. . . . How many of us know about this? How many of us care about this?\"_\n\nSTOP THE VIOLENCE\n\nPatrisse Cullors-Brignac was determined to stop the violence. She decided that the most immediate way to spare others what her brother went through was to go after the abusers: the sheriffs who run the jails in Los Angeles. Cullors-Brignac is the co-founder of Dignity and Power Now, a grassroots organization based in Los Angeles that \"fights for the dignity and power of incarcerated people, their families, and communities.\" In 2012, Dignity and Power Now launched the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in the L.A. Jails. The very police force that was dividing and destroying her community became the focal point for uniting them.\n\nCullors-Brignac may be best known for being one of three women who created the hashtag #BlackLives-Matter in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of unarmed African American teen Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. (The other two were Alicia Garza of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Opal Tometi of Black Alliance for Just Immigration.) #BlackLivesMatter has since gained worldwide attention when it became the rallying cry of the anti-police-brutality movement in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Cullors-Brignac was named one of \"14 Women of Color Who Rocked 2014\" by _Colorlines_.\n\n\"State violence silences people,\" says Cullors-Brignac. \"These issues here in the sheriff's department have been happening for decades and yet there hasn't been a mass movement to stop it. Mostly people get out and are ashamed . . . and they're scared to death because they're afraid that it will happen again. [It's] sort of the cycle of violence that we see in domestic violence, but on the level of state violence.\"\n\nIn 2013, Cullors-Brignac brought attention to the issue of sheriff brutality in L.A. jails through performance art. She produced and performed _Stained: An Intimate Portrayal of State Violence_. The narrative was drawn from a devastating 2011 ACLU report, \"Cruel and Usual Punishment: How a Savage Gang of Deputies Controls L.A. County Jails.\"\n\n\"There is a current and ever-present epidemic of violence in this country. In Los Angeles County, in both Downtown L.A. and Santa Clarita, lives the most violent and overcrowded jail system in the world. How many of us know about this? How many of us care about this?\" wrote Cullors-Brignac. \"Folks who have been incarcerated and are currently incarcerated are seen as a disposable group of human beings deserving of civil and human rights violations. I want to challenge our community to remind ourselves that what violates one person's civil\/human rights violates all people's civil\/human rights.\"\n\n_Stained_ toured around Los Angeles for much of 2013. Cullors-Brignac's performances helped launch the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails. The coalition is led by family members of prisoners, survivors of deputy-on-inmate abuse, clergy, attorneys, and concerned community members. The coalition is demanding civilian oversight over the L.A. Sheriff's Department.\n\nCullors-Brignac is rallying a traumatized community to transform powerlessness into power. \"The resilience piece for us is the building of an organization that understands the impacts of trauma, and then pushes the conversation to build our capacity to change both the policy [and] the cultural narrative around the people who have been most impacted. I would say we have empowered and built power in the community and changed our relationship to the sheriff's department.\"\n\nTHE POWER OF A DANDELION\n\nCullors-Brignac, who previously worked as an organizer for the Labor\/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles (see Chapter 6), uses art to move and organize people. Her artists' collective, Freedom Harvest, uses the image of the dandelion to tell a story. \"The dandelion is this weed and nuisance in people's gardens and people pick it out,\" she says. But the dandelion is also used as medicine. \"So we used the dandelion as the imagery of the people who are on the margin and being picked out like weeds.\"\n\nIn March 2013, the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails solicited people from around the country to send images of dandelions. The images were assembled in an art installation, and performers brought the story to life. \"About 90 percent of the people who performed and contributed to the art have been impacted by the prison industrial complex on some level,\" says Cullors-Brignac.\n\n_\"The dandelion is this weed and nuisance in people's gardens and people pick it out,\" she says. But the dandelion is also used as medicine._\n\n\"The community here in Los Angeles has been very inspired by this,\" she adds. \"I just actually sat with a group of older black civil rights leaders yesterday and they were like, ' _Finally_ this is happening. We've been dealing with the sheriff's department for decades and finally a group is taking it on.'\"\n\nIn spring 2014, the coalition sponsored two debates between candidates for sheriff. Cullors-Brignac explains, \"Historically, there have only been three sheriffs [in L.A.] since 1955. The sheriff here has no term limits and you just sort of get who you get. So it's been very significant for the sheriff to see who the community is and who this sheriff is going to be accountable to, and also hold the sheriff's feet to the fire.\" Seven candidates attended the debate; all but one endorsed the coalition's call for civilian oversight.\n\nHow did that happen?\n\n\"I don't let folks say no to me,\" Cullors-Brignac says with a modest laugh. \"I also let every candidate know this is super important and you need to be there. . . . It became really high-profile when a few candidates said yes, and then all of them basically had to say yes.\" Persistence is a key attribute of transformers. Because Cullors-Brignac built a strong organization grounded in her community's powerful stories, she made it difficult for those in power to say no.\n\nCoalition supporters also protested in Los Angeles in a show of support for the 2013 California prison hunger strikes. These hunger strikes involved more than thirty thousand prisoners who were protesting the use and abuse of solitary confinement in California jails. The strikes, which lasted two months, were a watershed in the prison justice movement. (See more about the hunger strikes at the end of this chapter.)\n\n   **PRISONERS OF A HARD LIFE: WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN. Susan Wilmarth, Oakland, California, 2005**\n\nThis excerpt from the Real Cost of Prisons Comix series spotlights how the incarceration rate for women is rising at a rate nearly double that of men. This comic book is part of a series of three published in 2005 by The Real Cost of Prison Project after more than ten years of research and popular education projects by anti-prison activists Lois Ahrens and Ellen Miller-Mack. One hundred thirty-five thousand copies were widely distributed among prisoners and by youth educators.\n\nThe Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails has its roots in the larger prison justice and prison abolition movement, which advocates abolishing the systemic causes that have led the United States to be the largest prison colony on earth. The coalition is a member of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, which is an initiative pushing back against jail construction and jail expansion in the state of California.\n\nNetworking is key for movements to take shape. Communities, in this case hollowed out by an epidemic of incarceration, reach out and link arms with other marginalized communities and their broader struggle and visions. A small protest grows into a force that must be reckoned with.\n\nThe relentless efforts of these prison activists are paying off in Los Angeles and across the country. In December 2014, following a two-year campaign waged by Dignity and Power Now and the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to create a civilian oversight commission to oversee the Sheriff's Department. The newly elected L.A. sheriff endorsed the commission. Oversight is \"a major milestone for the troubled law enforcement agency,\" wrote the _Los Angeles Times_. Oversight makes it possible to shine a light into the dark corners of the system; it is a critical element in the struggles to make police, jails, and prisons accountable to the public and to end their unjust practices.\n\nBEYOND PRISONS\n\nAre prisons obsolete?\n\nSo asked Angela Davis in her groundbreaking 2003 book by the same name. Cullors-Brignac and many others cite Davis as an inspiration. Davis, an activist and scholar whose activism dates back to her leadership in the civil rights movement and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s, was imprisoned in the early 1970s and later acquitted. She is currently a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a leading proponent of prison abolition, arguing for decarceration and the transformation of our society to end this \"new age slavery.\" Davis sketches what an alternative to prison would look like:\n\nWhat, then, would it mean to imagine a system in which punishment is not allowed to become the source of corporate profit? How can we imagine a society in which race and class are not primary determinants of punishment? Or one in which punishment itself is no longer the central concern in the making of justice? An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment\u2014demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance. . . . Schools can therefore be seen as the most powerful alternative to jails and prisons.\n\n_\"Schools can therefore be seen as the most powerful alternative to jails and prisons.\"_\n\nDavis concludes with a caution:\n\nAlternatives that fail to address racism, male dominance, homophobia, class bias, and other structures of domination will not, in the final analysis, lead to decarceration and will not advance the goal of abolition.\n\nImagine: our tax dollars invested in schools instead of jails. Treatment for mentally ill people instead of incarceration. Poverty reduction instead of warehousing the poor behind bars. Drug decriminalization instead of drug wars. This movement is transforming our visions not just of crime and punishment but of what the structures of a just society would look like. A better future is both imaginable and possible.\n\nA BROTHER-SISTER DUO SPARKING TRANSFORMATIVE ORGANIZING\n\nWalidah Imarisha is an educator, writer, organizer, and spoken-word artist who has taught at Portland State University and Oregon State University and has been a public scholar with the Oregon Humanities Conversation Project. With adrienne maree brown, she has brought twenty organizers and activists together to create an anthology of short stories: _Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements_. She previously lived in Philadelphia, where she worked for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, which supports war resisters, and helped found the Human Rights Coalition, a group of ex-prisoners and their families who are working to change and ultimately abolish the prison system. Two decades ago, she \"adopted\" a brother, Kakamia Jahad Imarisha\u2014\"we adopted each other, actually\"\u2014who has been incarcerated in California for twenty-four years. Kakamia is an artist and had advertised his work in a San Francisco newspaper. Walidah, then a high school student, wrote to him to order some art, and \"we've been connected ever since. We're family at this point.\" That act of reaching out to someone behind bars inspires her activism around prisoners.\n\n_\"We absolutely need systems to hold people accountable for harm, but they need to be systems that are focused on restoring wholeness to the individuals in the community, rather than retribution and punishment.\"_\n\n\"I definitely learned a lot of amazing organizing lessons from him just seeing the ways that he has connected with folks on the inside,\" Imarisha says. \"It's been a really important piece to combat the images we're given around what life is like on the inside. . . . He's helping to create community within the walls . . . [and] build connections and humanity on a daily basis.\"\n\nImarisha travels around Oregon speaking to community groups about alternatives to incarceration. She frequently visits prison towns. \"I've had guards, wardens, [and] the former head of the department of corrections in my presentations. I'm just getting folks to think. A lot of folks are at a point where, for whatever their motivation, they recognize that prison systems are not protecting us, [are] not rehabilitating . . . but they have no idea that there's anything possible other than prisons.\"\n\nImarisha offers people a different way of seeing. \"We absolutely need systems to hold people accountable for harm, but they need to be systems that are focused on restoring wholeness to the individuals in the community, rather than retribution and punishment.\" She stresses the need for transformative justice systems that are focused on changing root causes. \"That's more useful than restorative justice, which is restoring back to the way things were before the harm occurred. In communities of color, this is not enough, because those communities are dealing with the systemic violence of poverty, police violence, and the school-to-prison pipeline. As we know, the best way to stop harm from being done is for people to have their needs met\u2014quality education, living wage, health care, housing\u2014and to feel connected to and empowered through their communities. So just restoring the situation to before the harm occurred doesn't address the systemic oppression that is part of the reason the harm occurred. The idea of transformative justice is that we're engaging in a process that will ultimately transform the individuals and the community into something new.\"\n\n\"Transformative justice,\" writes the community justice organization Philly Stands Up, \"recognizes that oppression is at the root of all forms of harm, abuse and assault. As a practice it therefore aims to address and confront those oppressions on all levels and treats this concept as an integral part of accountability and healing.\"\n\nImarisha advocates abolishing prison, but that does not preclude notions of prison justice and reform. \"We can't only focus on abolition and say, 'Well, we're not going to engage in reformist politics.' Because there are people on the inside every day who need to survive.\" Imarisha says reforms are useful, but only if they are in the context of a larger strategy and vision that advances the end goal of abolishing prisons.\n\n* * *\n\n**HARD TIME OUT:** THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE David Goodman\n\n* * *\n\nIn March 2007, the eighth-grade class at the Dyker Heights School in Brooklyn, New York, got a substitute teacher. Predictably, the kids got rambunctious. Thirteen-year-old Chelsea Fraser steered clear of the rowdier action, including the boys plastering the walls with Post-its. Instead she doodled on a desk with a marker, penning in block letters: \"OKAY.\"\n\nTwo days later, Chelsea called her mom, Diana Silva, from school. She was panicked. \"Mom,\" she said, \"I think I'm gonna get arrested.\"\n\n\"For writing on a desk?\" Silva laughed, suspecting teenage drama. \"Did you write a bad word?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Chelsea, a cheerful girl with a flip of black hair over one eye. \"I wrote 'okay.'\"\n\n\"Baby, tell them what you did,\" counseled Silva, a freelance graphic artist. \"You'll probably go to the principal. They might suspend you, and they will probably make you scrub the desk.\" Silva doubted it would even go that far: Chelsea was president of her class and captain of the volleyball team, and had never even been to the principal's office.\n\nTen minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was a school dean saying Silva had better come in. \"The children are being arrested,\" said the dean, telling Silva that the boys who had been stickering the walls were also headed to the police station.\n\nSilva raced to school, and four police officers soon arrived. They handcuffed Chelsea and the boys and marched them out to a police van. As she walked, Chelsea looked up to see her classmates pressed against the windows. Her teacher was crying.\n\nSilva tried to reason with the officers, who told her that writing on furniture was a crime. \"Is it a crime to be a kid?\" she shot back.\n\nAt the precinct, Chelsea was handcuffed to a pole over her head for three hours. While she was interrogated, her mother had to wait in another room. \"I was scared, I was sad, and I was embarrassed,\" Chelsea told me. \"I just wanted it to be over.\"\n\nChelsea Fraser's case is not isolated. In schools across the nation, disciplinary infractions are increasingly being turned over to police and prosecutors. Denver public schools, for example, saw a 71 percent rise in the number of students referred to law enforcement between 2000 and 2004, most for behavior such as bullying and using obscenities. In Florida during the 2005\u20136 school year, more than one-quarter of some 25,000 school-related referrals to the Department of Juvenile Justice were for disorderly conduct and trespassing. In Chicago's public schools, more than eight thousand students were arrested in 2003, almost half for simple assaults or batteries that involved no serious injuries or weapons. A full 77 percent of the arrests were of black students, although they make up just half of Chicago's student body.\n\nSchool violence is a real concern, but in many places, this fear has motivated rigid zero-tolerance policies that severely punish even minor infractions and treat them as gateway offenses to major crimes. These policies disproportionately affect students of color: black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.\n\nIn 2006, Shaquanda Cotton, a fourteen-year-old African American girl from Paris, Texas, was sentenced to seven years in prison for shoving a teacher's aide. The aide, who was not hurt, was preventing Cotton from entering the building before the beginning of the school day. Cotton had no criminal record; she ended up serving a full year. Critics noted that the judge who sentenced her had previously let a fourteen-year-old white girl charged with setting fire to her parents' house go with probation only.\n\nOne reason why students are increasingly ending up in jail is that police now patrol the halls in many schools. In New York City, the police department took control of school safety in 1998 under the Giuliani administration; by the 2005\u20136 school year, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city employed 4,625 school safety agents and at least two hundred armed officers, making the NYPD School Safety Division the tenth-biggest police force in the country\u2014larger than those of Washington, D.C., Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas. \"We are treating the kids like potential criminals,\" says Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU. In January 2008, a five-year-old named Denis Rivera was handcuffed behind his back by an NYPD school safety officer for throwing a tantrum in his kindergarten class in Queens.\n\nChelsea Fraser, for her part, missed three school days going to court, served another two days of in-school suspension, and had to pay $45 in restitution for the desk. She agreed to talk because \"I want to help everybody else who is getting in trouble.\"\n\n* * *\n\nThe Black Panther Party, she notes, had more than a hundred programs to meet basic needs within the community, including a free breakfast program and health care clinics that were part of the party's Survival Pending Revolution Program, which she says is \"really a useful framing of things. These are programs that in and of themselves [are] not going to fundamentally change the system. But if you're doing it within a radical framework that is building folks' consciousness and building the community's capacity to address its own issues, then those are moving towards revolution while still making sure that people are alive and healthy enough to be able to engage in creating that radical change on a long-term basis.\"\n\nImarisha is a keen thinker about the system she is trying to change. She cites the scholarship of Michelle Alexander, Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ruth Gilmore, and other grassroots intellectuals, including many who are incarcerated, as having shaped her analysis. That analysis draws a line from slavery to Jim Crow segregation to Third World liberation and black power movements to the explosion of the prison industrial complex. Echoing Michelle Alexander, she says, \"We can't understand the prison system and the role that it plays now without understanding the idea of controlling potentially rebellious communities that had shown that they were able to destabilize the existing order and have the potential to completely overthrow it and reenvision something new.\" To some people with power or privilege, she adds, \"that was terrifying.\"\n\nImarisha understands that the incarceration boom has its roots in the changing needs of capitalism, and she beautifully encapsulates some of the bold ideas documented by Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, Angela Davis, and others. \"Black folks were recruited from the South during the Great Migration to come and work in [northern] factories when capitalism needed them during World War II.\" Then, in the 1970s, numerous factories closed as a wave of deindustrialization swept American inner cities, causing 60 to 80 percent unemployment in some communities of color. Imarisha continues, \"Capitalism said, 'Oh, it's actually more cost-effective for us to move production overseas and exploit Third World labor.' Suddenly these black bodies that were doing this labor are no longer needed. What do you do with them?\n\n_\"Prisons are about warehousing and controlling populations that capitalism no longer needs.\"_\n\n\"As Bob Marley said, 'a hungry man is an angry man.' So how do you make sure that that anger doesn't get turned against you? . . . Prisons are about warehousing and controlling populations that capitalism no longer needs.\"\n\nHighlighting truths well documented by scholars such as Michelle Alexander, Imarisha tells us: \"People are not sitting in prison because they were selling drugs or doing drugs. There are people selling drugs across college campuses right now . . . who will never spend a day in prison. They're sitting in prison because they were selling drugs and doing drugs, and because they were poor or brown or women or trans or the intersections of them. It's not just the behavior. It's the behavior plus the identity that's criminalized.\"\n\nViolence, she argues, is not a by-product of prisons. \"Violence is the foundation of prisons\/policing. They cannot function without it.\"\n\nClaude Marks is a prison activist and the director of the Freedom Archives, which maintains audio and video recordings that chronicle the history of U.S. and international progressive movements. He says, \"There is a way in which people talk about prisons as institutions that aren't working well. The counterargument is that actually the prisons are performing the functions that they were designed to do _extremely_ well. They're not dysfunctional, but highly functional if you place them in the context of carrying out the interest of the colonial power: enforcing slavery.\"\n\n   **YOUR LIFE MATTERS. LMNOPI, Brooklyn, New York, 2014 (Photo by LMNOPI)**\n\nThe #BlackLivesMatter social media campaign was born in response to the systematic dehumanization of and state violence against black lives. Created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, and Opal Tometi, it was launched in 2013 as an online platform, designed to connect people through dialogue, collective action, and protest against racism. LMNOPI's art is dedicated to Myles McKever \"with the hope that he and other kids of his generation will grow up in a world where they will be free from fear of being targeted, harassed & brutalized by the police and vigilantes because of the color of their skin.\" #BlackLivesMatter aims to keep the racial justice dialogue alive, strengthening the black liberation movement in an effort to bring about fundamental change.\n\nTRANSGENDER PEOPLE, WOMEN, AND PRISON\n\nThe criminalization of queer people\u2014especially transgender people\u2014epitomizes how incarceration is a tool of social control and conformity.\n\nTrans people are routinely targeted by police. The Silvia Rivera Law Project, a legal advocate for transgender people, has reported: \"As a group, transgender and gender non-conforming people are disproportionately poor, homeless, criminalized, and imprisoned. Discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, healthcare, education, public benefits, and social services is pervasive, pushing transgender people to the margins of the formal economy. With few other options, many low-income and poor transgender people engage in criminalized means of making a living, such as sex work. Transgender people also encounter pervasive violence and physical brutality at the hands of family members, community members, and police because of entrenched social stigma and prejudice.\"\n\nChe Gossett (see Chapter 1), an activist who organizes around prison and LGBTQ issues and who self-identifies as a \"black trans\/gender queer femme,\" says, \"There's a lot of ways in which criminalization and the prison system have always been a site of queer struggle and trans struggle.\"\n\nGossett talks about the ways that many LGBTQ people face an inexorable slide into the prison system. \"As a young queer person growing up, I knew so many people who were kicked out of their homes as high school students. When you get kicked out of your home or you're living on the streets, you're more subject to criminalization and policing.\" Homelessness has been increasingly criminalized, so people must find a shelter to go to.\n\nGossett adds that transgender people also face the criminalization of \"walking while trans.\" Police often assume they are sex workers. When Gossett lived in Washington, D.C., \"the police in D.C. set up what are called 'prostitution-free zones' in gentrifying areas. That meant that trans women of color and\/or poor women who were walking in these areas would get harassed by the cops. It's the same logic as the drug-free zones, which is, you see a group of brown and black men in a drug free zone, they get targeted too.\"\n\n_\"There's a lot of ways in which criminalization and the prison system have always been a site of queer struggle and trans struggle.\"_\n\nGossett says that linking issues is vital to advance justice on a broad front. \"I'm really inspired by voices or organizations really centering . . . queer issues on prison justice issues.\"\n\nMoving toward decarceration\u2014reducing or eliminating imprisonment\u2014requires that we normalize transgender identities. As transgender actress Laverne Cox, perhaps best known for her role on _Orange Is the New Black_ , said on _Democracy Now!_ , \"I think the bigger picture is, how do we begin to create spaces in our culture where we don't stigmatize trans identity, where we really create spaces of gender self-determination? It is so often acceptable to make fun of trans people, to ridicule trans people . . . Look at the epidemic of violence against trans folk. . . . But how do we begin to create spaces where we accept trans people on our own terms, and really listen and let trans people lead the discussions in terms of who we are and what the discussion about our lives should be?\"\n\nWOMEN FIGHTING BACK\n\nWalidah Imarisha is one of many women who are actively working to end mass incarceration. When she was organizing in Philadelphia with the Human Rights Coalition, the membership was predominantly former prisoners and their families: \"The vast majority of our leadership were . . . working-class mothers whose children had gone to prison. Some of them were raising their grandchildren. These are the folks who are bearing the brunt at home of the prison system.\" Like many transformative movements, the passionate leadership comes from those most impacted. She continues, \"When one out of three young black men have disappeared [into prison] and an ever-growing number of young black women and young black trans folks, who takes care of the children? Who is filling that hole in the community?\"\n\nImarisha tells another movement truth: \"It's really important that we recognize that prisons disproportionately affect many more people than just who is sitting in a prison cell.\" And those most affected are building a powerful movement that is redefining the problems of our society and helping us imagine a transformed future.\n\n   **DANDELIONS RISING! Drawing by Gonji Lee of Freedom Harvest and graphic by Andr\u00e9s \"RHIPS\" Rivera from Street Inc Media, Los Angeles, 2013**\n\nThe dandelion is a wildflower known for its medicinal properties and high resiliency. The Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails hosts the artists' coalition Freedom Harvest: Rise of the Dandelions. They use the flower as a symbol for their movement of organizers, activists, and artists working to transform the ways in which state violence destroys communities of color. In their own words, \"The dandelion, like our people, can operate as a tool for healing. We see the seeds of the dandelion spreading and pollinating the messages of abolition.\"\n\n   **WE MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES SAFER TOGETHER. Micah Bazant, San Francisco, 2013**\n\nThis poster was commissioned by the organization Justice for Families to promote Night Out for Safety and Democracy. This community action was a response to National Night Out, sponsored by police and neighborhood watch organizations. The poster and campaign are intended to humanize communities of color and counter the us-vs.-them mentality of the neigh-borhood watch movement. It counters mass-media images that promote the view of poor and working-class communities of color as criminal.\n\n* * *\n\nAN ABOLITION MOVEMENT GAINS GROUND\n\n* * *\n\nRashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange.org, says, \"As a campaign organization, we've been thinking a lot about what are the points of intervention that could be systemic in terms of decreasing the power of the entities that are making money off of [incarceration]\u2014through shame, through organizing, through all the things that we're successful at.\"\n\nRobinson has a model: GLAAD (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), which focuses on changing the image of LGBTQ people in popular culture. Before moving to ColorofChange.org, Robinson worked at GLAAD as the senior director of media programs. \"So much of what happens in public policy follows culture,\" he explains. \"In terms of social movements and social change, winning people's hearts and minds is critical.\"\n\nColorofChange.org is using GLAAD's model of pressuring Hollywood to change the negative depiction of people of color in popular media, especially in the wildly popular police and courtroom TV shows. In 2013, ColorofChange.org succeeded in getting Fox Broadcasting to stop airing _Cops_ , a reality TV show that had run for twenty-five years. \"Black people will no longer tolerate dangerous and dehumanizing stereotypes,\" Robinson declares.\n\nRobinson observes that reality often mimics fiction. \"The perception\u2014the way in which black men and boys in particular, and Latino men and boys, are viewed\u2014impacts public policy decisions around prisons. Around how people can and should be treated, and who's of value. It impacts policing in our country.\"\n\nStressing what has worked in other movement victories, Robinson adds, \"Being able to have a north star\u2014something to fight for, not just against\u2014is critical to building a movement. Having an aspirational undercurrent is incredibly important.\"\n\nIf a movement knows where it is going, no matter how far it may be thrown off course, as long as it has a north star, it is never lost. The north star of this movement is a bold transformative vision: abolishing all the causes of imprisonment, from racial profiling to underfunded schools, state-sponsored violence, and the very underpinnings of white supremacy that undergird our immigration, education, and economic policies.\n\nThere are now signs of progress on many fronts in the movement to end mass incarceration:\n\n**Closing the school-to-prison pipeline.** After mounting protests over skyrocketing rates of out-of-school suspensions and criminalization of school infractions, the Obama administration released new guidelines in January 2014 to end the use of harsh punishment in schools. U.S. attorney general Eric Holder declared, \"A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal's office, not in a police precinct.\" The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign declared this effort a \"huge win for students.\" (See more on education in Chapter 2.)\n\n**Community-based alternatives to policing and prison.** In response to soaring incarceration rates and costs, a national effort is growing to provide alternatives. Some models of community-based alternatives include Safe OUTside the System (alp.org\/community\/sos), a New York City\u2013based anti-violence program led by and for LGBTQ people of color that \"organizes and educates local businesses and community organizations on how to stop violence without relying on law enforcement,\" and Creative Interventions (www.creative-interventions.org), which offers a practical community guide to stopping interpersonal violence. In addition, intensive community-based programs are now serving four youths for the same cost as incarcerating one. For example, alternative programs in Alabama reduced the number of youths in state custody by half from 2006 to 2013, and 90 percent of graduates of a program in Massachusetts had no new arrests.\n\n**California prison hunger strike.** In California, some thousands of prisoners are in long-term solitary confinement, locked in their cells for about twenty-two hours per day. In July 2013 thirty thousand California prisoners began a sixty-day hunger strike to protest this practice. This was the biggest hunger strike in the state's history. The prisoners succeeded in getting state lawmakers to hold public hearings on conditions in solitary and to consider legislation to sharply limit the use of isolation. \"There's still much to be done,\" the hunger strikers said in a statement. \"Our resistance will continue to build and grow until we have won our human rights.\" Two years later, they won an end to \"indeterminate solitary confinement\" and a dramatic reduction of people in isolation.\n\n**Marijuana legalization.** The war on drugs has been a major factor escalating mass incarceration of people of color. The movement to legalize marijuana is one of the most successful efforts to end the drug war. As of early 2015, medical marijuana was legal in some two dozen states. The District of Columbia and four states\u2014Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Colorado\u2014had legalized recreational use of marijuana. Many formerly incarcerated people, such as Rob Kampia, executive director and co-founder of the Marijuana Policy Project, are leaders in this movement.\n\nHowever, as Michelle Alexander observes, even the positive changes underscore the pervasiveness of racism:\n\nThis movement to end mass incarceration and the war on drugs is about breaking the habit of forming caste-like systems and creating a new ethic of care and concern for each of us, this idea that each of us has basic human rights. That is the ultimate goal of this movement. The real issue that lies at the core of every caste system ever created is the devaluing of human beings. . . . I'm thrilled that Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana and DC has decriminalized it\u2014these are critically important steps in shifting from a purely punitive approach. But there are warning flags. I flick on the news, and I see images of people using marijuana and trying to run legitimate businesses, and they're almost all white. When we thought of them as black or brown, we had a purely punitive approach. Also, it seems like its exclusively white men being interviewed as wanting to start marijuana businesses and make a lot of money selling marijuana.\n\nI have to say the image doesn't sit right. Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for doing the same thing. As we talk about legalization, we have to also be willing to talk about reparations for the war on drugs, as in how do we repair the harm caused. . . . We suddenly have a positive attitude about marijuana when the images of users are white. But we had a punitive approach when we thought about users as black and brown.\"\n\n**Ending mandatory sentences.** Citizens have taken the initiative to end mandatory sentencing. For example, in 2012, California voters scaled back the state's draconian \"three strikes and you're out\" law, which was sending some third-time offenders to prison for life because of relatively minor offenses.\n\n**Sentence reduction.** In 2014, the U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously voted to retroactively reduce sentences for 46,000 people serving time for federal drug offenses. Also in 2014, Californians voted to reclassify a half dozen low-level property and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, making ten thousand prisoners eligible for resentencing.\n\n**Challenging police brutality:** A wave of protest swept the United States in 2014 and 2015 following police killings of unarmed black males, from the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the shooting of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland to the choking death by police of Eric Garner in New York. \"I can't breathe,\" \"Hands up, don't shoot,\" \"This stops here,\" and \"Black lives matter\" became the rallying cries of the grassroots movement to demand change. Scenes of local police using military-style weapons against protesters sparked a backlash and calls to end the provision of military hardware to civilian police forces (more than $4 billion in military hardware has flowed from the Pentagon to local police since 2006).\n\nAlexander says that the movement to end mass incarceration must give voice to those who have been silenced. She says she is \"especially encouraged by formerly incarcerated people who are finding their voice and organizing to man the restoration of their basic civil and human rights\" in organizations such as All of Us or None and Just Leadership USA.\n\nIndeed, the movement to end mass incarceration\u2014and even end prison itself\u2014has generated new groups and promising alliances (a larger listing of groups working on prison justice can be found at our website and at www.newjimcrow.com).\n\nMichelle Alexander concludes:\n\nOur vision is for a grassroots, bottom-up human rights movement that is committed to ending mass incarceration entirely. This means more than a reduction in the rates of incarceration. It means a fundamental shift from a punitive model to a healing and transformative model of justice. . . .\n\nOur movement carries with it a vision of a society in which we value education over incarceration, jobs over jail, and a society that finds better uses for 1 trillion dollars than waging a drug war on its poorest and most vulnerable members. Our movement is one in which the voices of those who have been locked up, locked out and left behind can be heard loud and clear. We are committed to boldly employing nonviolent strategies for large-scale change, inspiring others through deeds, not words.\n\n* * *\n\n   **DUMP THE PRISON STOCK! Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde, Oakland, California, 2012**\n\nWall Street counts on \"prison stock\" as a solid investment, while prisons and jails \"rent\" or \"lease out\" prisoners as cheap labor. Melanie Cervantes created this poster for Enlace, a coalition of low-wage-worker centers, unions, and community organizations in Mexico and the United States. The poster is part of a divestment campaign aimed at the two largest private U.S. prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, which have both received billions of taxpayer dollars. _Dump the Prison Stock!_ depicts the racist and capitalist nature of anti-immigration and incarceration policies and the corporations and institutions that support it.\n\nSelf-Portrait\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nKEVIN \"RASHID\" **JOHNSON**\n\nPRISONER, JOURNALIST, ORGANIZER, ARTIST, AND THE MINISTER OF DEFENSE OF THE NEW AFRIKAN BLACK PANTHER PARTY\u2013PRISON CHAPTER. KEVIN \"RASHID\" BECAME POLITICIZED WHILE INCARCERATED. HE CONTINUES TO WRITE AND ORGANIZE ABOUT CONDITIONS IN PRISON.\n\nI am a prisoner who became politicized while incarcerated. My original state of confinement was Virginia; however, I am presently being held in Texas for Virginia.\n\nIn my political work I've produced a substantial amount of art and writing on a range of subjects, all related to struggles for social justice and empowerment and the ongoing fight against this predatory world-dominant system of capitalist imperialism.\n\nOne field of focus for me has been reporting on the barbaric conditions prevalent in U.S. prisons, which I often contrast with U.S. officials' constant self-righteous and hypocritical condemnations of human rights violations elsewhere, especially when it's in countries that they dislike, while conditions here and in U.S. prisons in particular are as bad and often much worse.\n\nThrough organizations like Prison Radio, the Real Cost of Prisons, and other outlets, including my own website (rashidmod.com), these writings and related art found a broad and attentive audience and many of those who have become actively involved are speaking out in protest against these conditions. I often receive letters of support and encouragement for shining a much-needed light into these dark places.\n\nOf course, the response from prison officials has been quite different\u2014the exact opposite, actually. The reaction typically is retaliation, and discouraging and frustrating this work. Since prison officials top the list of power holders conditioned to absolute impunity, prisons function by design to not just keep captives but also to keep the public out. This plays largely into the openly fascist conditions inside them that are the established norms. So I recognized, as do officials, that our real strength and support lies in public awareness and involvement.\n\n**What do you think is the role of art and cultural work in twenty-first-century political movements?**\n\nThe role of culture and its mediums of transmission\u2014art, literature, et cetera\u2014is a huge one. It is a major front in movement work that I feel is underestimated and underused by many people. In fact, I feel most don't grasp its role.\n\nIt is through cultural forms that the establishment trains everyone's values, views, and aspiration from cradle to grave, from toys and video games [and] art to music and theater, from schools to the so-called information media. These are all the sources and forms of transmitting cultural values\u2014they are the means of cultural influence and expression. And it is not by accident that the wealthy ruling class controls the outlets that produce them.\n\nTo counter this we must take control of similar mediums and promote through them a mass culture that emphasizes and cultivates the values of unity, diversity, tolerance, community, love, cooperation, mutual support, environmental sustainability, harmony, and protection, and all those many other \"people not property\"\u2013based values and practices that will break the mental bonds of oppressive programming. We must cast the masses in the role of the real heroes and counter our conditioned awe and emulations of the wealthy and establishment power.\n\nThis is what culture has the power to do. It's why Joseph Goebbels, the head of the German Nazi propaganda system, often repeated the words of Hanns Johst, the first official Nazi playwright: \"When I hear the word 'culture,' I release the safety catch on my gun.'\"\n\nI try to educate using both words and art to reach both irrational and emotional levels of the mind. This allows a dialectical balance of consciousness-raising, reaching many people despite the limitations of my physical conditions and availability of materials. In fact, my art has been copied, circulated, and seen on a vastly larger scale than my writings.\n\nArt makes knowledge accessible across boundaries of status, race, gender, location, and nationality, and properly used can bridge the separations.\n\nSuccess will come with the overthrow and end of all forms of oppression and exploitation of people by other people. That will come from true mass awakening and mobilization on all fronts, in which culture plays a major role.\n\nDARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN! ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!\n\nArt by Kevin \"Rashid\" Johnson in support of California Prison Strikers, Red Onion Prison, Virginia, 2011\n\n* \"Jim Crow\" refers to racial segregation laws enacted in the U.S. South following the Civil War. These laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities and disenfranchised blacks. Jim Crow remained in force until 1965, when the federal Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act officially outlawed such discrimination.\n\n\u2020 \"The term 'prison industrial complex' was introduced by activists and scholars to contest prevailing beliefs that increased levels of crime were the root cause of mounting prison populations,\" explains Angela Davis in her book _Are Prisons Obsolete?_ \"Instead, they argued, prison construction and the attendant drive to fill these new structures with human bodies have been driven by ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit. Social historian Mike Davis first used the term in relation to California's penal system, which, he observed, already had begun in the 1990s to rival agribusiness and land development as a major economic and political force.\" Angela Davis. _Are Prisons Obsolete?_ (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), 84.\n\nTHE POWER OF STORIES: THE DREAMERS AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS\n\n   **UNDOCUBUS. No Papers, No Fear: Ride for Justice, Phoenix, Arizona, 2012 (Photographer unknown)**\n\nDeportation programs, controversial laws, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) harassment, silent raids, and detentions define the recent undocumented immigrant experience. On July 29, 2012, the UndocuBus, of the No Papers, No Fear campaign, embarked on a journey from Phoenix, Arizona, to Charlotte, North Carolina, site of the Democratic National Convention. The two-month bus tour confronted power and raised awareness about anti-immigration policies. The riders were \"undocumented and unafraid\" people from all over the country, including people going through deportation proceedings.\n\n* * *\n\n   **UNTITLED. No Papers, No Fear: Ride for Justice, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2012. Banner designed by C\u00e9sar Maxit (Photo by Kris Krug, via Creative Commons)**\n\nUndocuBus riders took over a street in Charlotte, outside the arena where the Democratic National Convention was being held, to pressure President Obama to stop deportations of all undocumented immigrants. The civil disobedience action resulted in the arrest of the protesters, some of whom faced deportation. Here, activists recognize that being present in the political system often means overcoming fear and putting their own bodies on the line. They demand dignity in the campaign spearheaded by No Papers, No Fear to confront the systemic violence they experience daily as immigrants without papers.\n\n* * *\n\n_A powerful illustration of the key organizing strategy of storytelling is the DREAMers, the young undocumented immigrants who have grown up in the United States and want to attend college, drive, work, and thrive in the United States. Their courageous actions are reclaiming a language of humanity that is reshaping public conscience and sparking change in our nation's policies. Through telling our stories, we learn about ourselves and a contagious \"we\" is created; the storytellers transform themselves and give courage to others to take action. Through stories we teach each other how to organize for change._\n\n_There is much to change in the unconscionable way immigrants are treated in this land\u2014where all but the native peoples are immigrants\u2014and with their stories, the DREAMers are leading the way._\n\n_Illegal\u2014that's how more than eleven million people who live, work, and attend school in the United States have been branded._\n\n_Deported\u2014that's the fate of more than two million people under the Obama administration, which hunted down, imprisoned, and deported as many undocumented citizens in its first five years as were deported from the United States in the entire twentieth century._\n\n_Denied\u2014that's what happens to the three million children of undocumented immigrants in the United States when they attempt to attend college. Barred from financial aid or in-state tuition at public universities, a generation of immigrants has had its dreams deferred._\n\n_In the years since 9\/11, the United States, a nation of immigrants, has targeted this generation of immigrants\u2014especially people of color\u2014who work and live within its borders and who enrich our culture. Unlike the European immigrants who were fortunate enough to get visas and were welcomed at Ellis Island in New York and elsewhere following World War II, the discourse about immigration today too often is dominated by demands for higher fences, longer jail terms, and harsher penalties for the people called \"illegal.\"_\n\n_The DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act has been a beacon of hope for undocumented immigrants. First proposed in 2001 as a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth who had attended high school and lived in the United States for five years, the bill has died multiple deaths in Congress in the years since it was introduced and reintroduced. But the DREAMers fought on._\n\n_In 2010, four immigrant college students in Florida\u2014each of whom had experienced the despair and fear of being undocumented\u2014undertook a simple, bold, and creative act. It was an act that built upon years of organizing by other immigrants around the country and was deeply rooted in past struggles._\n\n_They took a long walk._\n\n_On January 1, 2010, Juan Rodriguez, Felipe Matos, Gaby Pacheco, and Carlos Roa, all in their early twenties, set out from their homes in Miami. They declared that they would walk fifteen hundred miles to the White House on a Trail of DREAMs. Their goal, like DREAMers around the country, was to bring undocumented youth out of the shadows, protest their plight as second-class citizens, stop the separation of families and the deportations, and rally support for the DREAM Act._\n\n_In Florida, these Trail of DREAMs walkers met fearful migrant workers on farms. In Georgia, they confronted the Ku Klux Klan and dared a racist sheriff to arrest them. In town after town, they were joined by undocumented immigrants who \"came out\" and marched alongside them, revealing the depth and breadth of the immigrant community._\n\n_The students marched in T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan \"Undocumented and Unafraid,\" a courageous rallying cry of the immigrant rights movement. Everywhere they went, they told their stories, publicly declaring their undocumented status._\n\n_At the White House, surrounded by throngs of supporters, they challenged President Barack Obama to stop deportations, pushed for passage of the DREAM Act, and gave hope to all the young undocumented people who were hidden in plain sight._\n\n_In 2011, Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas publicly declared his undocumented status in a cover story for the_ New York Times Magazine _. He cited the Trail of DREAMs walkers: \"Their courage has inspired me,\" he wrote in the_ Times. __\n\n_In early June 2012, in the heat of the presidential campaign, undocumented activists occupied President Obama's campaign offices in a dozen cities to demand that he stop deportations and enact the DREAM Act._\n\n_The immigration conversation soon abruptly took a leap forward. On June 15, 2012, President Obama announced that authorities would no longer deport certain DREAM Act\u2013eligible undocumented youth. It was an important victory in the larger struggle for immigrant rights. Five months later, Obama won a landslide reelection, winning 71 percent of the Latino vote._\n\n_In early 2013, the_ New York Times _pronounced in an editorial that the United States was experiencing an \"Immigration Spring\"\u2014reminiscent of the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement that had transformed the Middle East in 2011. \"It has been amazing this year to watch immigration reform, that perennial train wreck of an issue, keep rolling forward without losing steam or blowing up.\"_\n\n_Even the fundamental language of the immigration conversation changed. In April 2013, the Associated Press announced it would no longer use the term \"illegal immigrant\" in news stories, following a concerted campaign led by_ Colorlines _publisher Rinku Sen and numerous immigrant rights groups to \"drop the i-word.\"_\n\n_In November 2014, with Congress having failed to enact immigration reform, President Barack Obama announced that he would circumvent Congress and use executive action to protect nearly half of the estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants from deportation and offer them temporary legal status._\n\n_Years of organizing by countless individuals and organizations brought the immigrant rights struggle to this turning point. Millions of undocumented immigrants bravely protested in the streets over the past decade. Through this fight, they have declared that there is a limit, an ethos, a social contract._ Basta! _Enough is enough! Undocumented students attended trainings to tell their story and move people to action. Groups such as United We Dream grew from seven chapters in 2008 to sixty chapters four years later. With their bold and risky actions, young DREAMers have harnessed the power of this movement to impel a transformation._\n\n_This is the story of one group of DREAMers in this movement fighting to make their dreams a reality. Bravely telling their story, they declare their humanity and enroll others in the fight to win fundamental change._\n\n\"THERE IS POWER WITHIN OUR STORY\"\n\nGaby Pacheco has an easy smile that belies a steely resolve. The self-assured young woman strides to the microphone to address an audience during the Trail of DREAMs walk.\n\n\"I've been in the United States since I was seven years old in 1993, when I emigrated from Ecuador with my family and settled in Miami, Florida. I consider myself to be an all-American girl. I was part of the ROTC program during high school, and after graduation wanted to enlist in the Air Force. Because of my undocumented status, I could not. But I went to college and now hold a bachelor's degree in special education. There are many others like me.\"\n\nPacheco is one of the lucky ones. As a top high school student, she qualified to attend a tuition-free program at Miami Dade College. But she watched as her sister and brother were forced to abandon their dreams of getting a college education because of the simple fact that they were not American citizens and could not get financial aid or in-state tuition at local colleges. Pacheco was thrilled to be in college. But every time she went home to her family, she was reminded that this dream was still beyond reach for many other undocumented immigrants.\n\nUndocumented people often live in silence and fear. Pacheco saw unmarked white vans from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cruising the neighborhood. She heard about how they would pull up at a house and whisk away people in the dead of night. She knew that immigrants enjoyed few of the basic rights that American citizens took for granted. Her neighbors were detained in prisons and lacked access to attorneys. Midnight raids, deportation, parents taken from children\u2014are all daily threats for the undocumented.\n\nPacheco refused to be silent. \"In eighth grade I made a decision that I was going to start telling people my status and my situation because I felt that I was not the only one,\" she recounts. \"And if there were other people like me, maybe someday I'll figure it out how to fix their status. So in high school . . . friends came to tell me that they had a secret. They would say, 'I'm just like you,' or 'I don't have papers either.'\"\n\nShe continues, \"In the work that I've done as an activist, being able to reach that point of liberation and not have this fear of the what-ifs\u2014what if immigration comes to get you?\u2014allowed me at a very young age to . . . set an example to the country and other DREAMers that there is power within our story.\"\n\nWhen Pacheco enrolled at Miami Dade College, she made a vow to everyone who had confided their immigration status in her. \"I put my hand on [my first college] schedule and I made a promise that I was going to fight so that other people [would] have the same opportunity I had been given to go to college.\"\n\nPUNISHMENT\u2014AND RESISTANCE\n\nPounding on the door awakened the Pacheco family at 6:00 a.m. on July 26, 2006. It was the moment that every undocumented immigrant family dreads.\n\nSwarms of heavily armed ICE agents were looking for the young woman who had dared to speak out. They found her family instead. ICE agents marched Pacheco's parents and sisters out of the house, put them into a windowless white van, and took them to the local Department of Homeland Security building.\n\nHer sister called her from the booking center. \"Gaby, they want me to tell you that we should thank you for what is happening to us,\" she said through sobs.\n\nGaby was hysterical. She remembers, \"That was just one of the hardest things I had to hear.\"\n\nGaby immediately went to the Department of Homeland Security processing center. \"What I negotiated was that I was not going to talk to the media anymore and that I was not going to continue to do what I was doing. And under those conditions he let me go.\" The agent announced, \"I'm going to let your family go, but they're going to still go through the deportation and immigration process.\"\n\n_Midnight raids, deportation, parents taken from children\u2014are all daily threats for the undocumented._\n\nThe ICE officer got what he was really after: silence. Or so he thought.\n\n\"That really was what spurred a different type of fight in me\u2014to fight for my family,\" Pacheco says. That fight would sow the seeds of the Trail of DREAMs.\n\nPacheco responded to the threat the way she knew best: she organized. She was the student government president at Miami Dade College and founder of a campus group, Students Working for Equal Rights. When the Pacheco family was supposed to report to the offices of the Department of Homeland Security to receive their final deportation decision in 2008, Gaby determined they would not go alone.\n\nWith Students Working for Equal Rights, Gaby organized a march from Miami Dade College to the immigration courthouse. Hundreds of undocumented youth and their allies, all wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the word \"Undocumented,\" protested in front of the courthouse.\n\nArmed ICE agents stood in front of the building in a show of force. The traditionally quiet undocumented youth were shouting: \"We're not afraid! We're undocumented! We're standing together to fight for our people!\"\n\nPacheco stood, chanted, and marveled at the sight around her. The authorities wanted her and her family to go quietly. Instead, they aroused a sleeping giant.\n\n\"It was just the most beautiful thing,\" she says. The protest helped buy time for her family, whose deportation was delayed when the judge didn't show up. Several other Miami Dade College students, including Juan Rodriguez and Felipe Matos, were also at that protest.\n\n\"That entire experience of being able to put myself out there and stand in front of ICE agents at the Homeland Security building with my 'Undocumented' shirt . . . really transformed me as a leader,\" Rodriguez recalls. Like Pacheco, Rodriguez went from being soft-spoken to outspoken, from in the shadows to out of the closet.\n\n   **WHY I RIDE (El porqu\u00e9 yo viajo). Julio Salgado, Berkeley, California, 2012**\n\nThere are many faces and experiences of immigration. Julio Salgado's poster series exposes the many stories behind the lives of those who risk everything to work in the United States and labor under conditions of exploitation. Julio believes undocumented immigrants should be leading and constructing the narratives of their own struggle. _Why I Ride_ exposes the reasons for challenging unfair deportations and aims to build migrant political power.\n\nLEARNING THE CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF STORYTELLING\n\nJuan Rodriguez remembers the day when his dreams were shattered.\n\nRodriguez was valedictorian at the start of his senior year at South Broward High School in Hollywood, Florida. He excelled in math and science and planned to become an aerospace engineer. The son of a farm worker, Rodriguez was the embodiment of the American dream\u2014the notion that if you work hard, you get ahead.\n\nThere was just one problem: in the eyes of the government, he wasn't American, so he wasn't entitled to dream here.\n\nJuan Rodriguez's family fled violence-torn Colombia in 1995. Colombia was the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the 1990s (after Israel and Egypt). It was a front line in the U.S. drug war, which forced many Colombians to flee their country and come to the United States. Rodriguez's family would become another statistic in that war.\n\nOne day, armed gunmen showed up at the home of Rodriguez's family in Colombia. It was a warning. Within twenty-four hours, twelve members of his family boarded planes and flew to Miami, where they settled. Another U.S.-backed war had blown back to our shores: the members of the Rodriguez family were now undocumented immigrants.\n\nDuring his senior year of high school, Rodriguez visited his guidance counselor. Her office was adorned with posters for colleges from around the country. People told him he was destined to attend a prestigious university. The guidance counselor welcomed him inside and posed a simple question: \"What is your immigration status?\"\n\nRodriguez, who prided himself on his ability to solve tough math problems, was stumped. \"I had no idea what any of those documents were,\" he recalls. \"I had never heard of them before.\"\n\n_There was just one problem: in the eyes of the government, he wasn't American, so he wasn't entitled to dream here._\n\nRodriguez came home and asked his father for the documents so he could show his guidance counselor and continue planning for college.\n\n\"You have to go back and tell them that you don't have any of those things,\" replied his father, who spent long days picking fruit in Florida.\n\nRodriguez returned to his guidance counselor and reported what his father told him. The counselor replied bluntly, \"If you don't have these documents, then it means that you're an illegal and you're not supposed to be in the country. You're probably never going to be able to go to college because these documents are required. You should think about what you want to do when you become an adult so you can go back to your home country and pursue your education there.\"\n\nRodriguez was shattered. His grades fell, and to top it off, his father was arrested for driving without a license\u2014a common problem, since most states will not grant a driver's license to undocumented people. The double whammy of losing his college hopes and seeing his father in jail sent the high school senior into an emotional tailspin.\n\n\"Finding out that my father wasn't going to be able to attend my graduation just completely destroyed any desire in me to want to even attend,\" he recounts, the emotion still evident in his voice. Rodriguez ultimately graduated fifth out of a class of five hundred.\n\nRodriguez learned that his guidance counselor had been wrong: his strong high school performance qualified him to attend the honors program at Miami Dade College at reduced tuition. He became president of the college's student government and led a campus immigrant rights group. But he was especially moved by his experience in 2008, when he protested at the offices of the Department of Homeland Security to stop the imminent deportation of Gaby Pacheco's family.\n\n\"That campaign really radicalized me because it was the first time that our organization ordered 'Undocumented' shirts to be able to conquer the fear that we had been living in.\"\n\nRodriguez and Pacheco became close friends after the demonstration. They talked about what it would take to change the immigration system so that they and their families were not in constant danger of being arrested and deported. They knew about the tactics used by civil rights activists in the 1960s to bring change. How could they connect their struggle with past efforts?\n\n* * *\n\n**THE GREAT MIGRATION**\n\n* * *\n\n**Why Do Immigrants Leave Home to Settle in the United States?**\n\nGaby Pacheco's parents moved their family from Ecuador to Miami in search of a safer community and better education.\n\nMany workers come to the United States in search of jobs. U.S.-backed wars combined with more recent corporate-friendly U.S. trade policies have fueled migration, particularly in Central and South America. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and 2004 Central American Free Trade Agreement have resulted in deepening poverty and widespread job loss in Central and South America.\n\nJose \"Chencho\" Alas was a former Salvadoran priest who worked for the poor in El Salvador alongside Archbishop \u00d3scar Romero, the Catholic leader who was murdered in 1980 for siding with the poor peasants and denouncing human rights abuses by the Salvadoran government, which was aligned with the fourteen wealthiest Salvadoran families and the U.S. government. Alas said that \"free trade\" would do more harm to Central America than all the years of U.S. wars there. His warning has proved prophetic.\n\nTake the case of Mexico, where the extreme rural poverty rate was 35 percent before NAFTA but soared to 55 percent in 1996\u201398, following NAFTA's implementation. NAFTA removed many of the tariffs and import restrictions that protected small farmers in Mexico, allowing large U.S.-based multinational companies, which receive government subsidies, unfettered access to Mexican markets. (See Paulina Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez's story in Chapter 1). One result: Mexico went from importing 30,000 tons of pork in 1995 to importing 811,000 tons of pork in 2010, causing a loss of some 120,000 Mexican jobs in that one sector alone. Many of those pig farmers went from supporting themselves and their families in Mexico to being undocumented workers in pork factories in North Carolina.\n\nFor immigrants fleeing poverty and starvation, there is almost no alternative. \"The globalization of capital . . . has produced its corollary\u2014the globalization of labor,\" journalist Juan Gonz\u00e1lez writes. \"The wealth gap between the developed countries and the Third World has . . . fueled unprecedented mass emigration to the United States and Western Europe, as displaced peasants and impoverished workers seek a share of the torrent of profits flowing to the rich nations. . . . The result has been a dramatic ethnic and racial transformation of the working classes of Europe and the United States.\"\n\n**From One War Zone to Another**\n\nHow are immigrants received once they arrive in the United States?\n\nMany immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and Colombia fled U.S.-backed wars at home. Others fled U.S.-imposed economic warfare, only to arrive at the U.S.\u2013Mexico border, another war zone. Heavily armed Border Patrol agents, emboldened with new powers since 9\/11, prowl the air and ground in southern Arizona, Texas, and California. The U.S. Border Patrol has more than doubled in size in a decade, from 10,000 agents in 2002 to over 21,000 today.\n\nIn addition, numerous policies were implemented in 2006 that target undocumented immigrants and their employers. Among the most notorious programs is the Secure Communities Act. This law authorized local police to enforce immigration laws\u2014previously the domain of federal immigration and customs agents\u2014enabling them to arrest people on the pretext of rounding up \"criminal aliens.\" By 2014, Secure Communities had resulted in 250,000 arrests, but \"the program's effect on crime has been zero,\" reported the _New York Times._ On November 20, 2014, after much pressure, President Obama announced that he was ending the Secure Communities program.\n\nIn 2013\u201314, nearly seventy thousand unaccompanied children, many sent by parents who were desperate to have their kids escape violence and joblessness, crossed the southern border, only to be summarily deported once they were apprehended.\n\nThe crusade against undocumented residents peaked under President Barack Obama; deportations reached a record 1.5 million people in his first term alone, averaging more than one thousand deportations per day.\n\nThe vast majority of people detained on immigration charges are not criminals, but they are subjected to treatment normally reserved for mass murderers. On any given day, some three hundred immigrants are held in solitary confinement in bathroom-sized windowless cells. The _Times_ editorialized that this treatment was \"wildly inappropriate\" and that immigrants are held in \"a ramshackle network of private and public lockups, prone to abuses and lacking legally enforceable standards for how detainees are treated.\"\n\nA driving force behind the immigration detention business is private companies who profit from it. In 2012, the U.S. government spent more than $1.7 billion on detaining immigrants. About half of immigrants being detained in the United States in 2009 were held in facilities owned by private companies, according to Detention Watch Network. Those companies, such the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group (see more about these companies and the role of the for-profit prison industry in perpetuating mass incarceration in Chapter 3), spend lavishly to keep their prisons full: from 1999 to 2009, the private prison industry spent over $20 million to lobby Congress. Prison industry lobbyists have even drafted model anti-immigrant state legislation that, with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is funded by corporations and the billionaire Koch brothers, has been introduced in Arizona and around the country.\n\n\"For years, private prison firms have played a critical role in shaping public policy around immigration detention, pursuing the bottom line at the expense of basic civil rights and taxpayer dollars,\" says Emily Tucker, Detention Watch Network's director of policy and advocacy.\n\n* * *\n\n   **STOP JUAN CROW. Favianna Rodr\u00edguez, Oakland, California, 2012**\n\nArizona's anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, signed into law in April 2010, legalized racial profiling in the state. In _Stop Juan Crow_ , artist Favianna Rodriguez draws a link between the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation of African Americans after the Civil War (that ended with the civil rights movement) to the racism faced by Latinos today. The international migrant rights campaign We Will Not Comply opposes the oppressive legislation and demands full human rights for all people living in the state.\n\nMarshall Ganz was among those who helped DREAMers make the connection. In the 1960s, Ganz was an organizer with Cesar Chavez, the legendary civil rights leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, the pioneering Latino-led labor union that has fought for rights for migrant workers and others. In recent years, Ganz has been teaching at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and advised the 2008 Obama campaign on grassroots organizing strategy. In 2009, Pacheco, Rodriguez, and Felipe Matos attended trainings run by Ganz, Joy Cushman of the New Organizing Institute, and the Center for Community Change, groups that train progressive movement organizers.\n\nGanz advised the activists that their story could be their most potent tool for social change: \"Put telling your story as a central piece of the organizing process.\" He taught them the critical parts of storytelling: how to transform their personal story into a call to action, moving from \"me\" to \"we\" to \"now.\"\n\n\"I remember particularly describing how [Chavez and the farm workers] thought up our 1966 march from Delano to Sacramento,\" Ganz says. The idea of a march, with roots in the farm workers' struggle, resonated with the immigrant youth.\n\nThe Center for Community Change trainings helped mobilize networks that were just forming. In December 2008, immigrant student groups from around the country\u2014including the Student Immigrant Movement of Massachusetts, the California DREAM Network, the New York State Youth Leadership Council, and the University Leadership Initiative in Austin, Texas\u2014joined forces to form United We Dream, a national group focused on enabling immigrant youth to pursue higher education.\n\nIn October 2009, Juan Rodriguez attended a national leadership conference in New York with DREAMers and other immigrant rights activists. \"We started talking about how much hopelessness there was amongst the youth in our movement, because the DREAM Act had been introduced in 2001 and there we were eight years later without a law passed through Congress.\n\n_\"Put telling your story as a central piece of the organizing process.\"_\n\n\"Depression is a very serious issue in the immigrant youth movement,\" Rodriguez told the others. \"In 2009, there were several cases of [undocumented] students across the country who took their lives just out of their sense of hopelessness. What can we do to keep the youth alive?\n\n\"One of the people there started talking about the Underground Railroad . . . [which] gave so much hope to people who were oppressed in the South. [Black people during slavery were] benefiting from the support of a network of allies across the country who guided them along the way to freedom.\"\n\n\"Where is our Underground Railroad in the immigrant rights movement?\" asked one of the students.\n\nOne of the activists proposed an immigrant journey to freedom, a relay walk across America that would end in Washington, D.C., to call attention to the plight of the undocumented. \"Yes, we could totally do this if we really set our minds to it\u2014in about three years,\" declared another.\n\nRodriguez left the conference in despair. When he arrived home in Florida, he was greeted with the news that one of the undocumented youths he worked with had just attempted suicide.\n\n\"I went straight to the hospital and spent the entire night holding his hand as his stomach was being pumped. It hit me in that moment . . . [that] if change was ever going to happen we needed to just do it, and believe in our communities and believe that enough people in this country care about justice and equality to make it a success regardless of whether or not we have staff or funding or grants or marketing strategies for it.\"\n\nRodriguez returned to the home he shared with his boyfriend, Felipe Matos. \"I'm putting on my shoes and I'm going to start walking,\" he told Matos, who tried to talk him out of it.\n\n\"Do you have any idea what you're saying? We're talking about a fifteen-hundred-mile walk to D.C. No normal human being ever does that. How do you know you'll even survive?\"\n\n\"I don't care if I survive or not,\" shot back Rodriguez. \"Our people are disappearing. How many more until we've had enough? If there's any sacrifice I can make to keep from losing any more people, I'll do it.\"\n\nMatos urged Rodriguez to wait and enlist others in his effort. He counseled his partner to harness his rage and despair into a political act\u2014to make it a movement. Matos proposed that they embark on this political pilgrimage on January 1, 2010. \"We can start the new decade on our own terms,\" Matos proposed.\n\nThe two men raised the idea with their fellow student immigration activists at Miami Dade College. Carlos Roa and Gaby Pacheco \"immediately jumped up and said, 'Yes, I'll walk with you to D.C.,'\" Rodriguez recounts. \"They didn't even question it.\"\n\nBLAZING A TRAIL OF DREAMS\n\nFor four months, Juan Rodriguez, Gaby Pacheco, Felipe Matos, and Carlos Roa walked. Sometimes they walked alone. Mostly they drew small crowds, including many undocumented immigrants who openly joined the four students, reveling in \"coming out,\" if only briefly. They were hosted along the way by churches and supporters. They chronicled their pilgrimage through daily updates on blogs, Twitter, and other social media.\n\nAs the Trail of DREAMs participants walked day after day through conservative and sometimes hostile country, they wore their T-shirts declaring they were \"undocumented and unafraid.\"\n\n\"It was an act of civil disobedience,\" says Pacheco. \"That's what we saw that happened with the lunch counter sit-ins [in the 1960s]. That's what Rosa Parks did. We're not going to hide anymore. We're not going to be in the shadows. We're going to share who we really are.\"\n\nIn the tiny farming community of Mayo, Florida, they met farm workers who lived in daily fear of being arrested. The Trail of DREAMs walkers decided to confront this. \"We learned that in [Mayo] and the neighboring community, [immigrants] are so afraid of the police that there [were] crimes happening and nobody would do anything about it,\" says Pacheco.\n\nThe four DREAMers responded to local needs by organizing an impromptu workers' rights workshop in the community. \"We learned that there were all these workers' rights violations and people just [felt] like that was the norm until we stopped in that town to do another rights workshop,\" says Pacheco.\n\n_\"We're not going to hide anymore. We're not going to be in the shadows. We're going to share who we really are.\"_\n\nThey also met with the sheriff and the police chief. \"What are you doing?\" the four DREAMers demanded of the police officials\u2014ignoring the fact that they could be arrested at any moment. \"You're hurting your community as a whole because these people fear you so much that [they] are not reporting the crimes that are happening.\"\n\n\"We decided that the act of walking itself wasn't the most important thing, but rather really connecting with the community that we were walking through and trying to empower them,\" says Pacheco.\n\nIn Nahunta, Georgia, the Trail of DREAMs walkers encountered a rally of about fifty Ku Klux Klan members. The hooded white men were protesting the \"Latino invasion\" and called for undocumented immigrants to be sent \"back\" to Mexico\u2014despite the fact that none of the DREAMers on the walk were Mexican.\n\nThe NAACP organized a counterdemonstration attended by the four Trail of DREAMs walkers and other allies. The Klan encounter forged an important alliance. As Juan Rodriguez reflected on the Trail of DREAMs blog, \"Ultimately, the success of today was to be able to stand hand in hand with our friends from the NAACP singing liberation songs together and acknowledging our united struggle for racial justice. We ALL deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We all deserve to be acknowledged for our humanity.\"\n\nThe Trail of DREAMs linked its struggle to the larger historical movement for justice. \"We were following in the footsteps of leaders of the past who had set foundations for this type of work for equality,\" explains Rodriguez. Stopping at symbolic civil rights locations in the South, he says, they \"would talk about how the work for equality is still not over, and we need our communities to stand together in order to pass better laws that don't alienate members of the community just because of their race or ethnicity or language or anything.\"\n\n   **NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL Y CADA UNO TIENE UN SUE\u00d1O. Pancho Pescador, in collaboration with 67 Sue\u00f1os and the Community Rejuvenation Project, San Francisco, 2011 (Photo by Pancho Pescador)**\n\n67 Sue\u00f1os project organizer Pablo Paredes led a group of young migrants to clean an empty lot and paint their stories under the guidance of Oakland-based artist Pancho Pescador. Declaring that \"no human being is illegal,\" they demand an end to the labeling of immigrants without documents as \"illegal.\" The mural and the organization raise concerns about the way the DREAM Act and related immigration policy privilege certain people (for example, students), yet exclude the majority (67 percent) of immigrants. The artists painted graves of people who died crossing the border, people suffering from the fear of deportation, and youths, who have historically been left out of the immigration debate.\n\nIn Gwinnett County, Georgia, the Trail of DREAMs walkers, still sporting shirts emblazoned \"Undocumented,\" made a surprise visit to Sheriff Butch Conway, who has championed a Georgia law known as 287(g) that permits local police to enforce federal immigration rules. Critics charge that the law sanctions racial profiling and fast-track deportation. Conway declined to meet with the marchers, but the provocative visit, joined by a throng of supporters, garnered widespread media coverage.\n\nAll along the way, they told their story. Pacheco reflected on the people they spoke to; in one case, \"in two hours, this man went from hating us, wanting to hit us, and blaming us to saying, 'I'm sorry.'\" She muses, \"We were realizing the power that we had and how we were making a difference. . . . To say, 'You are my brother. You are my sister. You could be in my shoes. Let me tell you my story so that you could really understand me'\u2014our stories are the most powerful tool that we have.\"\n\nAfter four months and fifteen hundred miles of walking, the four walkers arrived in Alexandria, Virginia, only a few miles from the nation's capital. \"There were two or three blocks full of [immigrant] mothers on both sides of the road,\" recalls Rodriguez. They had followed the DREAMers' journey. \"All of them were crying and checking our legs, our arms, our hands, saying that we were a symbol, a representative of their own kids, of all of the things they ever dreamed of a future for their kids, and all of their hopes were invested in us.\n\n\"Of all moments, that was the most overwhelming.\"\n\nUNDOCUQUEER\n\nA striking feature of the DREAMers has been their embrace of the language of the LGBTQ rights movement. Undocumented youth speak openly of when they \"came out\" about their immigration status. The choice of words was intentional, says Matos. \"When we started using that language . . . that opened up that space to talk about both LGBT issues and immigrant rights issues.\"\n\n_\"'You are my brother. You are my sister. You could be in my shoes. Let me tell you my story so that you could really understand me'\u2014our stories are the most powerful tool that we have.\"_\n\nBut while the Trail of DREAMs walkers dared undocumented people to come out, they hid the fact that two of their group, Juan Rodriguez and Felipe Matos, were a gay couple. Rodriguez says the group reluctantly decided that \"for the sake of our collective safety . . . it would be best if we minimized the risk to the group by Felipe and I not being public about our relationship and not having public displays of affection.\"\n\nHe says that host churches would sometimes request that he and Matos sit separately and \"have no contact throughout the course of the event. It would put our entire institution in jeopardy.\"\n\nThe decision still pains the two men. \"The Trail was really a pretty horrible experience for both Felipe and me on a personal level because it forced us both back into the closet,\" says Rodriguez. \"Felipe and I definitely needed to have taken more of a bold stand and stand up for ourselves. . . . I just remember us feeling, 'Oh well, we're here fighting for immigrant rights. Let's not make things complicated.' But really, on a personal level, it was affecting us a lot and it hurt us a lot.\" Juan's acts of bravery continued; in 2012, Juan Rodriguez became Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez. Reflecting on this transition in 2015, Isabel wrote, \"Every single day since then has been liberating for me.\"\n\nIn contrast to their initial silence on LGBTQ issues, the group was keenly attuned to the issues of women in their movement. When cameras and reporters appeared at Trail events, Pacheco was often the one to take the microphone. That was intentional.\n\n\"We had the understanding that women are never heard,\" says Matos. \"That was our way of honoring her leadership. If you take away women from the movement, the movement will stop to exist,\" he continues, \"because they mobilize, they're leaders, they're respected in their local communities.\"\n\nNATIONAL RELUCTANCE MEETS GRASSROOTS LOVE\n\nThe young DREAMers were impatient with the mainstream immigrant rights groups and wanted to push them to take more dramatic action. The Trail of DREAMs walkers at times felt abandoned or ignored by the more established organizations, which provided little support.\n\nPacheco recalls that other activists dismissed their effort, some \"calling it a suicide mission.\" Fellow DREAMers doubted the four walkers. United We Dream organizer Carlos Saavedra recalls, \"I was like, why are they doing this? Why would you walk? I was just thinking [of lobbying] Congress members.\" He concedes now, \"I was in the wrong fight.\"\n\n* * *\n\n**LEARNING FROM OTHER MOVEMENTS**\n\n* * *\n\nThe Trail of DREAMs began in 2010. Like the larger DREAM movement and all successful movements, it has roots in learning from the rich history of freedom walks and immigrant organizing.\n\n\"We knew that we were going to use similar tactics that we had seen in the civil rights and farm worker rights movements,\" explains Gaby Pacheco. \"We have seen that it works.\n\n\"In March 1965, mostly black and a few white activists marched for five days over fifty-four miles from Selma to Montgomery, defying for a third time violent Alabama state troopers. This third march was led by Revered Martin Luther King Jr. and culminated with 25,000 people descending on the Alabama state capital to demand voting rights and justice for murdered civil rights activists. We learned that there had to be a level of sacrifice and a level of pain that had to be visible for others to realize the inhumane situations that we were going through. Just showing our deep desire by putting our bodies through this physical pain of walking 1,500 miles for four months to D.C., we were going to be able to show that we really just wanted an opportunity, wanted to change the situation that ourselves and our families are in.\"\n\nOn March 17, 1966, Cesar Chavez, then head of the National Farm Workers Association (later co-founder of the United Farm Workers with Dolores Huerta), led a 340-mile march of striking grape pickers from Delano to Sacramento. The march brought the farm workers to national attention and led to the United Farm Workers winning the strike and becoming a force in the movement for economic justice. The United Farm Workers themselves used similar tactics as past movements following, among others, the practices that the leader of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, had used to fight for the rights of native peoples against powerful landowners.\n\nJuan Rodriguez notes that they were also inspired by Otpor! (\"resistance\" in Serbian), the nonviolent youth movement that helped bring down Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 in 2000. Otpor! was famous for its creative use of public theater in street demonstrations, boycotts, and occupations. In 2009, Otpor! trainers ran a workshop in nonviolent resistance for DREAMers.\n\nThe four Florida activists also built upon the efforts of a broad immigrant rights movement that had laid the foundation for the conversation that they urgently hoped to expand. In 2006, millions of immigrants and their allies took to the streets in more than a hundred U.S. cities to demand a change in immigration policy. In Chicago, 300,000 people marched. A half million marched in Los Angeles and Dallas. On May 1, 2006, millions took part in the Great American Boycott, a one-day walkout from schools and businesses to demonstrate the importance of immigrants throughout the United States and in the economy. This general strike was a show of force by immigrants, who were opposing a wave of anti-immigrant laws that were pending in Congress. Churches, labor unions, and progressive organizations joined forces through Spanish-language radio and TV and through social networks of young Latinos using the Internet. The 2006 immigration protests were a watershed moment in the immigrant rights movement.\n\n* * *\n\nOthers have echoed Saavedra. Many of the Washington, D.C.\u2013based immigrant rights organizations thought they had a friend in the White House with Obama and were trying to play the inside power game. They now readily admit they were wrong. It was through direct action, dramatizing the human stories, that the movement got anywhere.\n\nWhat gave Pacheco and her three friends the strength to go ahead with their effort in the face of opposition?\n\n\"I learned from the suffrage movement,\" Pacheco replies. \"Women didn't have the support [and] were killed and put in jail for fighting for their rights. For us the spirit of our ancestors and the people that had fought for us in the past just gave us that push and the fire to continue.\"\n\nShe pauses, then adds, \"We have done everything we could and our friends were getting deported, our families were getting detained. . . . We didn't have any more to lose.\"\n\nFor Pacheco, there was one more all-important inspiration to take the first step on her 1,500-mile journey: \"At the center of all this was this love that we have for families, for ourselves, but also for this country.\"\n\nNEVER BACKING DOWN\n\nIn June 2010, six weeks after the Trail of DREAMs ended with a rally outside the White House, Juan Rodriguez received a surprise invitation to a meeting inside the White House.\n\n_\"At the center of all this was this love that we have for families, for ourselves, but also for this country.\"_\n\nThere was a catch: Rodriguez was the only Trail of DREAMs participant who was invited to this meeting with a small group of national advocates. He was told that he could meet the president because he had recently received permanent resident status. The others were undocumented and thus could not attend.\n\nRodriguez's instinct was to refuse to participate, but his three comrades insisted that he had to meet the president to \"represent all of the people who were excluded from the meeting and the families who were separated under Obama's deportation policies and the quotas.\" Rodriguez, acutely sensitive to the symbolism, saw the chance to bring his protest right into the White House.\n\nOn the day of the meeting, Rodriguez and other advocates were ushered into the ornate Roosevelt Room of the White House. President Obama entered and shook each person's hand in friendly greeting. The president extended his hand to Rodriguez.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I can't shake your hand,\" said Rodriguez, standing stiffly. He tried expressing to the president that his presence and demonstration of disappointment represented the families who had been separated by the deportations. But before he could speak, a flash of anger crossed Obama's face. He directed everyone to sit down.\n\nRodriguez recalls, \"It shifted the entire tone of the meeting from [being] a friendly gathering between Obama and his friends who care about immigrants to an accountability session on the president around the policies that he kept supporting, as well as the lack of leadership on . . . immigration reform.\"\n\nConfrontation and direct action had gotten the DREAMers the attention of the White House. Juan Rodriguez was not going to abandon that approach now.\n\nObama opened the meeting and was visibly annoyed. \"I'm the only one trying to help you and you're always hard on me,\" Rodriguez recalls him saying. \"You even bring Juan Rodriguez and he doesn't shake my hand.\"\n\nObama turned to Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, and complained that Bhargava had unfairly criticized him in recent blog posts. The president said the activists should focus their criticism and pressure on Republicans.\n\nThe activists did not back down. \"Mr. President, it's not just Deepak,\" said Gustavo Torres, head of the Latino rights group CASA of Maryland, as he recounted to the _Washington Post_. \"All of us are very disappointed.\"\n\n   **DEPORTING AND DETAINING PARENTS SHATTERS FAMILIES. Meredith Stern, Providence, Rhode Island, 2013**\n\nAccording to the Applied Research Center study _Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System_ , in 2011 the United States deported a record 397,000 people and detained nearly that many. This is the first national investigation on threats to families when immigration enforcement and the child welfare system intersect. It finds that \"in areas of high immigration enforcement, children of non-citizens are more likely to be separated from their parents and face barriers to reunification; and immigrant victims of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence are at particular risk of losing their children.\" Meredith Stern's print is a collaboration with _Colorlines_ and is part of the Migration Now Portfolio, which seeks to put an end to the prison detention system and the abuse of immigrants.\n\n   **IF CAPITAL CAN CROSS BORDERS. Jes\u00fas Barraza, Dignidad Rebelde, Berkeley, California, 2008**\n\nJes\u00fas Barraza's print calls for a human rights approach to migration that challenges capitalists. Multinational corporations and their \"capital\" freely cross borders. Through international government agreements, the U.S. government imposes economic policies, trade agreements, and military interventions to enforce these policies. Migration is the result of more than a century of U.S. imperialism in Latin America. If capital can cross borders, so too should people.\n\nThe activists itemized their grievances. \"There have been record deportations unlike anything that we've ever seen before. There's more collaboration between police and immigration all over the nation than there's ever been,\" Rodriguez recalls them saying. They demanded that Obama take executive action to stop the deportations and enact comprehensive immigration reform.\n\n\"The only way change was accomplished in [Obama's] first term was through outside agitation, including pushing the administration pretty heavily,\" observes Bhargava. He contrasts the progress made by immigrant rights advocates with \"how organized labor or environmentalists did in the first term. They tended to play within the rules of politics as generally run in Washington. . . . They didn't get very much for it.\"\n\nThe Trail of DREAMs was an expression of hope that powerful and time-tested forms of action\u2014personal storytelling, directly confronting power, freedom marches\u2014could move citizens and leaders to change. It was also an expression of outrage that after years of polite lobbying, conditions for undocumented citizens had markedly deteriorated.\n\nIn September 2010, the DREAM Act and repeal of the anti-gay military policy \"don't ask, don't tell\" failed to pass in the U.S. Senate\u2014four votes shy of the sixty needed to break a Republican-led filibuster. More than 250 DREAMers from across the country left the Senate gallery in tears that day. They all went back to a church and recommitted to the movement. Young activists across the country vowed to pursue a new strategy: pressuring Obama to enact key provisions of the act by executive action.\n\nMeanwhile, DREAMers elsewhere were finding success. In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California DREAM Act, giving up to 25,000 undocumented students in California access to private scholarships and financial aid.\n\nThe presidential election of 2012 offered a new opportunity to apply pressure. In April 2012, Gaby Pacheco received a surprising invitation. U.S. senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and Tea Party favorite, wanted her help drafting a bill that would offer legal status to some undocumented children.\n\nAfter meeting with Rubio, Pacheco reached out to the White House. Within hours, Pacheco and other United We Dream activists were on a call with White House aides, who did not want Republicans to score points on the immigration issue at Obama's expense.\n\nPacheco used her leverage. \"We're not married to the Democratic or Republican parties,\" Pacheco told the _Washington Post_ , echoing activists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. \"We're going to push what's best for the community.\"\n\nMeanwhile, other DREAMers were ratcheting up their direct-action protests. In June 2012, undocumented students launched a campaign of sit-ins and hunger strikes at Obama campaign offices in more than a dozen cities.\n\nThe DREAMers had the president's attention. On June 15, 2012, President Obama ordered his administration to stop deporting undocumented citizens who would be eligible for the DREAM Act. In the first two years of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as the initiative was known, 673,000 undocumented people applied, and 553,000 applications were accepted.\n\nWith the threat of deportation lifted for two years, DACA beneficiaries took swift advantage: since getting DACA status, nearly 60 percent reported getting a new job and obtaining a driver's license, and nearly half opened a bank account and increased their earnings. Many enrolled in college. The newly \"DACAmented\" went from living in fear to legally supporting themselves and their families.\n\nWhen Gaby Pacheco learned of Obama's announcement to stop deportations and start DACA, she realized that she had helped to change the culture. \"My first immediate reaction was just a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. I could finally, like, breathe.\"\n\nIn November 2014, President Obama conceded to a key demand of immigration rights activists when he declared that he would use executive action to extend legal status to some five million undocumented immigrants. Included in this is an expansion of the original DACA program, removing the original age limits and making about 1.5 million people eligible for the program.\n\n* * *\n\nACTIONS AND STORIES CREATE SPACE FOR THE LARGER BATTLES\n\n* * *\n\nDREAMers from across the country have profoundly changed the national discourse and influenced organizing tactics around immigration\u2014catapulting an issue forward using particularly well the key strategies of telling their stories and disrupting power. Deepak Bhargava says that the DREAMers have \"really reaffirmed the power of personal story and transformation. I think it has to have an impact on public conscience and dialogue and politics. It's affirmed the importance of direct action, which has been very important.\"\n\nDREAMers have changed the conversation, Bhargava says. \"They really focused on this kind of model that I think is part of all movements in a sense, coming out of 'undocumented, unafraid' . . . . It's the kind of individual transformation moving into the public sphere that requires an enormous act of courage. That was a big part of why they broke through.\"\n\nStorytelling combined with direct action transforms people into activists. Or, as Juan Rodriguez says, it \"radicalized me.\"\n\nThe work of the DREAMers continues. The goals of the immigrant rights movement have yet to be realized. For some, the goal is comprehensive immigration reform that offers a path to citizenship for the eleven million undocumented people in the United States. For others, the goal is more transformative: breaking down nationalism, borders, and the idea of citizenship itself. By the power of their actions and their stories, the DREAMers have created space for the larger battles\u2014over immigration and other social and economic struggles\u2014to be waged and won.\n\n\"The immigrant rights movement is a lever that will transform the rest of American politics and culture for generations, much like the civil rights movement was a movement that wasn't just about African Americans, it had deep ramifications for politics and culture and power,\" argues Bhargava. \"Today the immigrant movement has that kind of potential to start a workers' movement to really change politics in the country. The possibility for a real workers'\/poverty\/economic justice movement\u2014I can see the possibilities and I think the country's ready for it. That makes me hopeful.\"\n\nJuan Gonz\u00e1lez echoes Bhargava's comments: \"The beleaguered and crippled American trade union movement must be transformed into the main power center for immigrant workers . . . . Latin American immigrants can play a leading role, because many of them developed a more combative trade union spirit in their home countries, because many are accustomed to multiparty political systems back home, and because many grasp the importance of Spanish-language and other alternative media in spreading news and information to millions of 'forgotten' people. . . . The rise of a radical, democratic, and socialist alternative is indeed possible . . . and those immigrant workers will point the way.\"\n\nGaby Pacheco understands this fight is not optional. \"We are fighting for the ability to be full-fledged human beings in the only country we have known as home,\" she declares. \"When we fight for the DREAM Act, we are fighting for our lives. And when you're fighting for your life, you don't stop until you win.\"\n\n* * *\n\n   **DECLARATION OF IMMIGRATION. Salvador Jim\u00e9nez, in collaboration with Yollocalli Arts Reach and Radio Arte, Chicago, 2009 (Photographer unknown)**\n\nLocated in the city's largely Latino Pilsen neighborhood, this two-story-high, thirty-foot-wide mural is dedicated to all the activists who have advocated for immigrants' rights. It asserts that America is a nation of immigrants, that no human being is illegal, and that we should tear down all borders. Salvador Jim\u00e9nez led the youth mural art crew in a special partnership with the National Museum of Mexican Art. In an act that generated much attention, the mural was vandalized with a racist slur before it was completed. After it was repaired, the mural went on to become the backdrop for many important immigration rallies in Chicago since 2010.\n\nPhoto by ZS Grant\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nFAVIANNA **RODRIGUEZ**\n\nCULTURAL ORGANIZER, ARTIVIST, PRINT-MAKER, AND THE FOUNDER OF PRESENTE.ORG, FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ CREATES PRINTS THAT ADDRESS ISSUES RANGING FROM WAR AND GLOBALIZATION TO WOMEN'S RIGHTS. HER CURRENT PROJECT, THE PUSSY POWER IMAGINARY, SEEKS TO REDEFINE THE PUSSY AS A SOURCE OF EMPOWERMENT, DEEPENING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WOMEN AND THEIR OWN BODIES. FAVIANNA IS ALSO THE DIRECTOR OF CULTURESTRIKE, A GRASSROOTS COLLECTIVE OF ARTISTS.\n\nI've been an artist and an activist since 1999. What I do is I look at the role artists in culture play in transforming our lives, whether it's by presenting visionary stories of what our society can look like or challenging stereotypes or bias, or whether it's making an emotional connection to a viewer and therefore humanizing who we are as people living in the margins. I make art with that purpose.\n\n**What is the role of art\/cultural work and its transformative power in twenty-first-century political movements?**\n\nArt can combat the lack of multidimensional stories and content in culture as a result of racism and sexism, whether it's women portrayed in very narrow, hypersexualized ways, or the fact that you rarely see Latinos on television or in film, and what you do see of young black men or Latinos is extremely inaccurate. That creates something called \"unconscious bias.\" You see it with anti-immigration sentiment. When you begin to perpetuate that, it creates a culture of hate, a culture of bias, and a culture of dehumanization.\n\nCulture is what surrounds us every single day. What you're listening to or you're engaging with in the visual landscape, what you are reading, where you go to eat\u2014all of that is a cultural choice. You're surrounded with messages. If there is not content and messages that humanize us, then the core issue of us being portrayed in inhumane and one-dimensional ways ends up creating bad policy. Because then people don't value the lives of young black men. Or they think it's okay to warehouse immigrants because they see them as second-class people.\n\nSo the role of art is to counter this, because art can show multidimensional stories. When you show people in their complex truth, you make them human. Because we live in a culture of white supremacy, those that are seen as whole humans are white folks. You see white characters everywhere you turn. It's no wonder that whiteness is the norm. So art and culture can combat that.\n\nThe way you build that compassion is through storytelling. When you have an increasingly privatized infrastructure that's cutting our stories out, plus you have the proliferation of the right wing telling us everything from how to have sex to how we should value the lives of migrants or people of color, you need counter narratives. Not just counter communication strategies, but you actually need to speak to people's hearts. That to me is the most important role of culture\u2014that it creates a space. We humanize the issue in order to have the ability for policy to win.\n\n**How do you measure success in your cultural and artistic work, and how does that relate to the expectations of organizations and\/or movements?**\n\nThe way that movements are measuring success needs rethinking: we look at short-term engagement and we look at things like voting and how many people attend a rally, or how many people read an op-ed or whether or not Senator XYZ changes his mind. Instead, the metrics that I look at in terms of culture are outcomes. For example, by me creating a pussy power piece, or a piece about a butterfly, what kinds of conversations am I creating? What kind of ways are people taking this symbolism and adopting it, reusing it, remixing it, and putting it out there?\n\nI don't look at metrics in the quantitative way because culture is very hard to quantify. I more look at: is there a change in the way that people are thinking? Are they reapproaching the problem with a more creative set of solutions? Are they connecting more with the story? Is one cultural output creating more cultural output?\n\nI look at the way people feel. How does this experience transform the audience member? Is there a way that the organization we're working with is also transformed? Do they realize that by working with artists, they're much more effectively reaching their audience?\n\nDECOLONIZE! PUSSY POWER!\n\nFAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ. Photo courtesy of the artist\n\n\"WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!\": THE STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC POWER\n\n   **WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED. AgitArte, in collaboration with City Life\/Vida Urbana, Boston, 2010 (Photo by Kelly Creedon)**\n\nIn October 2010, the grassroots tenants' organization City Life\/Vida Urbana (CL\/VU) held an action in Copley Square, Boston, during the American Bankers Association convention to highlight the role and responsibility of Wall Street and big banks such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase in the foreclosure crisis. In the photograph, foreclosed homeowner Marshall Cooper performs in a skit where he fights an eviction, proudly asserting, \"I ain't going nowhere.\" The popular theater skit was created and performed by CL\/VU members and led by AgitArte artists. We Shall Not Be Moved is a multimedia project by visual journalist Kelly Creedon that documents families fighting to protect their homes and communities against the devastating impact of foreclosure.\n\n* * *\n\n   **FANNIE AND FREDDIE. AgitArte\/Papel Machete, masks by Deborah Hunt, Honk! Festival, Somerville, Massachusetts, 2013 (Photo by Leonardo March)**\n\nDemanding that the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) change their practices in regard to predatory lending, housing activists honk in protest. The demonstrators seek an immediate halt to foreclosures and evictions. One in three homeowners nationwide is underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their home is worth. This is the highest risk factor for foreclosure. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government-sponsored enterprises that own 59 percent of mortgages in the United States, yet refuse to offer relief for the crisis they created. For Somerville's Honk! 2013, AgitArte\/Papel Machete paired up with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a \"thirty-odd-piece New York City radical marching band and dance troupe,\" to support CL\/VU in their anti-foreclosure campaign.\n\n* * *\n\n_T oo many people are working hard and sinking deeper into debt. Over the past thirty years, the top 1 percent saw their incomes skyrocket by 275 percent. Meanwhile, many in the middle class have joined the ranks of those struggling to cover basic needs. Today more than one-quarter of the children in the United States live in poverty. Economic recovery has been limited to the rich: Oxfam, an international anti-poverty organization, reports that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans captured 95 percent of post-financial-crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer._\n\n_Warren Buffett is one of the billionaires in the top 1 percent. He makes his money primarily off of his investments. He observed that the share of taxes he pays has fallen while at the same time his secretary's taxes have risen. He said, \"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.\"_\n\n_This class war stretches around the globe: the world's richest eighty-five people now control more wealth than the bottom half of the world's population. In the United States, the four hundred wealthiest people have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of households\u2014a level of inequality not seen since 1928, a year before the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression._\n\n_\"We have now returned to Gilded Age levels of inequality,\" says Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. The Gilded Age (the 1870s to 1920s) was marked by conspicuous wealth for a few industrial tycoons and deep poverty for many. This horrible inequality sparked the rise of labor unions to fight for working people and economic justice. Over the following half-century, workers won the forty-hour workweek, the weekend, the right to organize, Social Security, and Medicare._\n\n_Today, a new generation of activists is taking action to demand economic justice for the many. Every story in this book could be seen as part of this larger struggle. This chapter features three stories of twenty-first-century struggles that directly address economic inequality and focus on changing who holds economic power: Occupy Wall Street, the anti-eviction campaign of City Life\/Vida Urbana, and the campaign by the Restaurant Opportunity Centers to gain livable wages and dignity at work._\n\n_While organizing different constituents and using different tactics, these activists all make deep connections between race, gender, and class, and they call for transforming the economy into one based on people\u2014on the needs of workers and their families\u2014instead of markets, speculation, and profits for the 1 percent. They share a common enemy in the class war. \"When we fight, we win!\" is the rallying cry of anti-eviction activists. It captures the spirit of the diverse movement to reclaim our economy, and our lives._\n\nOCCUPY WALL STREET\n\n\"On September 17, flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street.\" So began the blog post on July 13, 2011, by _Adbusters_ , a Canadian anti-consumerist magazine. The blog post proposed that twenty thousand people be part of a \"leaderless resistance movement.\"\n\nThis action was an attempt to inspire an American version of the iconic Arab Spring demonstrations that toppled rulers throughout the Middle East and North Africa earlier that year. _Adbusters_ was not the first to propose this action. Activists from Brooklyn, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Japan, the Bronx, and many more had been meeting in New York City for several months in the spring of 2011 to plan for American demonstrations. Small workgroups considered, and then dismissed, the idea of issuing a single demand, instead opting to allow many voices and ideas.\n\nSeveral organizations made calls for occupations and proposed action. At around noon on Saturday, September 17, 2011, several hundred people appeared in Zuccotti Park, a tidy open space of honey locust trees and polished granite benches shoehorned between Wall Street and the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. By evening, the group had swelled to nearly a thousand people. They held a general assembly. A few hundred people stayed overnight.\n\n_Occupying Wall Street? \"That's not going to work,\" she declared flatly. \"We are going to be there for ten minutes and then we are going to get chased out by the cops. It's going to be depressing.\"_\n\n\"We are the 99%!\" declared numerous signs. The meme stuck, and Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was launched. Within days, Zuccotti Park became the epicenter of a mass protest. Within a month, Occupy demonstrations and occupations of public spaces had occurred on every continent except Antarctica.\n\nMany Occupy encampments became thriving communities. They had libraries where books were donated. They developed communal kitchens and media and health tents. Each had a working group that helped the community function. Occupy tried not to anoint leaders. Its goal was a \"horizontal\" movement in which decisions were reached by consensus. No one\u2014and everyone\u2014was empowered to speak for the movement.\n\nThe grievances and demands of protesters were a broadside against the inequities and injustice of capitalism and were stated on homemade signs, and with puppets and other art:\n\nBanks got bailed out, we got sold out.\n\nMoney for jobs and education, not for war and corporations.\n\nProtect the planet.\n\nLet us realize a society based on human needs, not hedge fund profits.\n\nProtect schools, not millionaires.\n\nFifty-nine days after activists took over Zuccotti Park, police violently evicted the protesters in the middle of the night, posting trucks and troops to prevent reentry. The same happened all across the country. Their libraries full of books were thrown into dumpsters. Tents, sleeping bags, and kitchens were trashed. The occupation was over.\n\nWherever the fight continues, the movement spark lives on. The Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and many others have help spread a vision of a world not ruled by militaries, dictators, corporate kingpins, or markets, but rather a world of greater equity and democratic participation. \"We are the 99%\" has become a rallying cry across the globe. Occupy and the 99% have become part of our language.\n\n\"I HADN'T EVER SEEN SUCH SPONTANEOUS ORGANIZING\"\n\nManissa McCleave Maharawal's father, an immigrant New Yorker from India, told his twenty-eight-year-old daughter, \"You should go to Zuccotti Park.\" The Occupy Wall Street protest was just a few days old. The man who had long lectured his daughter about injustice was excited by what he heard of the Wall Street protests. He wondered: Could this finally be the revolution?\n\n\"No, _you_ go,\" Manissa shot back.\n\nA doctoral student in anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY) who taught courses on social movements, Manissa McCleave Maharawal was already occupied\u2014taking and teaching classes.\n\nBesides, she was skeptical. In August she had attended a planning meeting for the protest and had participated in trainings around consensus decision making. She walked out. Occupying Wall Street? \"That's _not_ going to work,\" she declared flatly. \"We are going to be there for ten minutes and then we are going to get chased out by the cops. It's going to be depressing.\"\n\nMaharawal knew firsthand the power of the police. She had attended LaGuardia High School, a selective magnet school in New York City, but this had not protected her and other students of color from being harassed by cops in their Brooklyn neighborhood. In 1999, when New York City police fired forty-one shots and killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed twenty-two-year-old black man from Guinea, \"it really made a big impact on me, thinking about the police, and thinking about the police state, and thinking about violence and thinking about all these things that I was seeing happening,\" she recounts. Soon after, she helped to organize a walkout at her high school to protest \"cops in schools and police brutality.\" That was the beginning of her activism.\n\n\"When I started at CUNY in 2008, they were just putting through a major round of budget cuts to the CUNY system, connected to the financial crisis . . . and were raising tuition. So I got involved in organizing around that.\"\n\nHer father's experience was influential. \"In India, [my dad] was really frustrated with the caste system,\" Maharawal explains. \"He came to the U.S. with really high hopes . . . that people here didn't believe in stuff like that. . . . He thought those problems were different in the U.S., around social stratification and oppression and poverty. . . . He discovered that India's caste system had stark similarities to the class system in the U.S., where privilege and power is confined to a self-perpetuating elite.\"\n\nA few days into the Occupy Wall Street protest, friends began reporting back from Zuccotti Park. One told Maharawal breathlessly, \"I went and I didn't know anyone there. It's not the same people we are used to seeing.\"\n\nThat piqued Maharawal's curiosity. Then on September 24, New York City police officers were caught on video intentionally pepper-spraying three female protesters who were already caged behind barricades. \"If the cops are taking it seriously, that's interesting,\" she thought.\n\nA week into the occupation, she biked over to Zuccotti Park. People were debating. Talking with visitors. Imagining a better world.\n\n\"I hadn't [ever] seen such spontaneous organizing and thinking happening so quickly,\" she recalls. \"Even though it was Sunday morning there were all these people walking by, tourists coming from Ground Zero . . . just milling around, reading the signs and talking to people. I was really impressed by the way that it was communicating something to passersby.\"\n\nOne encounter stuck in her mind. \"I met this guy from New Jersey, South Jersey, who had just gotten there the night before with his backpack, a black man, and he started talking to me about how he had lost his job and how mad he was and how something needs to change. He was just going to see what this was about. I think there are a lot of people who came like that. I found talking to him really moving.\"\n\n_\"He came to the U.S. with really high hopes. . . . He discovered that India's caste system had stark similarities to the class system in the U.S., where privilege and power is confined to a self-perpetuating elite.\"_\n\nA few days later, Maharawal went to a general assembly with some South Asian friends. The assembly was about to pass the Declaration of Occupy Wall Street, a bold statement of principle. As she listened, one line jumped out at her: \"As one people, formerly divided by the color of our skin, gender, sexual orientation, religion or lack thereof, political party, and cultural background . . .\"\n\n_Formerly_ divided? Maharawal surveyed the overwhelmingly white crowd.\n\n\"It totally erased any current racism or classism,\" she recounts indignantly. \"You can't erase entire histories of oppression in two words. It's not possible. It's not okay.\"\n\nMaharawal turned to her friends with a look of astonishment. She felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Her friend Hena rose to object to the offending line in the declaration. The facilitators tried to defer the issue to a later time. They warned Maharawal and her friends that blocking consensus was \"a serious act.\"\n\n\"We knew it was a serious act. And that is why we did it,\" she wrote later in the book _We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation_.\n\nMaharawal summoned her courage and addressed the assembly. She insisted that they strike the offending line entirely. The assembly debated it and finally agreed to her demand. She exhaled.\n\n\"You did good,\" her friend Sonny whispered to her as she sat down on the cobblestones. \"I wouldn't have been able to stand up in front of two hundred people or so and bring this up unless it was all of us doing it together.\"\n\nMaharawal felt a jumble of emotion. She wrote later, \"Let me tell you what it feels like as a woman of color to stand in front of a white man and explain privilege to him: It _hurts._ It makes you tired. Sometimes it makes you want to cry. Sometimes it is exhilarating. Every single time it is hard. Every single time, I get angry that I have to do this; that this is my job, that it shouldn't be my job. Every single time, I am proud of myself that I've been able to say these things because it took hard work to be able to and because some days I just don't want to.\"\n\n   **STOP EVICTIONS OF OUR ELDERS IN CHINATOWN. Christine Wong Yap for Causa Justa\/Just Cause Oakland. Printed by Jes\u00fas Barraza, San Leandro, California, 2003**\n\nIn April 2003, more than forty elderly, low-income tenants in Oakland's Chinatown received eviction notices because a developer wanted to sell their affordable housing units as market-rate condos. In response, housing activists and Chinese community groups organized to defeat the evictions and to preserve affordable housing. To \"stay in place\" is an act of defiance against centuries of displacement. On March 20, 2008, the Stop Chinatown Evictions Coalition (SCEC) celebrated a victory. After nearly five years of legal and political maneuvers, the developer agreed to a settlement that will preserve affordable housing in Oakland's Chinatown. Causa Justa\/Just Cause is a multiracial, grassroots organization building community leadership to achieve justice for low-income San Francisco and Oakland residents.\n\nShe points out that \"so often in movement work . . . where someone says . . . a pretty racist thing . . . [there] is often not space to take that on. That's been hugely frustrating for me. I've left things because of that. So the fact that at OWS there was space\u2014even if it's space that we fought for, or had to fight for and that we made ourselves\u2014it mattered hugely that there was still space for it.\"\n\nFrom that moment forward, Maharawal was all in.\n\n\"WHEN WHITE PEOPLE HAVE A COLD, BLACK PEOPLE HAVE THE FLU\"\n\nWhen Maharawal joined a group with other women to figure out how to deal with men who were dominating the talking, she was relieved to have room to speak and hear other women speak. That made her all the more aware that another issue remained largely silenced.\n\n\"I was surprised when I found out that there wasn't a people of color group . . . because it seemed like this was a place where people were really talking . . . not only about what's wrong with the world and the banks and the financial industry and capitalism, but also interpersonally. . . . Gender had been brought up but race had not been yet. Race is harder a lot of times. . . . I've had an easier time saying, 'As a woman, I feel XYZ way' . . . than saying, 'As a brown person, I feel XYZ way.'\" She surmises that in the United States, \"we live in such segregated spaces. . . . The tools we have to talk about race are so different than the tools that we have to talk about gender.\"\n\nA critical shortcoming of OWS in New York City was its failure to implement a strong anti-oppression platform that made it clear that they were against racism, sexism, homophobia, and oppressive behaviors of all kinds. In other cities, Occupy was quick to take on more explicit proposals. In an essay that went viral a month into the occupation, Arizona activist Joel Olson wrote, \"The key obstacle to building the 99% is Left colorblindness, and the key to overcoming it is to put the struggles of communities of color at the center of this movement.\"\n\n_\"Capitalism uses racism to perpetuate itself in all sorts of ways that are worldwide and local and are connected to histories of colonialism and slavery.\"_\n\nPart of the problem was obvious to anyone who participated in Occupy: eight out of ten protesters were white. Surveys by Occupy Research found that just 5 percent were Latino, 5 percent Asian\/Pacific Islander, 4 percent Native American, and 3 percent African American.\n\nAlthough fighting economic inequality is an important basis for coming together, no movement can afford to ignore the racism prevalent in the everyday lives of people of color\u2014a racism deeply embedded in our economic structures that unwittingly reproduces itself within social movement work.\n\n\"We are not going to dismantle capitalism unless we also dismantle racism,\" Maharawal insists. \"Capitalism uses racism to perpetuate itself in all sorts of ways that are worldwide and local and are connected to histories of colonialism and slavery. The ways that wealth and inequality are affecting the white middle class right now are huge, but are very different than the ways that wealth and inequality are affecting poorer working-class people of color.\n\n\"When white people have a cold, black people have the flu,\" says Maharawal, quoting an activist with Occupy the Hood, which organized many people of color in the Occupy movement. The quote highlights how the problems of economic inequality, ranging from unemployment to low wages to school funding, have fallen hardest on people of color.\n\nMaharawal says that some activists \"are really scared [that] if you start talking about the ways we are different, then you will divide people and then they won't be able to work together. I actually think the opposite. If you talk about the ways you are different and are really explicit about it, those ways don't come back and divide you later on,\" she argues. \"You can then build a movement or a group that is actually dismantling all the oppressive structures that go along with capitalism, instead of just focusing on whatever one micro thing your group is working on.\"\n\nIn a move that made many activists of color hopeful, on October 21, 2011, a large contingent from Occupy Wall Street joined Occupy Harlem, another of the many Occupy-branded offshoots, led by people of color, to protest the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy, which overwhelmingly targets ethnic minorities. In 2011, nearly two thousand people per day were subject to stop-and-frisk in New York City. Between 2002 and 2011, 90 percent of those stopped were black and Latino. Police targeting and attacking Occupy made many of the white protesters temporarily have something in common with the blacks and Latinos who know police violence daily.\n\nCONVERSATIONS ABOUT CLASS\n\nAs summer shifted into autumn, days of protest blended into nights of occupation at Zuccotti Park. A community of solidarity and outrage took shape on the sidewalks of the financial district. Working groups continued to make progress and organized an OWS library with five thousand books, a communal kitchen, a free university, a newspaper ( _Occupied Wall Street Journal_ ), and medical services. Pizzas ordered by generous supporters from around the world were constantly being delivered. Students visited daily to hear discussions about inequality, capitalism, anarchism, and socialism that were unlike anything they heard in their classes. Plans were under way about how to winterize the camps.\n\n_\"Talking about class in the U.S. is very hard because of the myth that everyone is upwardly mobile . . . and heading to the American Dream. And there is the myth that we all can become rich. This ignores the class, racial, and education barriers to mobility.\"_\n\nClass struggle was a frequent topic of debate and discussion. Karl Marx had famously written about the subject in great detail in the nineteenth century, but for many participants this concept was new. \"Occupy was about class struggle. Wealth inequality is an entry point. Class struggles focus on workers and bosses and property,\" reflected Maharawal in 2014. Some people learned about class struggle through Occupy.\n\n\"Talking about class in the U.S. is very hard because of the myth that everyone is upwardly mobile . . . and heading to the American Dream. And there is the myth that we all can become rich. This ignores the class, racial, and education barriers to mobility. 'The 99%' is a simplified way of talking about class,\" she says. It highlights how most people are in the same boat, only a few paychecks or one illness away from being on the street. In Marxist terms, the 1 percent is the \"capitalist class\" that owns the means of production and continues to hold power through inheritance and exploitation of workers and imperialism.\n\nNoted activist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky was one of the most popular authors in the OWS lending library. He wrote:\n\nThe business classes are very class-conscious\u2014they're constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. . . .\n\nIn the U.S., organized labor has been repeatedly and extensively crushed, and has endured a very violent history as compared with other countries . . . because it is the base of organization of any popular opposition to the rule of capital, and so it has to be dismantled. There are attacks on labor all the time. . . .\n\nThe enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries. CEOs are no more productive or brilliant here than they are in Europe, but the pay, bonuses, and enormous power they get here are out of sight . . . a drain on the economy, and they become even more powerful when they are able to gain control of policy decisions. . . .\n\n   **FORECLOSE ON THE 1%. Jes\u00fas Barraza, Dignidad Rebelde, San Leandro, California, 2011**\n\nBanks have systematically attacked communities of color through predatory lending, which has led to huge waves of foreclosures and the devastation of entire neighborhoods. Those who have managed to keep their homes remain trapped by underwater mortgages. At a time when the federal government and banks have failed to provide solutions for homeowners in crisis, organizing is critical. This poster was developed for actions against banks in Oakland led by housing activists and occupiers who were organizing to stop foreclosures and evictions. The demand here was a moratorium on foreclosures and that banks stop their investments in detention centers and dirty energy. Dignidad Rebelde has consistently provided graphics to advance the stories of the 99%.\n\nIt also illustrates the considerable shredding of the whole system of democracy. . . . The bottom 70 percent or so are virtually disenfranchised; they have almost no influence on policy, and as you move up the scale you get more influence. At the very top, you basically run the show. . . .\n\nSo you end up with a kind of plutocracy in which the public opinion doesn't matter much. It is not unlike other countries in this respect, but more extreme. All along, it's more extreme. So yes, there is a constant class war going on.\n\nMaharawal recalls that the Labor Working Group played a key role as one of the biggest and most active subgroups of OWS. \"Many of the marches would not have happened without this labor connection . . . and pushing unions to reclaim radical unionism and striking.\"\n\nA goal of some in OWS was to hold a general strike on May 1, 2012\u2014also known as International Workers' Day, or May Day. \"This was inspired by past labor struggles,\" says Maharawal. But the May Day general strike never occurred \"because Occupy was destroyed before it could happen and because so many unions are not as radical.\"\n\nGLOBAL NETWORKS\n\nOccupy, like all struggles, was built on the foundations laid by movements that came before it. Human beings have been grappling with issues of class, power, and democratic control of their work and economy for centuries.\n\nIn late 2010 and early 2011, protests spread first throughout Tunisia and then Egypt and other countries, where rulers were forced to resign after years in power. This was the beginning of the Arab Spring\u2014and a worldwide movement for change. On January 25, 2011, some fifty thousand Egyptians occupied Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest the thirty-year rule of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Led by students and labor unions, crowds soon swelled to more than a million. Following a violent crackdown by government loyalists and then a massive popular uprising, Mubarak was forced to resign. Measured by the amount of U.S. aid dollars, he was the biggest of several formerly untouchable U.S.-backed Middle Eastern strongmen to fall in the months that followed.\n\nWorldwide protests spread, notably in Spain, where in May 2011, _indignados_ , \"the indignant ones,\" took over public squares and buildings to protest corporate-driven economic policies and austerity measures being imposed throughout the country that cut funding for schools, health care, and jobs. \"We drew inspiration from the _indignados_ and Spanish unions and workers party,\" says Maharawal. \"Occupy is part of a continuum from Spain where they talk much more explicitly about class . . . about how we are dispossessed from our means of production by elite actors. Occupy did not necessarily go far enough. There was not enough focus on this dispossession and those who are truly very marginalized by the system. There is much more willingness to talk about class and capitalism in Europe than in the U.S. . . . People are proud to be working-class there and look down their noses on the elite.\"\n\nOccupy and the international movement challenged inequality, economic power, and the unsustainability of global capitalism itself. For the first time in decades, people in the United States began having serious conversations in public circles and the mainstream media about what alternatives to capitalism might look like.\n\nA worldwide movement was on the rise. A future was waiting to be ushered in.\n\nCLASS WARFARE BECOMES ARMED CRACKDOWN\n\nAs the fall wore on, violent clashes with the police intensified. A coordinated national crackdown on Occupy encampments was under way. Riot police in Oakland were especially violent, at one point shooting a tear gas canister at point-blank range and fracturing the skull of Marine veteran Scott Olsen, twenty-four, who served two tours in Iraq and was participating in an Occupy demonstration.\n\nOn November 15, hundreds of NYPD officers moved in force to \"clean\" Zuccotti Park. They destroyed the library, the kitchen, and all signs of the encampment. Police charged wildly into the crowd and beat protesters bloody. Maharawal found herself thrown down by a policeman in full body armor. \"I saw people walk away because they were like, 'I don't want to be hit in the head by a cop ever again,'\" she says.\n\nA week after the eviction, protesters in Zuccotti Park milled about as armies of helmet-wearing police stood watch and periodically attacked demonstrators. \"It felt very much like a police state,\" Maharawal reflects. \"We live in a police state all the time, but at this time the full force of our militarized police system was visible and turned on us.\"\n\nThe police state was, in fact, \"more sophisticated than we ever imagined,\" wrote Naomi Wolf in the _Guardian._ She reported on FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice fund that \"show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge; banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI\u2014and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire\u2014by whom? Where?\u2014now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger.\"\n\nThe armed crackdown against Occupy was reminiscent of even more brutal past state repressions such as COINTELPRO, an FBI program that began in the late 1950s and became stronger in the 1960s and 1970s. It targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the American Indian Movement, peace activists, the Black Panthers, and even U.S. senators. Anyone who was critical of capitalism or the Vietnam War and was promoting programs of racial justice was a potential target. COINTELPRO tactics included state surveillance, disruption, infiltration, and murder committed by U.S. government agents. The program foreshadowed today's National Security Agency domestic surveillance program and the collaboration between local, state, and federal agencies to infiltrate and undermine movements and organizations that support self-determination, particularly of people of color.\n\n_\"We live in a police state all the time, but at this time the full force of our militarized police system was visible and turned on us.\"_\n\nThe crackdown would be echoed in Egypt. A year and a half after Egyptian activists and the public took over Tahrir Square, the U.S.-backed Egyptian military forcibly retook the square and overthrew the elected president.\n\nOWS activists \"didn't have a chance,\" Maharawal reflects about the coordinated power of corporations, public and private security services, media, and government. Whenever and wherever the 1 percent's hegemonic control is threatened, they respond. Occupy was challenging this control of economic power and state power and the media's stories about capitalism. A popular movement was on the rise. Maharawal says we can't \"underestimate the power the state has to crush movements right now.\"\n\nOCCUPY-INSPIRED ACTIVISM\n\nOccupiers were brutally evicted from public spaces all around the United States in late 2011. But the spirit of Occupy lives on. The uprising emboldened ordinary citizens to stand up to the banks, corporations, and complicit political leaders who rule their lives and communities. Occupy allowed people to define themselves and imagine a world beyond capitalism.\n\nOccupy appeared in new guises and inspired activism in countless other ways. Occupy Wall Street morphed into Occupy Our Homes (an anti-foreclosure campaign), the Free University, Occupy Student Debt, Occupy the Department of Education (public schools), Occupy Philanthropy, and other activist organizations. Many activists in this book cite Occupy as a source of inspiration for their work.\n\nSince her days in Zuccotti Park, Maharawal organizes around a variety of issues, built on the many networks formed through Occupy. She has focused on anti-displacement and eviction organizing, which is quite related to Occupy \"even if it doesn't have the name 'occupy' in front of it,\" Maharawal says. \"This is one of the salient lasting effects of Occupy.\"\n\n   **OCCUPY THE HOOD. Kevin \"Rashid\" John-son, Amarillo, Texas, 2011**\n\nOccupy the Hood is a nationwide grassroots movement that is an extension of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and of the Occupy movement in general. It emerged in response to the lack of overall participation of people of color in the Occupy movement and its failure to recognize racism and its connections to white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, and capitalism. The artist statement, \"At the Bottom of the 99% We got Nothing . . . but chains to lose,\" is a call to a qualitative leap in the class struggle and the consciousness of people of color by targeting Wall Street and the 1 percent. Occupy the Hood's online call to action was created by Queens resident Malik Rhasaan and Ife Johari Uhuru, an activist from Detroit, Michigan.\n\nOn the second anniversary of OWS, founding member Justin Wedes reflected in the _Guardian_ : \"The crackdown on Occupy began a diaspora that continues to this day: protesters returned to their community deeply affected by the experience. Those who once shared food in the OWS kitchen now feed the hungry of the 99% in their hometowns. When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in October 2012, Occupy Sandy organized 70,000 volunteers to provide critical aid to survivors, leading the _New York Times_ to note that Occupy was 'capable of summoning an army with the posting of a tweet.'\"\n\nThe rise of the 99% continues and can be seen throughout this book and many other places:\n\n\u2022 In Richmond, California, many bold campaigns are under way to seize underwater mortgages from Wall Street firms in an effort to keep residents in their homes and increase democratic control of the local economy. Gayle McLaughlin, a city councillor in Richmond and its former mayor, once marched with Occupy. (For more on Richmond, see Chapter 6.)\n\n\u2022 Workers at Walmart and fast-food chains staged their first-ever strikes starting in 2013 to demand a living wage of $15 an hour (which was double the minimum wage that year) and better working conditions.\n\n\u2022 Following the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, demonstrators across the United States held die-ins and protests at malls on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year. Declaring, \"No justice, no profits,\" protestors drew a link between police killings of people of color and the political and economic systems that undergird the police state.\n\n\u2022 The National Domestic Workers Alliance won passage of the landmark Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York State in 2010\u2014the first law in the United States to guarantee overtime pay, paid leave, and legal protections from harassment and discrimination for domestic workers. \"We are really trying to develop a whole new generation of women workers who can provide leadership not only on issues affecting domestic workers, but on . . . what the twenty-first-century economy and democracy need,\" says alliance director Ai-jen Poo.\n\n\u2022 Voters in Seattle approved raising the minimum wage from $9.32 to $15 an hour by 2018, lifting the pay of more than 100,000 people, or one-fourth of the workforce. Similar campaigns to raise the minimum wage have passed in Los Angeles (for hotel workers), in San Francisco, and even in Republican-dominated states such as Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska.\n\nOrganizing for working-class power has been going on for a long time and predates Occupy. Two of the many cutting-edge economic justice efforts are the anti-foreclosure campaigns and the low-income-worker campaigns. Each of these struggles is made up of many organizations that work with different communities and use different organizing models. They are all battling the same war on workers' rights being waged by corporate elites. All have won important victories since Occupiers took to the streets. We share the stories of two organizations.\n\n_Organizing for working-class power has been going on for a long time and predates Occupy._\n\nSAVING HOMES, SAVING LIVES\n\nAloysius Nwankwo has lived with his wife, four children, and mother in the Grove Hall section of Boston for two decades. After his small business failed, the family struggled to pay its mortgage. In early 2013, Nwankwo came home to find a notice from Bank of America that the bank would foreclose on his home on April 10, 2013, after which he would be evicted. The Nwankwos were about to become another casualty in the national foreclosure epidemic.\n\nWhen banks peddling risky loans got into trouble, they received billion-dollar public bailouts. When working-class homeowners got into trouble, they received eviction notices.\n\nThe foreclosure crisis devastated individuals and families in the United States. Since 2008, five million homes have been foreclosed nationwide, displacing some ten million people\u2014more than during the Great Depression. By 2012, about one-third of all borrowers in the United States\u2014and half of borrowers under the age of forty\u2014were underwater on their homes (carrying mortgages in excess of the value of their house).\n\nThe foreclosure crisis has had a distinct racist tinge. Journalist Laura Gottesdiener, author of _A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home_ , observes, \"African American neighborhoods were targeted more aggressively than others for the sort of predatory loans that led to mass evictions after the economic meltdown of 2007\u20132008. At the height of the rapacious lending boom, nearly 50 percent of all loans given to African American families were deemed 'subprime.' The _New York Times_ described these contracts as 'a financial time-bomb.'\"\n\nAloysius Nwankwo refused to go quietly. His home provided shelter for his family, but it was also a source of pride and stability. Bank of America declined to sell the house to him at the current market value or allow him to remain in the house as a tenant. Nwankwo went looking for help. He attended a meeting at City Life\/Vida Urbana (clvu.org), a community organization in Boston with a forty-year track record of fighting evictions. City Life is part of Occupy Our Homes (occupyourhomes.org), a national network of anti-foreclosure groups that \"stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement and with community organizations who help the 99% fight for a place to call home.\"\n\nRacing against the eviction deadline, City Life began organizing in the Nwankwos' neighborhood. Large \"Eviction Free Zone\" signs festooned the Nwankwos' home and stretched along the street. City Life\/Vida Urbana contacted local politicians and Bank of America to alert them that they would face resistance if they went through with their eviction. The Nwankwos' private nightmare had become a public crusade.\n\n_\"The banks and investors are chasing black people out one by one. . . . Where is the outrage? We should stop this. . . . We should just take a stand. We have more power than we know.\"_\n\nThe public image of Bank of America was already tarnished. In 2012, it was one of five banks that paid $25 billion to settle charges that they \"robo-signed\" foreclosure documents (that is, they signed thousands of foreclosure documents without verifying the information to which they were swearing). In 2013, former Bank of America employees revealed that they lied to customers and deliberately denied loan modifications to eligible homeowners.\n\nHours before the Nwankwos' eviction was to be carried out, Bank of America backed down. \"Move is canceled\" was all that the bank wrote in an email to City Life organizers. The eviction blockade turned into a public celebration of people power.\n\nAloysius Nwankwo addressed dozens of supporters and politicians who had gathered in front of his house. \"The banks and investors are chasing black people out one by one. . . . Where is the outrage? We should stop this. . . . We should just take a stand. We have more power than we know.\"\n\nDozens of protesters then marched to a nearby Bank of America branch with signs that read \"Beat back bank attack!\" and \"Don't evict\u2014negotiate.\" The bank locked its customers inside while the marchers rallied outside.\n\nAfter the eviction blockade, a sympathetic benefactor offered to buy the Nwankwos' home back from the bank and then sell it to Nwankwo when he had the cash.\n\nFor City Life\/Vida Urbana organizer Steve Meacham, the Nwankwo case was more than an isolated victory. It was the power of turning a personal calamity into a movement. \"The fact that . . . the community came out to defend one of their own,\" Meacham says, \"is such an age-old, moral understanding: we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers.\"\n\nAnti-displacement organizers have succeeded on many fronts. In 2010, following grassroots pressure, Massachusetts unanimously passed tenant protections in both legislative houses that prevented banks from pressuring tenants to leave unless they could show \"just cause,\" and in 2014, a lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general resulted in the Federal Housing Finance Agency agreeing to start selling back foreclosed properties to their previous owners.\n\nSuccess confirmed City Life's strategy of having \"a practical solution for the person . . . that also challenged the system. It's accomplishing a goal that nobody thinks is possible\u2014and that wouldn't have been possible without public protest and action,\" says Meacham.\n\n\"In order to really do something about someone facing displacement from gentrification or market forces, you have to have an analysis that frees yourself of market ideology,\" he continues. \"That allows you to do very effective grassroots organizing that has an immediate appeal, but it also creates a growing group of radicalized leaders that want to go somewhere else.\"\n\nGoing to the root causes, or radicalization, in this context means that activists begin to question market-driven home ownership and sometimes the concept of private property. They begin to question who deserves the riches, who should benefit from the fruits of their own labor, and who makes the decisions. Meacham says that when effective street protest is \"combined with political and economic analysis around class, racial, and gender injustices, then that's a rich array of things that leads people to become all-around social change organizers rather than just foreclosure fighters.\" He credits the Occupy movement with changing \"the nature of the debate almost overnight in terms of pointing at the privilege of the 1 percent.\"\n\nCity Life has been doing economic justice organizing since the 1970s. According to its mission statement, it is a \"grassroots community organization committed to fighting for racial, social and economic justice and gender equality by building working class power. We promote individual empowerment, develop community leaders and build collective power to effect systemic change and transform society.\"\n\nOccupy Boston, like many Occupy sites, struggled with process and the leaderless model of the movement. Meacham insists that the problems of Occupy highlight the need for \"trained grassroots leaders . . . [who] can help orient people in these inevitable debates around how to organize a multiclass and multiracial movement . . . how to make decisions in a way that's democratic, how to be radical and yet give people the space to develop their own radicalism, how to be bold and not be male chauvinist knuckleheads.\"\n\nMeacham is critical of Occupy's leaderless movement model. \"One of the things that Occupy always said, which was really wrong, was that 'we have no leaders.' . . . That's never true. There are always leaders. The only question is whether they're accountable. We in the United States have to get over our reluctance to plan the Left,\" he says. \"Because if you don't plan it, it comes into existence anyway and you may not like what it looks like.\" Meacham says that Occupy was more than a momentary awakening. \"I think any time you have a viral explosion of something like that where people spontaneously begin to use an idea and self-organize around it, that's a movement to me.\"\n\n_\"The fact that . . . the community came out to defend one of their own,\" Meacham says, \"is such an age-old, moral understanding: we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers.\"_\n\nSome veteran activists were nevertheless ambivalent about Occupy Boston. Meacham reflects, \"There's a lot of people in City Life saying, 'Well, WTF\u2014I mean, we've been organizing protests like this for years, and we're not getting coverage because we're black.' . . . Partly that's exactly what is happening. On the other hand, can we engage [Occupy] in ways that take this energy that's potentially tremendous and was actually very valuable to our movement and influence it?\"\n\nMeacham feels that Occupy, despite its problems, was ultimately helpful. He quotes a Service Employees International Union organizer who was working closely with Occupy and who told him, \"You know, we could really carefully construct a beautiful sailing ship, but we can't create the wind. [When Occupy appeared,] the wind just arrived so we better go take advantage of it.\"\n\nORGANIZING LOW-WAGE WORKERS\n\nThe cutting edge of new labor organizing can be found among the lowest-paid workers. Restaurant and other low-wage workers have long been beyond the reach or interest of most labor unions. They are often invisible to the outside world, are frequently exploited, and endure long hours, racism, sexism, and low pay. Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC) has pioneered effective and confrontational ways to organize and improve working conditions among the lowest-wage workers who have traditionally lacked collective bargaining rights. They have taken aim at big employers and their lobbyists and scored remarkable successes against powerful adversaries.\n\n   **MARCH FOR RIGHTS, RESPECT, AND FAIR FOOD. Mona Caron and David Solnit in collaboration with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Immokalee, Florida, 2011 (Photo by Mona Caron)**\n\nOn March 5, 2011, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) called a mass convergence on the supermarket chain Publix in Tampa, Florida, as the culminating event of the Do the Right Thing Tour, in which they asked supermarket chains to support labor reforms in Florida's agriculture industry, as part of their Campaign for Fair Food. Publix, a major supermarket chain, refused to sign on to the CIW's Fair Food Program. The protest included massive street pageants with four 20-foot-tall puppets, portable murals to be used for storytelling, signs, and other objects. People testified onstage about the abuses farmworkers endure and the rights they were demanding. Among the many events around this campaign, the farmworkers organized and staged a _m\u00edstica_ , an allegorical theater piece originating from the Brazilian landless movement, which narrated the story of CIW's alliances and victories over thirteen years of struggle.\n\nSaru Jayaraman is co-founder and co-director of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (rocunited.org). ROC-NY was founded after the 9\/11 attacks as a way to help surviving workers from restaurants located in the World Trade Center, including Windows on the World, where seventy-three employees died. In 2006, ROC opened a cooperatively owned and run restaurant, Colors. ROC workers not only ran the restaurant but also established free training programs for other struggling restaurant workers.\n\nIn 2008, ROC expanded into a national organization, ROC-United. ROC-U now has more than thirteen thousand worker members in twenty-six states and has won more than $10 million in financial settlements and improvements in workplace policies.\n\nJayaraman explains the challenging landscape confronting ROC: \"The restaurant industry right now is the second-largest private sector employer in the United States. It's over ten million workers. One in twelve Americans work in the restaurant industry. It's absolutely the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy.\"\n\nWhile many restaurant chains are reporting record sales, this good fortune has not been shared with the workers. The restaurant industry is \"the absolute lowest-paying employer in the United States,\" says Jayaraman. And restaurant workers typically lack benefits such as paid sick days and adequate health insurance.\n\n_\"The NRA has created a situation where restaurants can engage in de facto legal gender pay inequity because 60 percent of all tipped workers in America are women.\"_\n\nWell-connected lobbyists have played a key role in keeping wages low. The National Restaurant Association\u2014\"the other NRA,\" quips Jayaraman\u2014has led the fight against reform in the industry. The trade association, formerly headed by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, spent $2.7 million on lobbying and gave $1.3 million in political donations in 2012. The NRA has helped to keep the minimum wage for tipped workers frozen for two decades at $2.13 an hour.\n\nBut the very notion of \"tipped workers\" is a misnomer: many supposedly tipped restaurant workers receive little or no money in tips. According to Jayaraman, they are simply \"single moms who are earning $2.13 an hour and living in extreme poverty. They have three times the poverty rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce and use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce. Which means the women who feed us can't afford to feed themselves or their families,\" says Jayaraman. \"The NRA has created a situation where restaurants can engage in de facto legal gender pay inequity because 60 percent of all tipped workers in America are women. . . . The industry has found a way to pay women in particular about a third of what they pay everybody else.\" She explains that these are \"largely women who work at diners, IHOP, Applebee's, Olive Garden, working graveyard shifts and raising children. One in four restaurant workers are parents.\"\n\nJayaraman notes that restaurants have the \"highest rate of sexual harassment of any industry in the United States.\" Many young women get their first jobs in the restaurant industry and \"are introduced to the world of work in the situation where they can be paid less than $3 an hour, where they can be touched and spoken to inappropriately and it's completely normalized . . . where they can be yelled at and screamed at, where they have no benefits, and they have to work when they're sick. . . . This is the way we're introducing young women to the world of work.\"\n\nROC is pushing back on multiple fronts. The group has won more than thirteen campaigns against exploitation in high-profile restaurant companies. In 2008, ROC helped win $4 million from Fireman Hospitality Group, a large New York City restaurant owner, to settle claims of stolen tips and wages, sexual harassment, and discrimination. In 2012, Darden Restaurants, the world's largest casual dining company (it owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and other national chain restaurants), announced that it would limit workers' hours in order to avoid paying for their health care under President Obama's Affordable Care Act. Two months later, the company canceled the plan after ROC and others protested and profits plunged 37 percent in response to the bad publicity generated by the protests. This successful disruptive movement strategy reveals a vulnerability that business owners have to the power of direct action. Workers can leverage that power.\n\n   **NEW DAY, NEW STANDARD. Marisa Mor\u00e1n Jahn for Studio REV, in collaboration with Domestic Workers United and MIT's Center for Civic Media, New York City, 2012**\n\nNew Day, New Standard is a cross-media art project and interactive hotline that informs nannies, housekeepers, elder-care providers, and their employers about the landmark Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights, passed in New York State in November 2010. Domestic workers have been excluded from the protections of labor laws in the United States since the 1930s, when such laws were first enacted. More than 600,000 people in the New York City area are domestic workers suffering under racist, sexist, and anti-immigrant structures that prevent many from receiving respect and fair compensation for their labor. Domestic Workers United engages in political action and community activism and educates workers about their rights. Studio REV is a nonprofit art organization that combines sound research and bold ideas to produce creative media to impact the lives of low-wage workers, immigrants, women, and youth. MIT's Center for Civic Media partnered with the New Day, New Standard team to adapt VoiP Drupal, an open-source mobile tool kit, to the project.\n\nToday, ROC is working nationally to win paid sick days and raise the federal minimum wage, including for tipped workers. But does raising wages fundamentally change a system that exploits workers?\n\nFor Jayaraman, \"structural change isn't just the Fair Minimum Wage Act. It's in the long term having a table . . . where workers have equal voice to employers and where workers are . . . setting the wages and working conditions for the entire industry at the national level. . . . It's about ongoing voice and power.\"\n\nA COMMON ENEMY\n\nOne way ROC knows it is making a difference is that it is being attacked. \"Every year the National Restaurant Association names ROC as one of their top five or six policy priorities to shut down,\" says Jayaraman, pointing to the anti-ROC website rocexposed.com, which launched in 2012 with funding from major restaurant owners. In 2014, _Salon_ obtained internal NRA documents that revealed that the organization \"provides $600,000 in additional support for the ongoing project to combat the tactics of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers, or ROC, and the new industry reputational campaign.\" The NRA has also alerted its members to Jayaraman's book signings and media appearances.\n\nJayaraman indicates the keys to ROC's success: \"You don't win big things by having small ambitions. We're focused on changing standards in some of the largest and fastest growing restaurant companies because they can set a different standard for the industry.\"\n\nROC sees its organizing in the context of a larger movement for social and economic justice. \"The NRA plays such a huge role . . . on transparency and] . . . corporate pay. . . . Bringing them down to size and reducing their role in our democracy does have much broader implications than just workers in our industry.\" The NRA is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), through which it creates model legislative bills that are beneficial to corporate leaders and increase their power over workers (see [Chapters 3 and  for more on ALEC). ALEC and the NRA are powerful lobbies through which corporations and billionaires get their will done in state legislatures and Congress. The consolidation of power of these CEOs and their attack on workers' rights has been very successful\u2014at least for the personal fortunes of the CEOs. From 1978 to 2011, the annual pay for workers rose 5.7 percent. The annual income of CEOs during this period rose 726.7 percent.\n\nOf the broader fight, Jayaraman says, \"Are we a nation that is going to roll over and let corporations control our democracy and our economy, and even our bodies as women? Is this what we're going to accept as a nation?\" Her answer is clearly no. If you don't fight, you lose.\n\nThe NRA is also fighting the Service Employees International Union, which is aggressively organizing low-wage workers at fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and Burger King. These workers are striking to demand a living wage of $15 an hour, which is nearly double the federal minimum wage paid at many fast-food restaurants\n\n\"We have common enemies in groups like the National Restaurant Association (NRA), which deal with the Monsantos and the Grocery Manufacturers Associations of the world,\" Jayaraman said. \"When we target our common rivals and let our elected officials know that their obligations are not only to huge food corporations, that's when we demonstrate power and that's when we win.\"\n\nJayaraman thinks and links big. As part of organizing low-wage workers, ROC has an active presence in the sustainable food and in the racial and gender justice movements, and many ROC workers participated in Occupy protests.\n\n\"This being the second-largest industry in the United States, we've partnered very closely to frame these issues as broader civil rights issues,\" says Jayaraman. \"We definitely see ourselves as very much a part of a broader progressive movement for change.\"\n\n   **NUESTRO LABOR MANTIENE LA ECONO M\u00cdA DEL MUNDO. Favianna Rodr\u00edguez, Oak-land, California, 2008**\n\nUnderstanding that workers of the world generate the profit of capitalists is a starting point for any critical analysis of the transformations needed in our economic system. Exploitation and ownership of the means of production by the capitalist class fuel a class struggle that is irreconcilable without a revolution of the economic and political systems that define our lives. This piece was originally developed for an international gathering of immigrant rights advocates that took place in Mexico City in 2008. It speaks to the imperialism of First World nations and workers, specifically immigrants, who are the engine of production in the world.\n\n* * *\n\nWHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!\n\n* * *\n\nWhat has the economic justice movement accomplished?\n\nOrdinary people now talk openly about capitalism and inequality. As Occupy press team member Mark Bray wrote in the Occupy anthology _We Are Many:_\n\nWe have managed to initiate an unprecedented national conversation about economic justice and democracy, revive a long-dormant tradition of civic participation, and rejuvenate the American left. More \"concretely,\" we've prevented foreclosures across the country and directly assisted successful labor campaigns.\n\nOWS participant and writer Ryan Harvey offered another view of the movement's accomplishments:\n\nOccupy's greatest achievement might be that it declared, in a popular language and with great public support, that the financial system of unregulated capitalism and corporate control over life is the key political and economic problem we face today. That analysis existed before either in private or public only in what would be considered fringe circles. Now it's out in pop culture, and it's controversial to not recognize the problem.\n\nSasha Costanza-Chock, an assistant professor at MIT who visited, trained, and surveyed Occupy encampments around the country as part of Occupy Research, observes, \"I think that the most important impact of Occupy is actually in the radicalization of a new generation of activists inside the U.S. . . . in a similar way that the global justice movement ended up developing a whole generation from Seattle forward.\n\n\"I'm sure when people look back in a few years,\" he continues, \"what they'll find is that there [were] a large number of people who came through Occupy and then moved on to become engaged in some other type of organizing effort.\" Occupy, concludes Costanza-Chock, is \"sort of like a giant open university for social movement participation.\"\n\nSteve Meacham of City Life\/Vida Urbana says that the economic justice movement succeeds when it tackles bigger issues of injustice and inequality. \"People like the idea that they're basing their struggle around building something larger than themselves. They'll more readily share their personal struggle if it's not just about their personal struggle.\"\n\nMeacham says that in the anti-foreclosure struggle, \"you can't fight rent increases and evictions (real estate firms and banks) without objecting to the capitalist market. If you accept market principles, if you say the fair rent is the market rent, then you might as well not even get into the battle because you've lost already.\n\n\"For people who are fighting to save their homes, they have to go through a process of radical transformation if they haven't already in order to do the most basic fight. They have to challenge the market. They have to struggle with what it means. The fight against the capitalist market grows organically out of the most basic struggle to save people's homes.\"\n\nChallenging injustice is the beginning of change. Meacham recounts, \"When I was working in the shipyard twenty-five years ago, we heard of a struggle in Germany where there was a big effort to propose other kinds of products to keep shipyards open other than for navy ships. The workers engaged in this radical act of taking over a shipyard that the owners wanted to close in Bremen, West Germany, and they hung this huge sign from the gate that said, 'If you fight, you may lose. If you don't fight, you've already lost.'\n\n\"That was the first time I heard something like, 'When we fight, we win.' We started using that phrase at City Life\/Vida Urbana because it symbolized the fact that even though we don't win every battle and we don't win everybody's case, when we fight, we still win. Because people who even fight and lose would rather have fought than not fought. The movement always grows out of each fight.\" Other movements have used the powerful slogan as well.\n\nDisruption and deep roots are key elements of the fight. Sociologist, Occupy activist, and author Frances Fox Piven observes that Occupy, in its brief history, lacked the reach in \"diverse groups of workers and students and the poor\" and lacked the \"strategies of disruption that gave earlier movements some power\" to effect transformative structural change:\n\nThe great movements of the American past did much more than communicate their point of view. They mobbed the house of the rich, helped steal the slave property of the south, shut down the mines and factories and even occupied them, rioted in the biggest cites.\n\nPiven takes the long view and is ultimately hopeful about Occupy and movements for economic power:\n\nEvicted from the squares and parks it occupied, [activists under many auspices have] moved to connect with community and worker struggles, to demonstrate against banks, to block evictions resulting from foreclosures. . . . Numbers alone will not give this protest movement the leverage it needs to halt or slow down or turn around predatory financialized capitalism with global reach. More likely it will have to discover or rediscover the strategies of disruption that gave earlier movements some power. . . . They identified the leverage that people who are usually on the bottom side of cooperative relationship might have over the people on the top side.\n\nEconomic justice struggles of today face similar questions: How can people transform society and create an economic structure that is not based on one class profiting and ruling over the many? How can activists respond to the violent crackdown of the state that occurs whenever the power of the ruling class is threatened? How can activists tear down the structures that enslave, exploit, and impoverish the majority?\n\nThe anti-foreclosure campaigns, the struggles by restaurant workers, Occupy Wall Street, and other movements in this book each suggest what a global mass movement centered on people, not corporate profits, might look like. Each of these movements critiques capitalism, sees a common enemy, and proffers\n\npaths for struggling families to gain economic power, changing how society configures power.\n\nTheir transformative visions echo Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:\n\nWe must rapidly begin the shift from a \"thing-oriented\" society to a \"person-oriented\" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.\n\nBold visions that fight to win address the root causes of power and create opportunities for economic democracy and participation by all people in decisions that affect their lives, particularly the most historically excluded populations: the working class, people of color, and women. Transformative organizations advance visions of a generative economy that provides meaningful employment, with workers having democratic participation and control in their workplace and in society. Frances Fox Piven writes, \"Social transformation in the pursuit of equality, inclusion, democracy, and social justice requires that we find ways to take back the wealth stolen from ordinary people here and elsewhere by capitalist elites, especially the wealth stolen from those who are the worst off among us.\"\n\nTwenty-first-century movements demonstrate that protest\u2014fighting everything from foreclosures to unlivable wages to inequality to capitalism to racism\u2014can catch fire and burn hot.\n\nOne night after a long session with Occupy Wall Street activists in Zuccotti Park, Manissa McCleave Maharawal biked home over the Brooklyn Bridge. \"I somehow felt like the world was, just maybe, at least in that moment, mine\u2014as well as everyone's . . . who needed and wanted more from the world. I somehow felt like maybe the world could be all of ours.\"\n\n* * *\n\nPhoto by Erik McGregor\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nLILY **PAULINA**\n\nLILY PAULINA IS A FEMINIST, ACTIVIST, UNION ORGANIZER, AND MEMBER OF THE RUDE MECHANICAL ORCHESTRA (RMO), A NEW YORK CITY\u2013BASED RADICAL MARCHING BAND AND DANCE TROUPE. THROUGH THEIR MUSIC, RMO STRIVES TO BRING JOY AND INSPIRATION WHILE PLEDGING TO FIGHT RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA, WAR, AND VIOLENCE IN ALL FORMS.\n\nI play the trombone with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO), a consensus-based collective with a diffuse leadership structure. We support street actions by playing music and amplifying messages, drawing attention to social justice organizations and groups of people fighting oppression and exploitation in different ways. We do that by playing songs, supporting chanting, disrupting business, or by making people angry if that's what's needed. It's hard to get the attention of New Yorkers. A live band makes people stop and look.\n\n**You can send very strong messages with lyrics and songs of political content, but there are very few groups that actually commit to the political work. The RMO has taken on that challenge. What do you think should be the role of artists in twenty-first-century movements?**\n\nLike Toni Cade Bambara said, \"The role of the revolutionary artist is to make the revolution irresistible.\"\n\nRude Mechanical Orchestra started in 2004 out of feminist organizing to try to get people in the street for the March for Women's Lives, and using music to express anger and draw attention.\n\nWe are in a time of crisis, especially economic crisis, of inequality in our world right now. As a band, getting people to find the energy and the places to get in the fight is really important. We hope it makes it more fun and helps people to get in the streets and stay there.\n\nThat's the feedback that the RMO gets after every action. Yesterday we were marching with families whose family members have been murdered by the NYPD. Hearing them say \"Thank you so much, it's still good to dance and be angry\" drives our work. We know that music makes it easier for people to do that march from Union Square to Times Square. We're happy to help boost energy. It makes a huge difference.\n\nIn the big picture, things are bad and getting worse in a lot of ways. It feels like we're losing. Low-wage workers, who are disproportionately women of color, are at the lowest rung of the white supremacy ladder and suffer the most. It feels like a bleak time right now, but the RMO is a solidarity organization and we see ourselves supporting groups that share our politics, helping them stay engaged and fight burnout and helping their voices be heard. When they win, that's success for us.\n\n**When did you decide to be clearer about messaging in terms of the visual work of the band?**\n\nSometimes, especially when we're in a place where there are other bands, it just feels like a party and nothing else. We wanted to make sure that if you walk through a crowd, people are able to see our politics even if they don't listen to us. Really thinking about people being able to get our politics in a lot of different forms is important. We message in two ways: with our music and with the visual images we project as a band. We spend a lot of time thinking about which songs we play, who those artists are, and what their politics are. We think about what chants work best with each song, and what a given song can bring to a situation in terms of mood and energy\u2014what people will think and how will they feel when they hear us.\n\nIn recent years we've gone back to the riot grrrl approach, where if someone takes a picture of you, you don't want them to be able to make that just a picture of a cute girl who's a musician, but that any visual would convey some of your politics. We've felt very pushed by the media. I actually ended up on the cover of a Harvard Square Business Association report one year. That was the moment for me personally where I was like, \"Okay, I am going to make a glove that says, 'Fuck the profit motive,'\" because if I had that on, I would not be on the cover of the Harvard Square Business Association as their poster girl.\n\nJOINING A LONG LEGACY AS THE SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION!\n\nHonk! Festival of Activist Street Bands, Boston, Massachusetts, 2014. Photo by Jesse Edsell-Veter\n\nENVIRONMENTAL WARRIORS: GOING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM\n\n   **FIRST NATIONS PROTEST HARPER. #IdleNoMore protest on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 2012 (Photo by Andre Forget, QMI Agency)**\n\nOn December 21, 2012, more than a thousand First Nations demonstrators gathered at the Canadian Parliament to protest legislation that would erode indigenous sovereignty and environmental protections\u2014an action that helped shut down a major downtown Ottawa street. Canadian premier Stephen Harper's economic agenda would fast-track the sale of their land to polluting extractive industries. The women-led movement demanded: \"It is time to be Idle No More.\" The social media campaign has been driven by indigenous youth who are well connected and deeply committed to preserving their land, language, and culture.\n\n* * *\n\n   **PROTECTING OUR MOTHER FOR OUR UNBORN CHILDREN.** Gregg Deal, Washington, D.C., 2013 This poster draws inspiration from a photograph of a First Nations anti-fracking protest in New Brunswick. A kneeling Amanda Polchies is seen raising an eagle feather to hold off heavily armed police. Polchies said her action represented a \"wisp of hope.\" The photograph, by Ossie Michelin, went viral and became the image for the anti-fracking movement in Canada. Hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, involves injecting noxious chemicals into the ground to break out oil and gas deposits. This practice has caused increased seismic activity and contamination of land and water supplies. Gregg Deal is an artist, activist, and member of the Paiute tribe of Pyramid Lake. Throughout his work the artist advances discussion and education about issues of decolonization.\n\n* * *\n\n_I n response to the climate crisis, communities, especially ones traditionally excluded from power structures, are organizing to create an unprecedented global movement to defend their rights to health and well-being and attack the root political and economic causes of the crisis._\n\n_Forging new alliances between mainstream environmental organizations, indigenous groups, and diverse grassroots activists and organizations, the currently evolving environmental movement has seen many successes: stopping construction of coal- fired power plants, blocking fracking for natural gas in numerous areas, stalling the construction of toxic oil pipelines, and challenging fossil fuel companies, and the banks that fund them, with a national divestment campaign. These transformers interrupt powerful economic systems, exposing those who profit as they destroy lives and homes. In addition to addressing problems, the environmental movement creates solutions: activists are developing practical energy systems, promoting large-scale renewable power, implementing local community-based sustainable structures that transition communities away from fossil fuels, and creating transformative visions._\n\n_The advances in the environmental movement take place against an increasingly urgent backdrop of worsening climate change. Still, polluters, governments, and international bodies\u2014led especially by U.S. energy companies\u2014fight hard to maintain the status quo._\n\n_The climate crisis forces much-needed questions: How can international environmental justice groups stop destructive, consumptive, undemocratic, corporate- driven, global economic and political systems? How will we create new systems to save the life of the earth? Can the world sustain capitalist society?_\n\n_A new generation of creative change-makers is tackling these questions, disrupting power, and advancing alternative visions that uncover the root of our environmental destruction by linking with other issues. This chapter includes three inspiring stories: Idle No More, an indigenous group leading the fight against the destruction of native lands in Canada; the innovative \"leader-full\" resistance of350.org; and the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union._\n\nThe group of marchers looked tiny against the backdrop of industrial-scale destruction. Chemical smells permeated the air as the marchers snaked slowly through the desertified landscape of the tar sands of Alberta. Huge towers belched black smoke that spiraled into the mouse-gray Canadian sky.\n\nThis apocalyptic landscape of mine tailings and denuded earth is the epicenter of the Canadian tar sands, where multinational energy companies are now prowling in search of the world's next big oil bonanza.\n\nThe dirty job of extracting oil from sand is so energy-intensive and toxic that renowned NASA climate scientists and activists on the front lines of communities devastated by the tar sands industry in North Dakota agree that our quality of life on this planet will be destroyed if the tar sands are fully exploited. It is ecocide.\n\nThis crowd of people had gathered for a Healing Walk. They assembled outside Fort McMurray, a tar sands boomtown, to reclaim and heal something precious to them: the earth. The indigenous women of Keepers of the Athabasca organized this effort to reclaim their community from environmental devastation. Many of these women were part of a native-led environmental justice group, Idle No More, which formed to fight climate change and environmental exploitation and to lead \"a peaceful revolution to honor indigenous sovereignty, and to protect the land and water.\"\n\nClayton Thomas-M\u00fcller, a Native Canadian who is co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign of the Polaris Institute, was master of ceremonies of this Healing Walk. He described the experience of walking through his homeland in _Yes!_ magazine:\n\nThe landscape was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I walked past a tailings pond [an open pond of mining refuse and chemicals] so big that it covered the horizon for miles, fed by a 24 inch wide pipe spewing a yards-high flow of liquid hydro-carbon waste so toxic that water fowl who land in it die within minutes. We saw from up close the hellfires of the Suncor\/Petro-Canada stacks, with their 50-foot flames shooting up into the sky. I wondered what madness allowed Suncor to build them 500 meters away from the precious Athabasca River, which so many First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities depend on for water.\n\nAs we walked, I pondered all of the battlefields facing the emerging international movement to stop the tar sands. I was overcome by the magnitude of our undertaking, picking a fight with the most inhumane and wealthiest corporations on the planet . . . .\n\nNo, I thought, that cannot work. This beast must be smothered to death at the source.\n\nSmothering \"the beast\"\u2014corporations and governments that are destroying the environment and accelerating climate change\u2014has proven fiercely difficult. Thomas-M\u00fcller says that going to \"the source,\" colonialism and capitalism, has been daunting, but it is a necessary part of our essential task to heal the earth and its people.\n\nIndigenous people have taken a leadership role in the fight to address the underlying conditions that need to be changed for environmental and social justice. \"We told the heads of every environmental organization in the continent and their funders that in the end, it's going to be First Nations asserting sovereignty and Aboriginal title over their land that's going to stop the tar sands. They laughed at us, they scoffed at us,\" Thomas-M\u00fcller recalls of his experience in 2006. Then in 2009, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (aka the Waxman-Markey bill), a legislative effort to reduce carbon emissions, was defeated in Congress. Environmentalists were stunned and demoralized.\n\n_\"We told the heads of every environmental organization in the continent and their funders that in the end, it's going to be First Nations asserting sovereignty and Aboriginal title over their land that's going to stop the tar sands.\"_\n\n\"That's when Bill McKibben from [350.org] called me up at the Indigenous Environmental Network and said, 'Hey, we heard you were organizing some Native American chiefs that are concerned [enough] about the Keystone XL Pipeline to go get arrested at Obama's house, the White House.' He said, 'We want to join you and support you,'\" recounts Thomas-M\u00fcller.\n\nIn 2011, indigenous and environmental groups together organized what Thomas-M\u00fcller calls \"the largest act of civil disobedience since the Vietnam War on the steps of the White House.\" Protesters called on President Obama to stop Keystone XL, the 1,700-mile-long pipeline that will open the floodgates of dirty tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, and carry it to the Gulf of Mexico.\n\nFollowing the White House protest, McKibben wrote, \"A few months ago, it was mainly people along the route of the prospective pipeline who were organizing against it (and with good reason: tar sands mining has already wrecked huge swaths of native land in Alberta and endangers farms, wild areas, and aquifers all along its prospective route). Now, however, people are coming to understand\u2014as we hoped our demonstrations would highlight\u2014that it poses a danger to the whole planet as well. After all, it's the Earth's second-largest pool of carbon, and hence the second-largest potential source of global warming gases after the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.\"\n\nThousands of protesters from all fifty states and Canada descended on the White House for the 2011 protest, and more than twelve hundred people were arrested, including Native American leaders. It was a momentous sign of civil disobedience and convergence. The once-isolated tar sands struggle, Thomas-M\u00fcller reflects, had \"become the lightning rod of the U.S. climate movement.\"\n\n\"LED BY NATIVE PEOPLE ON THE FRONT LINE\"\n\nFor Clayton Thomas-M\u00fcller, environmental justice is deeply personal and rooted in his community. A member of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, Canada, he had been working on gang and poverty issues in his community. \"It was a natural transition to go from working on the front line of human rights work into the environmental justice and eventually the climate justice movement. Because the answer [to] 'Why are we so damn poor and oppressed in our homeland?'\u2014all roads lead to the same forces causing climate change: it's big oil, it's big mining companies, it's big timber companies that have decimated our land that put us where we are.\"\n\nThomas-M\u00fcller sees his work in the climate fight as part of a larger social justice mission. The Healing Walk \"represented a very, very strong spiritual right hook into the cheek of those that are fanatical in their belief in the neoliberal free market agenda that is currently dominating our economic paradigm here in the socalled developed industrialized West. It represents a different phase of resistance . . . one that will see a very strong spiritual core . . . that cannot be defeated by the ridiculous propaganda that Big Oil, in partnership with the federal government of Canada and to a certain degree, the government in the United States of America, continues to put out to try and sell this dirty energy source across the planet.\n\n\"One of the beautiful things that the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign has brought to the world\u2014because it has become one of the most visible environmental campaigns ever\u2014[is that] it's led by native people on the front line. No matter who's shaking hands in D.C. . . . native people have led this charge and we'll be the ones at the end to win this victory.\"\n\nThomas-M\u00fcller stresses that the climate justice movement will only advance if it forges links with other struggles in attacking the root political and economic causes of the environmental crisis. \"The lesson here is that by converging struggles in a solidarity framework rooted in anti-racism, anti-oppression, and anti-colonialism\u2014and by creating economic and political initiatives uniting urban and rural centers\u2014as social movements, we can wield the power. That's never been seen by our oppressors.\n\n\"No matter what we do moving forward,\" he goes on, \"we need to develop economies that don't force people to have to choose between clean air, water, and earth or putting food on the table.\"\n\nBUILDING \"LEADER-FULL\" MOVEMENTS\n\nBill McKibben has been thinking about tough choices, both personally and within the climate justice movement in which he is a leader\u2014albeit an ambivalent one. McKibben was a staff writer for the _New Yorker_ in the 1980s when he first researched and wrote an article about climate change. He was startled and disturbed by what he learned. In 1989, he went on to author _The End of Nature,_ the first major book about the threat of climate change.\n\n_\"Why are we so damn poor and oppressed in our homeland?\"_\n\nMcKibben increasingly grew frustrated at the lack of action to address climate change. He had eloquently expressed the problem but had failed to move people to solve it. He decided to take action: he would undertake a long march to call attention to the issue, much as the Trail of DREAMs immigration activists and the Healing Walkers had. On Labor Day weekend 2006, McKibben was joined by enthusiastic students from Middlebury College and concerned local citizens and embarked on a climate march from his hometown of Ripton, Vermont, to Burlington, Vermont.\n\n\"Reading the story in the paper that said that the one thousand people we got to Burlington after five days of walking might have been the biggest climate rally in U.S. history\u2014that was shocking,\" McKibben says. \"I guess that must be one reason why we're losing.\"\n\nSince that walk, McKibben has gone from astute observer to climate movement organizer. In 2008, McKibben and student activists founded 350.org with the goal of \"building a global climate movement.\" The organization is named for 350 parts per million (ppm), the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if we are to preserve a livable planet, according to some climate scientists. The rising levels of carbon dioxide, currently 400 ppm, in recent decades are largely due to the increase in the use of fossil fuels.\n\nOn October 24, 2009, 350.org organizers in 181 countries staged 5,200 demonstrations to demand action on climate change. CNN called it \"the most widespread day of political action in our planet's history.\"\n\nIt was a remarkable display of grassroots power. The protests were intended to bring pressure on international climate negotiators who were meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 to enact strict limits on carbon emissions. But the Copenhagen negotiations ended in disarray.\n\n   **THE TRUE COST OF COAL. Beehive Design Collective, Machias, Maine, 2010**\n\nIn 2008, the Beehive Design Collective, working with Appalachian organizers fighting mountaintop removal coal mining, designed _The True Cost of Coal._ Mountaintop removal is a practice in which mountains are destroyed to reach thin seams of coal. This poster is a storytelling and educational resource that \"depicts the complex relationships between industry, commerce, society and the natural world that are inseparable from the fight to end mountaintop removal. The large-form pen-and-ink image transitions from scenes of undisturbed wilderness to industrialized madness.\" Beehive Design Collective is a Maine-based collaborative artists group with a mission of \"cross-pollinating the grassroots.\"\n\n   **GREAT LAKES TAR SANDS RESISTANCE. Pat Perry, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2013**\n\nFor this poster, artist Pat Perry depicts four activists who locked themselves to construction equipment on July 22, 2013, to disrupt the expansion of Enbridge's Line 6B pipeline, which carries tar sands oil. This pipeline burst two years earlier into the Kalamazoo River, causing the largest land-based oil spill in U.S. history. Enbridge, an energy delivery company based in Alberta, Canada, is responsible for seven hundred other spills in the past decade. The artist worked with the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, a direct-action coalition against the extraction, transportation, and refining of tar sands. Tar sands oil requires three times more energy to produce than conventional oil and discharges three times the amount of CO2.\n\n* * *\n\n**ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE 101**\n\n* * *\n\nProfessor Antwi Akom, associate professor of Africana studies at San Francisco State University and the co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational, and Environmental Design (I-SEEED), discusses environmental justice.\n\n**What Is Environmental Justice?**\n\nEnvironmental justice is the idea that climate change most adversely affects our nation's most vulnerable populations\u2014the same people who are left out of our economic and political structures. It is embedded in social justice and public health and is intertwined with land use and transportation decisions.\n\nEnvironmental justice activists know that where the ghetto begins bike share and Zipcar end.\n\nEven though climate change is one of the highest-stakes transformative issues of our time, the climate change movement remains highly homogenous by race and class and significantly by gender in its leadership. Even in 2014, climate and sustainability conferences held around the world consistently feature mostly all-white male casts in leadership positions as well as mostly white people in attendance. The irony here is that people of color have always cared about climate change and, more often than not, are the first ones to most directly feel its impacts.\n\nEnvironmental justice activists analyze the connections between the oppression of people with the least power\u2014including the poor, immigrants, women, and people of color\u2014and the degradation of the earth. They focus not only on the regeneration of nature but also on healing communities and innovating ways to transform educational, economic, and environmental ecosystems. Instead of viewing the impacts of global warming solely through the data gathered by scientific experts and portrayed by national policy makers, they perceive and analyze climate change through people's lived experiences, art, poetry, storytelling, and community-based research.\n\nEnvironmental justice activists understand the power of local knowledge. And they understand that the experiences that people of color have about living with multiple environmental health hazards and chronic disease is one of the fundamental assets they can contribute to the movement against climate change. It is often a key resource the community organizes around to avoid being exploited and exposed to health risks and social toxins.\n\nWhen communities of color engage in climate activism, their primary goal is often to help themselves and their communities by generating usable or actionable knowledge\u2014information that goes beyond description and analysis and suggests proactive or precautionary intervention strategies. By taking action to transform the social and material conditions in their communities, community members build self-respect, self-confidence, and self-determination.\n\nAlthough the environmental justice movement is evolving in the twenty-first century, there remain enormous barriers to collaboration between environmental justice activists and the climate change movement. These barriers\u2014bred in corporate boardrooms, born on plantations, and reared in brownfields\u2014underscore America's continued reluctance to invest in black and brown innovators and black and brown communities.\n\n**What Is the Relationship Between Race, Gender, Class, and Climate Change?**\n\nWorldwide, poor people and people of color disproportionately suffer from higher morbidity and mortality rates from extreme water scarcity, heat waves, air pollution, and the \"heat island\" effect of urban areas. They are also disproportionately impacted by higher costs for food, transportation, land use, electricity, unemployment, underemployment, and seismic economic shifts. For example, in their 2008 report _A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S._ , J. Andrew Hoerner and Nia Robinson wrote, \"African Americans are 13 percent of the U.S. population and on average emit nearly 20 percent less greenhouse gases than non-Hispanic whites per capita. Though far less responsible for climate change, African Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects than non-Hispanic whites.\"\n\nWomen, specifically women of color, are disproportionately impacted by disasters and environmental degradation caused by global warming. Women make up approximately 70 percent of those living in poverty, and low-income women, women of color, and immigrants will be most impacted by the severe weather events, heat waves, and increases in disease rates that will characterize the earth's changing climate.\n\nWe've known for a long time that there's been a gap between eco haves and eco have-nots. We've known that race and class have determined who gets left behind with respect to housing, health care, education, and all of the systemic ways that climate change really impacts our communities.\n\nWhat we're really just seeing is the reproduction of structural and systemic inequality and the ecological impacts of that reproduction. I call it eco apartheid.\n\n**What Will It Take to Create a More Inclusive Climate Justice Movement?**\n\nThe diverse and collective response necessary to counterbalance special interests in oil and coal will require the engagement and organizing of more people on the ground, from many different walks of life. We must forge new partnerships, build new frameworks, create new organizing models, and develop new technologies that connect seemingly disparate issues and address the systemic inequities and chronic dilemmas facing communities, people, and ecosystems across the planet. Those who are suffering the most should have a powerful voice in choosing how these issues are addressed. They should be involved at the individual and community levels, for without this on-the-ground community engagement, broad political power cannot be built and sustainable progress cannot be made.\n\nThe work of creating a climate justice movement for everyone is in large part about moving the margins to the epicenter. Poor people and people of color, who often live in the most toxic communities, are the first in line for the negative impacts of climate change, and therefore stand to benefit substantially from a more sustainable energy future.\n\nIt is critical for well-resourced organizations with the perceived authority on climate issues to step out of their comfort zones and engage poor people, people of color, and constituencies who bring different knowledge and assets to the shifting terrain of the climate crisis. Corporations and industries benefiting from the pollution-based economy will always have more money to tilt the scales in their favor with respect to political and regulatory issues. The climate justice movement's biggest counterforce is to engage everyday people from across the spectrum of U.S. society.\n\n* * *\n\nCopenhagen, says McKibben, \"should have been the place, if this had been written by Hollywood, where the world comes together and agrees on fighting the aliens and goes to work. But none of that happened. It was a complete and utter bust . . . for me, redeemed by all the great kids that 350.org brought. They were wonderful.\"\n\nThis is the challenge: the climate justice movement has achieved remarkable success in getting out its message and mobilizing people to attend demonstrations. But it has failed to disrupt the production or use of fossil fuels or bring about meaningful reform that would turn the tide of the steadily warming planet.\n\nHas the climate movement been transformative?\n\n\"Well, no\u2014I mean, so far, we're losing,\" McKibben replies in his typically self-effacing manner. \"The Arctic melted last summer. The temperature keeps rising.\" But he acknowledges the movement's potential power. \"I don't think we're quite big enough yet to have turned the tide, but we're getting closer. And if I were the fossil-fuel industry, I'd be somewhat less confident.\"\n\nMcKibben says the biggest success of the climate movement is \"education\u2014finally getting the idea out there that this is a big problem.\"\n\nMcKibben has helped reframe the issue of climate change in everyday terms that people understand. Climate change is \"a crime with a criminal, and that criminal is the fossil-fuel industry\u2014getting that idea out has been very important,\" says McKibben. It \"unites people at the local level . . . [from] someone who has a coal plant in their backyard and all their kids are dying of asthma, with people who have deep concern about the larger climate picture.\"\n\nOne of McKibben's contributions to this strategy was an article that he wrote in _Rolling Stone_ in 2012, \"Global Warming's Terrifying New Math.\" The article went viral and helped spark a brushfire of activism. \"A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and . . . the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods,\" McKibben wrote, citing these dire new developments to squarely focus movement energies on targeting the economic underpinnings of Big Oil. \"The fossil fuel industry has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.\"\n\n_\"Mother Nature can take a large amount of credit for that. In one sense, it's a very difficult movement because it has a time limit.\"_\n\nMcKibben quips that \"the movement can take a certain amount of credit\" for its global reach. But he adds with a soft laugh, \"Mother Nature can take a large amount of credit for that. In one sense, it's a very difficult movement because it has a time limit. . . . If it doesn't get done what it needs to get done quickly, it won't matter. On the other hand, it has an ally like no other . . . in the sort of endless supply of teachable moments that nature is now providing.\"\n\nA key problem for the movement is scaling up. \"We're making it big fast, but whether that's happening fast enough is not clear,\" says McKibben.\n\nThe elephant in the room for climate activists is the perverse logic of capitalism: the fact that it's extremely profitable to pollute. \"There can be no real answer to our climate woes that doesn't address the insane inequalities and concentrations of power that are helping to drive us toward this disaster,\" McKibben wrote in 2013.\n\nMcKibben sees a tandem effort to bring about climate justice and fundamental economic and political change. \"There's nothing we could do as important as putting a really serious price on carbon. . . . The basic effect would be a rapid decentralization of power and wealth in this country because the logic of renewable energy is so different. . . . In a real world that ran on solar panels, a lot of things would look very, very different.\"\n\nIn 2012, McKibben traveled the country on a national Do the Math bus tour, spreading the word about the alarming speed with which climate change is happening, and pushing the case to ratchet up the tactics to confront it.\n\nMcKibben and others, including fellow author and activist Naomi Klein, decided to take their challenge to the pocketbooks of the world's fossil fuel industry. They helped launch a national campaign calling for individuals, pension funds, universities, and others to withdraw their investments from the two hundred fossil fuel companies with the biggest carbon reserves. The campaign was modeled on a divestment effort a generation earlier mounted by a global anti-apartheid movement that pressured the racist government in South Africa to end apartheid.\n\n   **YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO READ THIS POSTER. Rachel Schragis, Brooklyn, New York, 2012**\n\n_You Shouldn't Have to Read This Poster_ is a flow chart about \"the stuff we need to know about climate change besides the suffering that it causes\u2014its history, politics and science. It's also about tactics for resistance to climate change.\" The image was designed for 350.org's Do the Math campaign of education and organizing. Launched in the fall of 2012, this nationwide divestment campaign targeted fossil fuel companies, recognizing that individual actions to reduce emissions are simply not enough to stop the climate disaster.\n\nThe fossil fuel divestment campaign quickly gained traction. By 2014, more than three hundred college campuses had divestment groups, and universities, including Stanford, began divesting. Numerous cities\u2014including Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Monica in California\u2014divested all or part of their stock portfolios of fossil fuel companies. Seventeen foundations with combined assets of nearly $1.8 billion committed to divest. And in a move rich with symbolism, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropy with almost $900 million in assets that was created by the grandchildren of the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Sr., announced in September 2014 that it would divest its fossil fuel holdings.\n\n\"John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, moved America out of whale oil and into petroleum,\" said Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. \"We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy.\"\n\n_\"They put a refinery in the middle of a city full of poor people. They had an explosion there [in 2012] and they texted like five thousand people. Basically, the text was, 'Hold your breath. There's bad stuff leaking out.'\"_\n\n\"Ultimately the divestment campaign has been very successful, partly because it started with a real burst of energy. Impatience helped drive that. I think a sense of urgency is very important in social change,\" offers May Boeve, executive director of 350.org.\n\nBREAKING DOWN BARRIERS OF RACE AND CLASS\n\nMcKibben spent much of the summer of 2013 on the road on a campaign that 350.org dubbed Summer Heat. The campaign evolved, making linkages between national environmental movements and local groups that are working on environmental and economic justice. The tour ended at a Chevron refinery in Richmond, California, a particularly potent symbol.\n\n\"This refinery in Richmond is a perfect example of environmental injustice on a massive scale,\" McKibben says. \"They put a refinery in the middle of a city full of poor people. They had an explosion there [in 2012] and they texted like five thousand people. Basically, the text was, 'Hold your breath. There's bad stuff leaking out.' That's crazy, so that's reason enough to protest it. But Chevron also gave the largest corporate-campaign contribution post _\u2013Citizens United_ [the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions] before the 2012 election to make sure the House stayed in the hands of climate deniers. It was successful. Chevron also is the villain in this endless, ongoing fight in the rain forests of Ecuador. So from any perspective you look at them, it demands that kind of solidarity.\"\n\nIn 2014, Chevron spent more than $3 million in an effort to elect a pro-Chevron mayor and slate of candidates to the Richmond City Council. Chevron spent about $72 per registered voter, outspending their opponents twenty to one. When the votes were counted, a slate of four progressive candidates claimed victory. Chevron had failed.\n\nRichmond has lately become a model of how to challenge both climate change and economic injustice. Solar Richmond is a nonprofit organization self-described as being \"committed to breaking down barriers of race and class as we promote the green economy.\"\n\n\"Solar Richmond is not only building solar panels, but building worker co-ops that produce solar panels . . . in an . . . economically viable and more sustainable way so that there's not the same level of pollution. They have a different model of capitalism, so that we're really creating communities that actually own the means of production rather than [just being] consumers. The green economy is going to have to move in that direction in order to not reproduce the same kinds of inequality that we've seen in the pollution-based economy,\" San Francisco State University professor Antwi Akom notes.\n\n   **LIBERTY FOR ALL. Julio Salgado from Culture-Strike, in collaboration with Tina V\u00e1squez, Oakland, California, 2014**\n\n_Liberty for All_ is a weekly online comic strip by Culture Strike artist Julio Salgado and writer Tina V\u00e1squez. It features a queer, undocumented college graduate named Libertad Mart\u00ednez, who cannot get a regular job because of her immigration status. In the strip, the artists reflect on the fact that, even though there is trendy rhetoric on \"sustainability,\" green solutions are not new to communities of color. Sustainability, as a popular discourse in contemporary economics and politics, often ignores systemic problems of capitalism. Climate crisis must be understood as a product of the capitalist need to conquer new markets\u2014including the \"green\" one\u2014and does not offer effective solutions to planetary sustainability.\n\n   **STORY-MEMES FOR THE PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH. Joe Solomon for Energy Action Coalition, New York City, 2014**\n\nOn September 21, 2014, 400,000 people took to the streets of New York City to demand action to end the climate crisis. The \"story-memes\" created by Energy Action Coalition featured the voices of New Yorkers, environmental justice activists, and allies who came together for the historic march. Each image features a photo of a community leader and their motivation for getting involved with the march. Energy Action Coalition consists of thirty youth-led social and environmental justice organizations working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. The memes produced by coalition youth are visual vehicles that carry messages of possibility and people power.\n\nBill McKibben has been finding commonality with broader and deeper networks of movements. \"The Fossil Fuel Resistance looks more and more like Occupy\u2014in fact, they've overlapped from the beginning, since oil companies are the one percent of the one percent,\" he wrote in _Rolling Stone_ in 2013. \"The movements share a political analysis, too: A grid with a million solar rooftops feels more like the internet than ConEd [the huge New York City electric utility]; it's a farmers' market in electrons, with the local control that it implies. Like Occupy, this new Resistance is not obsessed with winning over Democratic Party leaders.\"\n\nIn late 2014, McKibben stepped down from the daily leadership of 350.org. He reflected in an essay for TomDispatch that removing himself as a leader of the climate movement may be just the kind of leadership that this and other movements need:\n\nMost of the movements of the moment\u2014even highly successful ones like the fight for gay marriage or immigrants' rights\u2014don't really have easily discernible leaders . . . [who] the public at large identifies as the face of the fight. The world has changed in this way, and for the better. . . .\n\nWe may not need capital-L Leaders, but we certainly need small-l leaders by the tens of thousands. You could say that, instead of a leaderless movement, we need a leader-full one. . . .\n\nIt's our job to rally a movement in the coming years big enough to stand up to all that money, to profits of a sort never before seen on this planet. Such a movement will need to stretch from California to Ecuador. . . . It needs to remake the world in record time.\n\nThat won't happen thanks to a paramount leader, or even dozens of them. It can only happen with a spread-out and yet thoroughly interconnected movement, a new kind of engaged citizenry. Rooftop by rooftop, we're aiming for a different world, one that runs on the renewable power that people produce themselves in their communities in small but significant batches. The movement that will get us to such a new world must run on that kind of power too.\n\n_\"We may not need capital-L Leaders, but we certainly need small-l leaders by the tens of thousands. You could say that, instead of a leaderless movement, we need a leader-full one.\"_\n\nALL ABOARD THE BUS\n\nThe Los Angeles Bus Riders Union (BRU), comprising mostly public school students and low-income black and Latino workers, is leading a campaign to improve public transport with the vision of abolishing cars in L.A. Among other innovative strategies, the BRU has launched lawsuits against fare hikes, with the Natural Resources Defense Council emphasizing that raising fares results in more people driving and thus creates a health and environmental impact.\n\nIncreased bus fares are also an obstacle for many students to get to school. Channing Martinez was elected in 2015 to the BRU's planning committee. \"I first joined the BRU in 2007 when Metro proposed a major fare hike for the first time in ten years,\" he explained. \"I still claim that to be one of the top five most exciting days with the Bus Riders Union. We filled the whole [Metro transit] boardroom, filled all of their overflow rooms, and _los estudiantes_ rallied and filled their whole lobby so much that the Fire Department gave Metro a ticket that day for overcapacity. The movement was full of anger, hope, and excitement that day. It shows us what is still possible today.\"\n\nEric Mann is director of the Strategy Center and author of the book _Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer._ The No Cars in L.A. campaign is intended to be \"a challenge to the entire power and culture of the auto\/highway industry, but also a challenge to the privatized, consumerized, alienated nature of public life for the great masses of people,\" he says. \"People say, 'Why no cars in L.A.?' We say because that's the least we can do to stop global warming at the present pace it's going. Imagining no cars in L.A. is no more difficult than envisioning an end to Jim Crow or the Vietnam War. It is historically possible to have no cars in L.A., but obviously people will have to make a political, moral, and cultural decision to move to a public transportation, not a private auto, society.\"\n\n_\"The organizers were teaching us how to think critically about the world we live in, and to recognize all the contradictions the system creates that are right in front of us if we just wake up.\"_\n\nThe BRU is building a large multiracial, multiclass movement. \"The black and Latino communities are not just the ones suffering the greatest impacts\" of privatization, says Mann. \"They have historically initiated and modeled transformative organizing from the black liberation struggle and the Central and South American liberation movements.\"\n\nThe BRU offers practical solutions, such as improving public transport, using the collective power of bus riders as it illustrates the intersecting issues of buses, schools, climate change, immigration, and the rise of mass incarceration.\n\nChanning Martinez and the BRU want a win that will benefit the community while addressing larger injustices:\n\nI'd been a bus rider for all 27 years of my life. . . . I got involved because I learned through my participation as a student organizer in [the Coalition for Educational Justice] that there was a system of oppression in place hitting from every direction. One of the first fights that I was involved in was a protest against the war in the Middle East [for oil]\u2014the aha moment was questioning how the president justified budgets for a war when he couldn't afford to educate young folks in his own country. The organizers were teaching us how to think critically about the world we live in, and to recognize all the contradictions the system creates that are right in front of us if we just wake up. I was a very shy person back then, but the more I learned about how multiple facets of this society fed into that system, the more my voice lifted.\n\nOne of the things that always keeps me going is coming to the realization that it took us four hundred years to defeat American slavery. And it took the leadership of a few organizers, like Nat Turner and like Harriet Tubman and others, to not be afraid to stand up and fight back. [The BRU] planning committee is simply a modern-day form of that leadership that we desperately need in our community and in our organization to keep the fight going. One of the amazing things that many people don't talk about in terms of talking about Harriet Tubman is that she was a hell of an organizer. She was able to organize white abolitionists to stand in solidarity, and to use their houses and their resources as part of the Underground Railroad. . . .\n\nOur eyes are open and they're all on the system. . . . There's a big chance that we will win a free student bus pass pretty soon [and] stop this MTA apartheid pass system. But that can only happen when we members are on the ground organizing at every chance we get.\n\nThe BRU is part of the Los Angeles\u2013based Labor\/Community Strategy Center's Fight for the Soul of the Cities campaign, which they describe as \"an international vision for urban organizing\" that calls for \"the social welfare state not the police state, the environmental state not the warfare state.\" The campaign's demands include freeing 2.5 million U.S. prisoners, no cars in L.A., free public transportation, amnesty and open borders for immigrants, and stopping U.S. drone attacks.\n\nThese demands are ambitious, but Mann argues that radical critiques are the only way to capture the imaginations of people who are depressed about their own lives and even more depressed about the capitalist system under which they live. \"Ultimately we have to totally transform the whole industrial, transportation, consumption, and production frame. It's a struggle against the system of capitalism in which the privatizing, polluting, policing classes dominate society and the cities.\"\n\n   **OUR CANTASTORIA OF THE SOUTH BRONX AND LA MADRE. Agit Arte\/Papel Machete, in collaboration with South Bronx Unite and El Puente, New York City, 2014 (Photos by Osvaldo Budet Mel\u00e9ndez)**\n\nFor the People's Climate March in New York City, AgitArte allied with community organizations in the South Bronx and Brooklyn to create visuals and performance to highlight how climate change affects most harshly communities of color. A _cantastoria_ was developed to support South Bronx Unite's Boycott FreshDirect campaign. FreshDirect proposes to use taxpayer subsidies to occupy public waterfront land, which would impose two thousand daily vehicle trips through a community already facing asthma rates five times the national average. In Brooklyn, the artist troupe worked closely with CADRE artists and El Puente Academy to develop _La Madre_. The giant puppet, which represents both Mother Earth and working-class mothers of color, was an iconic image of the march and drew widespread media coverage.\n\n* * *\n\nMARCHING FOR A GENERATIVE FUTURE\n\n* * *\n\nClimate justice offers one of the best opportunities of any twenty-first-century social movement to bring about fundamental social and economic change.\n\nBeginning in the 1960s, the United Farm Workers won huge victories for workers' rights and in stopping the use of toxic pesticides. In the 1980s, activists protested as part of a large movement to shut down deadly nuclear power plants; none have been built in the United States since then. Movements pushing for clean water in the United States largely succeeded: many of the same rivers that were once killing fish are now safe to swim in. In recent years, anti-fracking activists have succeeded in having the destructive and polluting practice of fracking banned in a number of cities, as well as in New York State.\n\nThese movements were successful in stopping the symptoms but not in curing the source of the problems; they never transformed the economic systems that drive our environmental and social ills. Today, climate change and toxic pollution continue to threaten our lives, our planet, and especially our children. Solving the climate crisis will require a shift that goes to the root of our politics, economy, and behaviors.\n\n\"I think climate is perhaps the best opportunity we have to address the larger ills of capitalism,\" observes Farhad Ebrahimi, who runs the Chorus Foundation in Boston and was part of the media team for Occupy Boston. \"It's the greatest crisis of capitalism. It is the unchecked growth. . . . It is the way that money has bought and sold our democratic systems.\n\n\"More and more I'm seeing people who really care about climate come to really care about money in politics and really care about creating alternatives, both in terms of where our energy is going to come from [and also] what are the economic structures. How do we get away from this corporate power and move towards a system that's more equitable or more democratic and works for more people?\"\n\nEbrahimi quotes a rallying cry at climate change protests: \"We need system change, not climate change.\" He says, \"The slogan speaks to how engaging on climate work can be really transformative.\" This has become more than just a slogan: System Change Not Climate Change is an \"eco-socialist coalition\" with thirteen chapters around North America. The group makes the case, now more and more broadly accepted outside of corporate news, that \"capitalism is driving climate change and . . . a radical international grassroots movement can stop it.\"\n\nAuthor and activist Naomi Klein drove home this point in an address to a new Canadian labor union in September 2013:\n\nClimate change vindicates much of what the left has been demanding for decades. In fact, climate change turbo-charges our existing demands and gives them a basis in hard science. It calls on us to be bold, to get ambitious, to win this time because we really cannot afford any more losses. . . . Confronting the climate crisis requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook\u2014and that we do so with great urgency.\n\nKlein outlined what it will take to tackle climate change:\n\nWe don't just need new infrastructure. We need major investments in the old infrastructure to cope with the coming storms. For decades we have fought against the steady starving of the public sphere. . . . It is not hyperbole to say that our future depends on our ability to do what we have so long been told we can no longer do: act collectively. . . . I am not suggesting some half-assed token \"green jobs\" program. This is a green labor revolution I'm talking about. An epic vision of healing our country from the ravages of the last 30 years of neoliberalism and healing the planet in the process. . . . A democratically controlled, de-centralized energy system operated in the public interest.\n\nClimate visionaries are setting a path to fundamental transformation. They are offering systemic solutions\u2014not just individualistic solutions such as green water bottles, green tech, organic gardens, or bike lanes, though these all contribute to change. The solution lies in confronting capitalism.\n\n\"Our entire economic paradigm is a threat to ecological stability,\" argues Klein. \"Challenging this economic paradigm\u2014through mass-movement counter-pressure\u2014is humanity's best shot at avoiding catastrophe . . . . It makes the ditching of that cruel system in favor of something new (and perhaps, with lots of work, better) no longer a matter of mere ideological preference but rather one of species-wide existential necessity.\"\n\nOn Sunday, September 21, 2014, many of the organizers featured in this book were in New York City along with 400,000 other concerned global citizens at the People's Climate March. This was more than an environmental march. An amazing array of activists\u2014on immigration, prison rights, queer liberation, workers' rights, indigenous rights, education, and environmental justice\u2014all marched together to call on world leaders at the UN to stop an ecocidal economy from destroying our collective home. While each of these activists may at times focus on a single issue, they see a connection between their problems and solutions. They see a holistic movement joined by fighting the same underlying causes.\n\nThere were thousands of presentations throughout the city that weekend. Frack-off included talks by indigenous women from North Dakota whose lives, land, and waters are being destroyed by the tar sands. There was a tour of the South Bronx, where the asthma rate is much higher than in the more affluent parts of the city, due in large part to the diesel fumes from trucks that are routed through this poor part of town. There, activists who closed down juvenile detention centers have also created successful restorative justice programs. Now they want to stop the building of an industrial park and use the area for recreational parks and green space. While surrounded by water, the residents of the South Bronx, who are mostly people of color, have no public access to the waterfront.\n\nFavianna Rodriguez, whose art fills the pages of this book (see interview at end of Immigration chapter), talked about the life-giving force of Mother Earth and the two different paths ahead: the \"generative\" path, which creates and replenishes and generates life and beauty, and the \"extractive\" path, represented by the oil and gas industries, banks, and other massive corporations and militaries that take but do not replenish. That capitalist path is predicated on dominating nature and profiting from the labor of others. Rodriguez describes it as the \"take and rape\" culture versus the \"give and nurture\" culture.\n\nMany of the stories told throughout that weekend (and in this book) have a consistent theme: certain people's lives are not valued. Families in the South Bronx spoke of feeling marginalized because they're black. Native people living near the tar sands of Canada and North Dakota told of how their governments treated the Indians as if they were better off dead.\n\nPeople on the front lines of the crisis led the march. These are folks who have had family members die, who have been made homeless, and who are feeling the greatest impact of climate change. From New York to Puerto Rico, from Canada to Kentucky to Bangladesh, they reiterated how capitalism is the modern expression of colonialism. This ideology of supremacy asserts that colonial or capitalist rulers are superior while the \"other\" is inferior.\n\nOn Monday, September 22, the day after the march, many joined #FloodWallStreet to disrupt the powerful Wall Street banks that are funding and profiting from Big Oil and Big Coal.\n\nIt is time that every life is valued. It is time to replenish rather than extract. It is time to reclaim our planet, the home we all share, and build a new economy and global community.\n\n* * *\n\n   **THE PEOPLE SPEAK. Jetsonorama, Cow Springs, Arizona, 2014 (Photo by James \"Chip\" Thomas)**\n\nAs part of his Painted Desert Project, street artist Chip Thomas (aka Jetsonorama) asked Navajo community members their thoughts about a proposal to use reclaimed wastewater for snowmaking at a ski area in the San Francisco Peaks considered sacred by local tribes. Thomas painted their answers across photographs of this face, and wheat-pasted the images around the Navajo reservation in 2011. The text on the faces reads: \"Faces are sacred. Faces are beautiful. We walk on the face of the earth. The mountain is a beautiful, sacred place that needs to be protected. In beauty I walk.\" A native of North Carolina, the African American artist is also a physician; he moved to the Navajo Nation in 1987 to work for the Indian Health Service.\n\nPhoto by Samuel Budin\n\nARTIST INTERVIEW\n\nRACHEL **SCHRAGIS**\n\nRACHEL SCHRAGIS IS A VISUAL ARTIST, FLOW CHART MAKER, EDUCATOR, ACTIVIST, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZER WHO WAS ACTIVE IN OCCUPY WALL STREET ARTS AND CULTURE AND IS PASSIONATE ABOUT VISUALIZING AND ORGANIZING COMPLEX INFORMATION. HER MOST RECENT ENDEAVOR WAS HER ROLE AS ARTS COORDINATOR FOR THE HISTORIC PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH IN NEW YORK CITY.\n\nI'm an artist and an art organizer working primarily in climate justice and economic justice. Working with organizers and activists, at times I am the one doing the artwork, and sometimes I am a liaison who goes between artists and activists and organizers to figure out how visual art can support the goals they're trying to reach.\n\nThe climate seems a concrete way in which we can show the inequality of our economic system. Our economy is tied up in how energy is produced. We have to change the system. The only actual climate solution is the radical democratization of both kinds of power. People have to be able to generate their own power and they have to have decision-making power.\n\n**How do you see the role of arts or cultural work and its transformative power in twenty-first-century political movements?**\n\n\"Art\" is the word that capitalism uses to reconcile itself with culture. That is art as the production of objects of commodities to be bought or sold.\n\nArt is the tool that we have to impact how people feel and receive information, how people think of themselves and about the world. Art helps people reconcile facts and feelings.\n\nWith any issue that you're trying to move, you're trying to show people that they should feel invested in it and that it's urgent. Calling something an art project gives you permission to think intentionally about how it makes people feel. In the twenty-first century, we need to create authentic learning experiences to move people outside of consuming behind their computer screen. This kind of intentional design of emotional experience seems so critical. Art reminds us how thrilling participating fully in the world can be.\n\n**How does your political work relate to the collective, and how is it similar or different from your individual work aesthetically and content-wise?**\n\nThat's the tension of collectivity and individuality. In my own practice, participation looks like organizing work and my individual expression looks like visual product.\n\nFormalized organizations need to play a role in helping people have a sense of belonging. Politics are built through collaboration, and it's around the content, rather than the expression, that I've found myself collaborating.\n\nFor this reason, the organizations that I have been a part of in my creative and political life have largely been political organizations, where I exist within them as an artist. It's critical that our social movements have separate arts organizations with autonomy. I have incredible respect for people whose artistic practices are more collective than mine, and who form art collectives that can be their political and creative homes.\n\nFIGHT FOR A NEW WORLD WITH YOUR WHOLE SELF!\n\nPeople's Climate Sporatorium, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, 2014. Photo by Erik McGregor\nEPILOGUE SOLIDARITY\u2014A GATHERING\n\nAt the end of August 2014, the transformative organizers depicted in this book, most of whom had never met each other, came together. The intersection of people, organizations, and movements and our shared time shaped this book.\n\nAfter weeks of wrestling with planning the agenda for the gathering, renowned meeting facilitator and my dear friend Gibr\u00e1n Rivera, the book's editorial team (Jorge D\u00edaz, Dey Hern\u00e1ndez, David Goodman, Rinku Sen, and Antonia Darder), and I were all sitting at a table debating a final item. Gibr\u00e1n addressed us: \"We have amazing people, a great agenda, a great design team, and an experienced facilitator.\" He suddenly turned to me and added sternly, \"At this point, it's ours to fuck up.\n\n\"Or,\" he continued, his gaze still locked on me, \"we can become the hosts, welcome everyone, and smile. It can be an amazing gathering.\"\n\nSo began the two days where we broke bread and discussed our challenges, big questions, and what we all could do to make lasting social change.\n\nNow, several months later, as I write this Epilogue, I feel the presence of the wonderful organizers, artists, and authors I have met along this journey. These visionary leaders\u2014and their struggles, their progress, and the broad-scale social transformation they are working toward\u2014fill me with a deep sense of awe. It is an honor to bear witness to all this energy, this huge force that represents the river of change, the evolution propelled by the daring and inspiring people whose stories are told in this book.\n\nI end this journey with some observations about themes and commonalities shared by transformers. These are my takeaways.\n\nMOVEMENTS CONSTANTLY CREATE CHANGE\n\nOne of the most remarkable things for me has been to experience many of the movements of our time as they are unfolding. Transformations are rapidly evolving all around us.\n\nWhen I started writing in early 2013, fifteen states had legalized same-sex marriage. By June of 2015, same-sex marriage was legal in all states. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which has fought long and hard for marriage equality, has evolved to embrace a broader vision, changing its name to the National LGBTQ Task Force in order to reflect the reality of a struggle that is larger than just gays and lesbians.\n\nHope and change are all around us\u2014driven not by Barack Obama, who made that phrase a campaign slogan as a presidential candidate in 2008, but by dedicated grassroots activists like those in this book.\n\nThe world looks the way it does, in part, because past movements rose up. My faith in this evolution was beautifully captured by Gibr\u00e1n at the close of the gathering:\n\nThere is a love that defines the evolutionary thrust, the evolutionary energy, and we can connect to that. . . . Evolution doesn't just happen to us. We can define it. . . . We're in the middle of it; we are a part of, and it's worth trying to find ways to align ourselves with, it. . . . If white men, in the middle of imperialist expansion, discover evolution, what they see is \"survival of the fittest.\" But if you look at evolution for what it is and you look at the human species, you see that we couldn't have made it without connection, without empathy, without turning to one another, without caring for each other. These are the evolutionary traits that allow us to get anywhere that is good at all.\n\nWhen I'm around people like you, I feel like I'm around evolutionaries. That's how I want to spend my time, so I am deeply grateful. . . . Let's keep this thing called evolution moving forward.\n\nIn this spirit, we ended the gathering.\n\n\"WE NEED SOLIDARITY\"\n\nThe activists in this book have all harnessed the power of allies. As Jitu Brown said at the gathering:\n\nPeople in oppressed communities don't need charity. We need solidarity. All we need to make change is time, space, and will. Our work must be driven and led by the people directly impacted.\n\nThe United States has 2.3 million people behind bars, mostly for nonviolent crimes and minor drug offenses. Mass incarceration has disproportionately impacted people of color: A black man in America today has a one in three chance of ending up in jail.\n\nWhat does solidarity look like for our black and brown brothers and sisters who are in jail? It begins with exposing the racist and inhuman nature of the criminal justice system and repealing mandatory sentences and drug laws, but it would not stop there. What would radical change look like? It would begin with dismantling social, political, cultural, and economic structures that exploit and alienate. In their place, as the transformative visions of the prison abolitionists describe, we can build new structures that support our full humanity.\n\nCommitting to confronting oppression in all forms is a key to solidarity. Indigenous activist Clayton Thomas-M\u00fcller explains:\n\nWe need an anti-oppression, anti-colonialism platform, [to] give space for people to express their differences, [and to provide] tools to address systems of oppression when they show up in our spaces.\n\nBy participating in organizations that embrace the fullness of the change we need, we create vast networks across movements and disrupt the \"landscape of injustice.\"\n\nWe must commit to this full change and help steer away from the perilous direction of incarceration, deportations, the school-to-prison pipeline, and ecocide in which we are heading. We cannot go along with racism, sexism, homophobia, and capitalism. We can and must interrupt them!\n\nThe leaders in this book invite us to believe that humanity can change. They show we can all stand in solidarity because we see our fight as one, connected to each other through the larger quest for human liberation. Our futures are inextricably linked. As Rinku Sen says, \"Solidarity implies that you stretch yourself to connect with another, with the other.\"\n\nDISRUPT POWER\n\nCommunities and teachers in Chicago were transformed in 2012 when they confronted the mayor and launched the first teachers' strike in thirty years. Their defiance inspired students, parents, and teachers throughout the United States.\n\nSimilarly, strikes by California prisoners in 2013 and fast-food workers in 2014, the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations to protest police brutality in 2014 and 2015, and AIDS activists' die-ins in the 1980s\u2014all of these courageous and outrageous actions show that through the refusal to cooperate with unjust laws, we win our own humanity.\n\nDon't go along with inhumane laws. As the son of immigrants who were forced to flee Germany as the Nazis came to power, I grew up with constant reminders from my parents that we had to speak up when we encountered injustices, \"Don't think it can't happen here,\" they insisted, referring to the Holocaust. The Nazis were surprised that so much of the German populace acquiesced to anti-Jewish attacks. Compliance and collaboration emboldened the Nazis to escalate their brutal project of white supremacy, which eventually led to the death camps. Some, but not enough, stood in solidarity with the Jews, Communists, Roma, and queers who were sent to the camps. In 2001, my father pointed to the government expansion of domestic spying with the USA PATRIOT Act, the rollback of the rights of our own citizens, and the official propaganda during the buildup to the Iraq War, and warned, \"This is how it all starts.\" He had watched it start similarly when he was growing up during the rise of fascism and Hitler.\n\nStanding up is how we bear witness and signal that we are not just going along. True solidarity not only interrupts, it disrupts. It says there is a limit.\n\nAs the history of the civil rights movement shows, sometimes white allies with privilege show solidarity with those who have historically been excluded by standing arm in arm with them on the front lines of struggles. Many have sacrificed in many ways. True solidarity requires allowing those most affected to lead and speak for themselves and for those with privilege to organize allies within their own communities of privilege. Too often, those who have a vested interest in systems that give them more opportunities are often reluctant to see class, race, or gender privilege and challenge it. By going along we signify consent. Transformative organizing requires privileged allies to stand in solidarity in social movements as they disrupt powerful entrenched systems.\n\nSuccessful movements disrupt business as usual, utilizing tactics such as strikes, boycotts, occupations, and more. Sustained direct action that focuses on the vulnerabilities of oppressors, when brought to scale, forces a response to our demands. It forces public acknowledgment of what the issue is, even if we don't get what we have demanded.\n\nWhen Gaby Pacheco struggled with immigration officials and wore a T-shirt proclaiming \"Undocumented and Unafraid,\" she added her voice and body to the larger DREAMer movement\u2014and by doing so she transformed and radicalized herself.\n\nPREPARE FOR OPPOSITION\n\nOpposition can be violent, as with the police eviction of Occupy Wall Street, the militarized response to the #Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, and the jailing of political prisoners. Or opposition can be subtle, such as the lobbying, political campaign contributions, and website and media attacks created by restaurant owners to oppose low-wage-worker campaigns or by the oil companies and banks to oppose change.\n\nSchools have been resegregated and voting rights eroded since the victories of the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s; labor and women's rights have been worn down similarly. Economic, political, and military forces are constantly finding new ways to maintain systems of exploitation and control. In all the movements in this book, a clear pattern emerges: when progress is made, it is actively attacked by those whose privileges are threatened. Movements will be co-opted or crushed. Understanding the opposition and building organizations with deep roots and broad solidarity can help us stand up to opposition, disrupt systems of privilege, and deal with them holistically at their roots.\n\nPuppeteer Janelle Treibitz described organizing that resists cooptation and inspires her:\n\nI see people sell their own demands off piece by piece in order to get some sort of policy package through. Things that I identified that help prevent cooptation: an incredible job organizing . . . relationships built strongly with other groups, guiding principles for policies that they would fight for, incredible popular education\u2014education with members about solidarity, anti-oppression and all.\n\nCHANGE THE STORY\n\nPaulina Helms-Hern\u00e1ndez said at the gathering, \"This book is a love letter to movements.\"\n\nMake your own news. Transformers don't let the corporate media define who they are or who others are. We can counter the dominant negative images by retelling stories like those in this book and seeing images that come from people in the struggle. Social media is an opportunity to put out our perspectives and make our own news.\n\nToday the mainstream media refers to the \"African American crime problem\" and the \"Hispanic illegal immigration problem,\" encouraging racial profiling and ignoring the root causes of deliberate policy choices and a system designed to punish, scapegoat, and control. Growing up in Germany in the late 1930s, my father often saw signs that declared, \"The Jews are our misfortune.\" Such forms of propaganda can be subtle, but they are powerful and must be countered in order to make progress.\n\nDerogatory myths are often repeated about the \"other.\" How do we resist a society that underpays immigrants and insults their dignity by branding them as \"illegal\" or \"ignorant\" because they speak a second language with an accent? How do we take on subtly destructive attitudes of superiority?\n\nWe resist by creating new images. Artist Favianna Rodr\u00edguez does this when she depicts powerful Latina women. She celebrates female creativity and power, disrupting demeaning stereotypes of women. Her art agitates and moves us to action.\n\nCreate new language. This was done by the successful \"drop the _i_ -word\" campaign that has helped stop much of the media from routinely describing undocumented immigrants as \"illegal.\" In such a way we frame our messages so they are consistent with the paradigm we are shifting toward.\n\nAlternative media goes where the corporate media won't and brings us movement voices and news from people who are traditionally excluded from the mainstream media, such as the prophetic young, women, people of color, and many others in this book.\n\nHAVE A BIG VISION\n\nChe Gossett shared a beautiful quote at the gathering from the Zapatistas, the revolutionary group in Mexico. It makes us rethink our entire paradigm of power:\n\nThe \"center\" [Mexican government] asks us, demands of us, that we should sign a peace agreement quickly and convert ourselves into an institutional political force, that is to say, convert ourselves into yet another part of the machinery of power. To them we answer NO\u2014and they do not understand it. They do not understand that we are not in agreement with those ideas. They do not understand that we do not want offices or posts in government. They do not understand that we are struggling not for the stairs to be swept clean from the top to the bottom, but for there to be no stairs, for there to be no kingdom at all. We do not want to struggle for power, because the struggle for power is central to the world we reject; it does not form part of the world that we want.\n\nWhat is so beautiful about the Zapatistas is that while they are resisting the dominant culture, they are creating a new society in Chiapas, Mexico. They are clear about the power that needs to be disrupted, and they focus on creating a more humane alternative.\n\nExamine the roots of the problem, and become part of the solution. Housing activist Steve Meacham spoke about how the work of City Life\/Vida Urbana is connected to a larger agenda:\n\nYou can't fight rent increases and evictions without objecting to the capitalist market. If you accept market principles, if you say the fair rent is the market rent, then you might as well not even get into the battle because you've lost already.\n\n\"Ultimately we have to totally transform the whole industrial, transportation, consumption, and production frame,\" asserted Eric Mann of the Labor\/Community Strategy Center. \"It's a struggle against the system of capitalism in which the privatizing, polluting, policing classes dominate society and the cities.\" It's a struggle toward community-driven participatory visions and solutions.\n\nMany of the leaders frame an issue so that it connects them to other struggles. John H. Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, offered this example at the gathering:\n\nThe goal has to be large enough . . . so people can see themselves as a part of that goal. In the work that we do, we talked initially about a high-quality education. So many movements don't see themselves connected to that. We needed to speak to a broader goal of \"providing healthy living and learning communities.\" That brings in more levels of collaboration, more solidarity, [and] more people can see themselves in it. In that process, we're transformed, which sets us up for transformative change.\n\nThinking big means imagining new systems and countering the conventional wisdom that \"there is no alternative\" or \"this is the price of freedom.\"\n\nBUILD ORGANIZATIONS AND BELOVED COMMUNITIES\n\nLisa Owens, from City Life\/Vida Urbana in Boston, said at the gathering:\n\nThe times we're in are a chaotic place with no easy answers. . . . There is a magical thread that happens when people rise up. I believe the role of organizations can be to help create the conditions\u2014so that when people rise up\u2014there's a container for it. But we can't control the thing we call \"magic.\" . . . It's a spiritual process. It has to do with love. . . . We can create the conditions for it to move unfettered and to drive our movement in ways we cannot even imagine.\n\nBring yourself, your ideas, and your passions forward. Gibr\u00e1n Rivera coached us at the gathering to find inspiration and joy from an ever-widening circle of caring and committed people. Building such a beloved community gives meaning to life and sustains us while we do the hard work for liberation. Longtime activist and scholar Antonia Darder reflected:\n\nHow do we help each other, how do we have each other's back, how do we have people in our life that support us? Because this work is hard. It's stressful. It kicks our ass sometimes, no matter how hard we're working. And more important, we don't need lone rangers. We need one another. We need to build community. And we can only do this together!\n\nWhen you think differently from the dominant paradigm, it is crucial to connect with others. The progress in this country, in the history of the world, is the result of the fights waged by visionary organizers who dared to see the hidden injustice. But it is not easy to state hidden truths when you are alone. When Manissa McCleave Maharawal stood up at the general assembly of Occupy Wall Street to challenge the exclusion of women and people of color, she could do it because she was in a community of women and people of color. Join with people who are crying or similarly as pissed off as you. Create community, connectedness, belonging\u2014we belong to one another in movement and we must care for ourselves and each other.\n\nAnger at injustice can be used. It motivates us. But don't live in anger. Don't dwell there. As a proverb says, \"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.\"\n\nTake time for self-care and self-expression, for friends and laughs, as we work for serious change. Make music. Make art. Do what makes your heart sing. Dance. Perform in theater. Walk in nature. Keep mentally and physically fit. Take time to learn.\n\nBuilding community-based organizations, with both local networks and broader ones, is fundamental for transformative change. Steve Meacham challenged us all at the gathering:\n\nWhat's the nature of an organization that unites people like us? That project has been put aside in the U.S. for lots of reasons\u2014historic pragmatism and experience with sectarianism. But it should be on the table. We need organization among dedicated activists like us. Let's not lose the bigger thing\u2014dedication to broad transformative change.\n\nTHE RIVER OF STRUGGLE\n\nThis book is an invitation to join what historian, author, and civil rights activist Vincent Harding has called the \"river of struggle, river of freedom [for] a transformed future\" and \"the right to develop our whole being.\" The organizers in this book have stepped into and become a part of that river of justice that has been flowing for centuries. The river of liberation that is democratizing power. Let us each step into the river.\n\nNow is the time for us to create history and write our story.\n\nEach of us can grow our capabilities and, like these transformative leaders, join with others and together develop our strength. Many have talked about how movements are \"leader-full.\" As professor and environmental justice activist Antwi Akom said:\n\nIt isn't a matter of \"Can we lead?\" but \"We should be leading!\" We need to encourage each other to lead, remind each other of the power we have within ourselves and within our community.\n\nWe will fail. We will stumble. We will doubt and we will hesitate. Don't give up. Know that we are making a difference. Even if we make mistakes, we are testing out what is possible in our moment in history. We can reflect and adjust our theories. The visionaries in this book persevere and persist. They plan methodically. There will be many obstacles and many who are not ready to change. Join those who share your passion and sense of possibility. Join those who make a commitment and who you can learn from and who will learn from you. Together, we can build a world full of love, awareness, critical reflection, creativity, humanity, understanding, and meaning, bringing out each other's best.\n\nMy brothers and sisters, we are all meant to join this river of freedom. Our people need this change, they are ready for this change.\n\nWe are being called at this moment in history. When we fight, we win!\n\n   **I WILL NEVER STOP REACHING (FOR YOU). Jess X. Chen in collaboration with CultureStrike, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, and End Family Detention, Los Angeles, California, 2015**\n\nWomen in detention centers often take risks by calling attention to the deplorable conditions they face by writing letters and participating in hunger strikes to highlight the deplorable conditions they face. Chen's piece was inspired by a letter written by a Honduran mother who is being kept in a detention center with her younger son after attempting to cross the border to be reunited with her family. The illustration is part of Culture Strike's _Visions from the Inside_ project, a creative collaboration between women in Karnes Detention Center and fifteen artists from across the country. By illustrating their letters, the project aims to build awareness and expose the experiences that families face in for-profit immigration detention centers as well as shift ideas around criminalization. The image is a tribute to the undefeatable courage and resilience of the migrant spirit.\nAFTERWORD STORIES OF LOVE AND FURY\n\n_ANTONIA DARDER_\n\n\"It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the 'rejects of life.'\"\n\n\u2014Paulo Freire, _Pedagogy of the Oppressed_\n\n_When We Fight, We Win!_ is a historical recounting of love and fury. The stories in unison echo the long-standing hardships and triumphs of everyday people and our communities. They are deeply resonant with past political struggles of working people everywhere. People who have had to find strength and fortitude collectively, in order to confront dehumanizing societal forces\u2014 _not of our own making_ \u2014that daily betray our common existence and trample upon our human rights. The works of activists in these spirited reflections are understood as never being the acts of masked lone rangers galloping in to rescue the poor unfortunate _rejects of life_. Instead, these contemporary political parables of love, though each different in their sociohistorical or geographic configurations and particular political focus, are nevertheless drawn together by the sacred thread of an underlying communal intent: to create a socially and materially just world where the dignity of our shared humanity, the power of our passion, the right to political self-determination, and the wisdom of our histories of struggle can thrive and evolve unfettered, despite the poverty and violence of oppression.\n\nPERSISTENCE OF POVERTY AND VIOLENCE\n\nPoverty is the worst form of violence.\n\n\u2014Mahatma Gandhi\n\nThe principles of struggle and lessons echoed through the many voices of those who persist in the arduous task of grassroots work are particularly striking, given this moment in history, when poverty and violence intermingle fiercely unchecked, both domestically and internationally. The greed, lack of accountability, and insatiable appetite of the ruling class in this neoliberal moment has devastatingly widened the gap between the rich and the poor, through draconian economic reforms that protect the privilege and wealth of the few, through the erosion of the commons and a whittling away of the public sphere. The consequence is that more children live in poverty today than when President Lyndon B. Johnson first declared a _war on poverty_. Fifty years after the Watts riots in Los Angeles and the release of the infamous federal report, _The Negro Family: The Case for National Action_ (known colloquially as the Moynihan Report), working-class communities of color are more segregated and impoverished than in 1965.\n\nHowever, this phenomenon does not persist because our communities are culturally inferior or caught up in \"tangles of pathologies,\" as some would surmise. Rather, material inequalities and social exclusions persist because social and economic structures continue to reproduce racialized class formations that place the blame for society's ills squarely upon the most vulnerable populations. The large numbers of people at the margins of society are considered culturally or intellectually deficient or seen as pathological or criminal by nature. Impoverished communities are blatantly dehumanized, perceived as irresponsible, wasteful, and unaccountable for their lives. They are seen not only as undeserving of public resources or human compassion but also as easily disposable. Abandonment of responsibility for the social welfare of the nation under advancing capitalism has accelerated over the last two decades through a ceaseless drive toward full-scale marketization and deregulation.\n\nThe neoliberal privatization movement, in particular, has resulted in disastrous consequences to the human rights of working-class people, especially communities of color. The proliferation of charter schools, high-stakes testing practices, school closures, anti-immigration initiatives, the diminishment of worker rights, the privatization of prisons, mass incarceration, and an increasing presence of surveillance have all resulted in the erosion of civil liberties. Neoliberal policies of quantification and \"evidence-based\" reforms have inflicted a politics of bootstrap accountability while deceptively veiling the greed, lovelessness, and lack of accountability of the powerful to the broader ecological sustenance of life on the planet.\n\nDespite all the hullabaloo of racial gesturing, neoliberal reforms have served well to manipulate, distort, and impede the voices and democratic participation of working people of color. Likewise, exacerbated neoliberal values of choice, competition, and individualism have coalesced to drown out the voices of collective dissent. Meanwhile, race problems are touted as the major source for societal ills, while the treacherous system of corporate exploitation and abysmal poverty required for capitalism to thrive remains veiled. The result is little room for movement outside the black\/white binary of the dominant political psyche. This signals the need for interrogating the _orthodoxy of race_ so prevalent in discourses across the political spectrum, including the Left, in order to engage more forthrightly with racism and its systemic role in the persistence of poverty and violence under capitalism.\n\nRACISM IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY\n\nI believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin.\n\n\u2014Malcolm X\n\nThis Afterword is being written amid the spectacle of media reporting on the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager who was gunned down by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. The now-popular propensity to speak of race as something real and indisputable and as the root cause of the tragedy is well illustrated in the discourse that prevails. Many of the commentaries, particularly in the independent media, do provide a glimpse into how racism is enacted daily and made invisible in the United States\u2014a phenomenon that is far more obvious to those of us who must contend daily with its debilitating social and material consequences. Yet, however real these commentaries make the idea of race appear, this still does not mean that race is an incontestable biological or sociological truth.\n\nAs a Puerto Rican child growing up in poverty in the United States, I came to learn, poignantly so, that Puertorrique\u00f1os exist racialized and impoverished not because of our skin color, culture, or language, but rather because of a politics of racism (enacted through an ideology of race) and a political economy of conquest. Puerto Rico was thrust violently into a state of colonization that restricted our struggle for self-determination and impeded our political participation as a people. A similar politics of conquest has existed historically for other racialized and subordinated populations in the United States and elsewhere, who to this day continue to endure the transgenerational trauma of genocide, slavery, patriarchy, and heterosexism.\n\nThe underlying problem must be understood as _racism in a capitalist society_. Effective struggle against racism can never be solely about gaining just and fair treatment in terms of race; rather, it must dismantle at the very roots the long-standing myth of race and its historical role in concealing staggering wealth inequalities and social exclusions. Such a myth effectively warps, distorts, and shrouds the truth about our interdependent humanity and disaffiliates us from the larger fight against all forms of human exploitation, domination, and violence. The tragic police shooting of Michael Brown, for example, is not a problem of black people or white people. It is a tragic _human_ disgrace that sharply illustrates the racism that is embedded in the psyche of this nation.\n\n   **KEEP AMERICA CLEAN. Antonia Darder, Pasadena, California, 1983**\n\n_Keep America Clean_ , by Antonia Darder, speaks poignantly to the manner in which bodies of color have been racialized in U.S. society and treated as objects to be disposed of in the wastebasket of history. The painting emerged from the frustration she felt working in a grassroots community organization during the early 1980s\u2014the ascent of neoliberalism. The difficulties experienced constantly with school and city officials when advocating for more resources for poor working-class communities of color echoed the sense of disposability portrayed in the piece.\n\nDARING TO TRANSGRESS\n\nOur strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness\u2014and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.\n\n\u2014Arundhati Roy\n\nDaily confrontation against debilitating forces that seek to render us intellectually inferior, emotionally passive, and materially bankrupt is indeed a grueling and persistent endeavor. A life committed to ongoing political struggle is not for the faint of heart nor the weak of will. Hence, we persist with our love and our fury because we know at our core that no one will serve us up liberation on a silver platter. We struggle because we know that we must. We struggle because we do not have a choice. And, for these very same reasons, the activists share their poignant tales, born of their refusal to surrender their humanity to the capriciousness of the wealthy and powerful. Instead, they make of their indignation beauty and of their truths hammers, daring to transgress injustice.\n\nThese stories, moreover, point to the need for a larger political movement, rooted in the full expression of our love and fury. Where our passion is activated in the name of freedom and justice. And where our collective and individual actions move us away from the alienation of a mode of production intended to thwart our political self-determination. Simultaneously, these stories of struggle speak to a decolonizing movement that must courageously relearn the power of communal survival and fundamental respect for the interdependence of all living beings. Also needed is a clear recognition that cultural and linguistic differences are absolutely vital and necessary to the perpetuation of human life, just as moments of political dissent are essential to the continuing evolution of our democratic existence.\n\nLastly, these powerful and passionate stories of struggle invite us to reignite our formidable capacity for human intimacy so that we can tangibly and intentionally expand our capacity to love and dream together, through the solidarity of our labor and the struggles we forge with community. Through bearing witness to moments of triumph and disappointment, the stories in _When We Fight, We Win!_ also echo enduring faith in one another, personal political courage, commitment to struggle, profound respect for the world, and our deep yearning for social and material justice. In different and similar ways, the activists also bear witness to the powerful fury of the people\u2014a fury born of love and woven into new possibilities for the making of an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist future.\n\n_Dr. Antonia Darder is an internationally recognized scholar who has authored and edited numerous books including_ Culture and Power in the Classroom _,_ After Race: Racism After Multiculturalism, A Dissident Voice _and_ Freire and Education _. She holds the Leavey Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership at Loyola Mary-mount University._\n* * *\n\n**DESIGNERS' NOTE** BY AGITARTE\n\n* * *\n\nArt is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.\n\n\u2014Bertolt Brecht\n\nBuilding a culture of faith in our species' ability to right the wrongs in our capitalism-corrupted culture\u2014its ethics, concepts of human relations, falsification of what is our fundamental human nature and relationship to nature\u2014is our task lest the human species not survive.\n\n\u2014Herb Fox, AgitArte Co-Founder\n\nBombarded by oppressive narratives of capitalist hegemony, we are left without the stories of those engaged in the struggles of our times. From personal challenges of the status quo to mass organized actions for radical change, our stories are suppressed by the incredible power and resources of dominant institutions in our society. The media, schools and universities, political and civic organizations, and the government all play a critical role in producing and reproducing this alienating cultural reality. The study of these complex yet crucial ideas was developed into a theory of cultural hegemony by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. Lifelong activist and professor Stephen Duncombe writes about Gramsci's theory, in relation to the power that dominant ideas and practices have in defining our thinking and actions:\n\nThe power of cultural hegemony lies in its invisibility. Unlike a soldier with a gun or a political system backed up by a written constitution, culture resides within us. It doesn't seem \"political,\" it's just what we like, or what we think is beautiful, or what feels comfortable. Wrapped in stories and images and figures of speech, culture is a politics that doesn't look like politics and is therefore a lot harder to notice, much less resist. When a culture becomes hegemonic, it becomes \"common sense\" for the majority of the population.\n\nThe effects on our lives and community of this \"common sense\" are devastating. We face an incredible challenge against capitalist hegemony in a struggle for our own humanity. Nonetheless, cultural production by popular movements offers us a rich and powerful tradition of art as resistance, protest, and imagination to counter this hegemony. Emerging movements produce cultural workers, who in turn create a new culture of militancy and solidarity for liberation.\n\nAgitArte, an organization of engaged political working-class artists, highlights projects of cultural solidarity with the movements featured in _When We Fight, We Win!_ These organizations, activists, and artists create art to protest injustice and propose alternatives that, in turn, generate possibilities for fundamental transformations in our world.\n\nEach chapter starts with art in action, \"hammers\" in the streets, as puppets, signs, performances, comics, posters, and viral images employed in effective and accessible ways to strengthen our collective actions. They are followed by other examples of visual art produced by and with the political and social movements of the twenty-first century that progress from current struggles to a broader analysis and possibilities beyond this reality. The book's design creates a dual narrative. Captions provide the context in which the artwork was created and introduce the artists who produced it. The result is a visual story in each chapter, a sample of the breadth of the cultural work being generated by our movements. Our alternative media, performance, street action, and artwork are committed to the front lines of the struggles against the terrible alienation of our times. We are out to prove that when we fight\u2014engaging in cultural and political praxis with our people\u2014we win.\n\n* * *\n**Acknowledgments**\n\nFive people made this book possible: Antonia Darder, Jos\u00e9 Jorge D\u00edaz, David Goodman, Deymirie Hern\u00e1ndez, and Rinku Sen. In the preface, I describe who they are and their pivotal roles on the editorial and design team. David Goodman was the steady, professional guiding hand throughout this process. He wrote, edited, and pushed me and helped me to write stories with cadence and drama. If I succeeded it is due to him. Dey Hern\u00e1ndez's art choices, the stories behind the art, and the captions make this book sing and shout the brutal reality of our time. During our twenty years of friendship Jos\u00e9 Jorge D\u00edaz has become my artistic, intellectual, and political teacher. If the book is precise and the analysis is clear, it is due to him. Profesora Antonia Darder has been my wise trusted sage who counseled me and helped me clarify my vision and my ideas on racism and what we are fighting against. Rinku Sen pushed me to make clear assertions in this book, role-modeled the ability to be forthright, and, like the others, introduced us to great activists and read and challenged us on every one of the chapters. I cannot recognize enough what these five people did to make this book a reality.\n\nMany thanks to Jos\u00e9 \"Primo\" Hern\u00e1ndez, who was integral to the art team, designed the cover, and partnered with Dey on the layout.\n\nzakia henderson-brown, Julie Enszer, Diane Wachtell, Jed Bickman, Maury Botton, Ellen Adler, Julie McCarroll, and so many more at The New Press have helped guide this project, and participated in many parts of it. zakia was part of the August 2014 gathering of the visionary organizers in this book. I don't know of any other publisher that hires organizers or gets involved so heavily with activists. My thanks to Michelle Alexander for suggesting to The New Press that they reach out to me to publish this book.\n\nGibr\u00e1n Rivera has been a deep friend and guide since way before this book was an idea, introducing me to many books and authors who shaped my thinking and then facilitating the August 2014 gathering of activists in this book.\n\nMy profound recognition goes to the visionary activists who joined together at that first gathering, most of whom are quoted and profiled in this book, all of whom have inspired and influenced me: Antwi Akom, Jitu Brown, Che Gossett, Paulina Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez, John H. Jackson, Eric Mann, Manissa McCleave Maharawal, Steve Meacham, Lisa Owens, Clayton Thomas-M\u00fcller, Jackson Potter, Julio Salgado, and Janelle Treibitz. Thanks also to the talented film crew of Osvaldo Budet and Carlos P\u00e9rez.\n\nMy deep thanks go to all the other activists who we profiled or interviewed for this book. Together with those who attended the gathering, they are my heroes. All took time from their important work and were generous with their insight. For the environment chapter: Bill McKibben, May Boeve, Farhad Ebrahimi, Van Jones. For the LGBTQ chapter: Rea Carey, Scot Nakagawa, Michael Bronski, Jay Michaelson, Evan Wolfson, Urvashi Vaid, Rashad Robinson, Andy Lane. For the incarceration chapter: Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, Walidah Imarasha, Claude Marks, Michelle Fine, Rob Kampia. For the economic justice chapter: Ai-jen Poo, Saru Jayaraman, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Ted Howard. For the immigration chapter: Gaby Pacheco, Felipe Sousa-Rodr\u00edguez, Juan Rodr\u00edguez, Marshall Ganz, Carlos Saavedra, Deepak Bhargava, Miriam Ortiz, Renata Teodoro. For the education chapter: Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, Pauline Lipman, Raul Botello, Barbara Ransby, Cassie Schwerner, and the entire team at the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Artists: Favianna Rodr\u00edguez, Lily Paulina of Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Kevin \"Rashid\" Johnson, and Rachel Schragis. You have all profoundly shaped our thinking and the content of this book.\n\nI am deeply grateful to all the artists and culture organizations whose images and captions are featured in the book: Ernesto Yerena, Molly Crabapple, Sabelo Narasimhan, Jes\u00fas I\u00f1iguez, Roan Boucher, CrimethInc., Cristy C. Road, Micah Bazant, Jeff Haynes, Papel Machete, Isamar Abreu, Youth Justice Coalition, Jason Killinger, Francisco Enuf Garcia, Overpass Light Brigade, Meredith Stern, Erik McGregor, Farhad Ebrahimi, Ricardo Levins Morales, Susan Wilmarth, LMNOPI, Gonji, Andr\u00e9s \"RHIPS\" Rivera, Melanie Cervantes, Kris Kr\u00fcg, Pancho Pescador, Jes\u00fas Barraza, Salvador Jim\u00e9nez, Kelly Creedon, Leonardo March, Christine Wong Yap, Mona Caron, David Solnit, Marisa Mor\u00e1n Jahn, Andre Forget, Gregg Deal, Beehive Design Collective, Jesse Edsell-Veter, CultureStrike, Joe Solomon, Osvaldo Budet, Jetsonorama, Samuel Budin, Jess X. Chen, The Real Cost of Prisons, Yollocalli Arts Reach and Radio Arte, Energy Action Coalition, _Colorlines_ , Freedom Harvest, 67 Sue\u00f1os, the Community Rejuvenation Project, #BlackLivesMatter, End Family Detention, and Mariposas Sin Fronteras.\n\nA big shout-out to Adrienne Maree Brown, who suggested a large number of the organizers and artists in this book, participated in formative early discussions, and laid the groundwork for the web platform. I am indebted to Saulo Col\u00f3n for being my teacher, introducing me to many authors, and setting me on this path.\n\nSpecial thanks to Ann Beaudry for massive amounts of editing, cutting, sharpening, and for her strategic advice and encouragement through so many stages of this book with her good sense of humor and graciousness.\n\nWarmest gratitude to my writing coach Sara Whitman for telling me when to start all over again and when I was done.\n\nHuge thanks to Rose Gschwendtner for endless wisdom on movements and helping me over problems big and small. I thank my colleagues for their support with this project: Remona Davis, Margo Braithwaite, Andrea Garvey, Shawna Ellis, Pamela Mu\u00f1iz, Joyce Litner, Sara Oaklander, Michelle Coffey, Patrick St. John, Kathy Peterson, Diane Franklin, Janet Grogan, Ike Williams, Paul Sennott, Kathryn Beaumont, Hope Denekamp, Maisie Chinn, Deborah LaBelle, Alvin Starks, and Ian Enaba.\n\nThanks to author Judith Nies who planted the seeds of this book. Nies's wonderful book of stories, _Nine Women: Portraits in the American Radical Tradition_ gave me a model and inspired me as it cut across movements and centuries. Thanks to Deborah Frieze, author of _Walk Out Walk On_ , for reading drafts and showing me it was possible to write a movement book filled with images. Additional thanks to Noam Chomsky, Stephen King, Otto Scharmer, Tim Wise, Peggy McIntosh, Resource Generation, Jean Hardisty, Rosa Smith, Juan Leyton, and Noelle Hanaran for your inspiration.\n\nFor editorial advice and content, a big thanks to Cassie Schwerner, my colleague and comrade for thirty years, and to Penn Loh, Victor Wallis, Claude Bruderlein, Deepak Bhargava, Alexie Torres-Fleming, Si Kahn, Stephona Stokes, Dayna Cunningham, Tarsos Ramos, Jeffrey Wolfman, Chris Tinson, Aron Tanaka, Steve Early, Adria Goodson, Josephine Auciello, Michael Fogelberg, Andrew Yarrow, Michael Holzman, Chris Willard, Hannah Baron, Carol Rosen, Vanessa Green, Terri Shuck, Dana Rae Warren, Maya Wiley, Gordy Fellman, Jim Green, Nakisha Lewis, Kelly Bates, Bryant Muldrew, Omo Moses, Ali Tinku Ishtiaq, and Matthew Shapiro.\n\nHuge thanks to Damon Douglas, who pushed me to get this book done in half the time I thought it would take and guided me to develop that capacity.\n\nFamily is central to this project and to my life. My eighty-six-year-old mother, Lilo Leeds, has been a warrior of the women's rights, civil rights, and educational struggles for over sixty years. I have worked side by side with her for almost thirty of those years. She read every word, pushed me to be courageous, reminded me of important lessons, and added her stories, which became mine.\n\nMy dad, Gerry Leeds, died while I was writing this book. Through the mourning process, his powerful presence and principles came alive once again, and he role-modeled for me the importance of reinventing myself, taking a stand, following my passions, doing what is right, doing everything with great quality, and respecting the integrity of those with whom I work.\n\nMy activist father- and mother-in-law, Bill Jobin and Sally Fritz, both role-modeled daring courage and encouragement. My brother, Dan Leeds, read many chapters and provided insight into the structure of the book. My brother Richard Leeds and sister-in-law Anne Kroeker advised me on the climate chapter and marched with my other sister-in-laws Sara Jobin and Laura Jobin Acosta at the People's Climate March. My brother Michael Leeds gave me management coaching. My sister Jen fed me with great ideas. My thanks to Camille and Eliza Jobin-Davis for their enthusiasm and design advice.\n\nMy children have been constant loyal readers, helping sharpen the text with probing questions and edits, and always calling me to my highest ideals. Several of their eighteen- to twenty-three-year-old friends were readers who participated in campaigns, theater, and marches with us, brought in fresh connections, and helped clarify terms that we took for granted. Their enthusiasm has been contagious, and their insights helped make the book more relevant and readable. My thanks to Aviva, Zander, Oscar, Jake, Rosa, Karina, Matilda, Cal, and many others for enjoying the book so much.\n\nMy last and greatest shout-out goes to Maria Jobin-Leeds, who has been a tireless activist, organizer, and visionary partner with whom I have worked, loved, and grown for over three decades. Together we have celebrated victories and mourned the loss of colleagues doing AIDS activism and working on Central American solidarity movements, South Africa divestment campaigns, and many of the movements in this book. Maria was a reader and a coach for me during the writing of this book. But more than anything else, she is my life partner in creating change and building a home and family from which we go out and explore the farthest reaches of this world and our imaginations.\n\nTo everyone else, named and unnamed, this book comes out of a deep bond of love, community, and networks of committed people. My words on these pages emerge out of the scene that you and I are immersed in together. You know who you are, and my cup runneth over with your brilliance, comradery, and the blessings you bring to me and our beloved community. Thank you. You are the hope of our future.\n\n**The Gathering**\n\n**First row** , standing from left to right: John Jackson of The Schott Foundation for Public Education, David Goodman, zakia henderson-brown of The New Press, Eric Mann from LA Bus Riders Union, Steve Meacham of CityLife\/Vida Urbana, Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice Alliance, Antwi Akom of Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational, and Environmental Design (I-SEEED) and Jos\u00e9 Jorge D\u00edaz Ortiz of AgitArte. **Second row** , standing from left to right: Manissa McCleave Maharawal from Eviction Free San Francisco, Aviva Jobin-Leeds, Rinku Sen of Race Forward, Janelle Treibitz, Antonia Darder of Loyola University, Paulina Helm-Hern\u00e1ndez from Southerners on New Ground (SONG), and Deymirie Hern\u00e1ndez of AgitArte. **Third row** , kneeling from left to right: Jackson Potter from the Chicago Teachers Union, Gibr\u00e1n Rivera, Greg Jobin-Leeds, Che Gossett and Julio Salgado of CultureStrike.\n**WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!** TEAM\n\n**Greg Jobin-Leeds** is founder and board co-chair of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, whose mission is to develop and strengthen a broad-based, representative movement to achieve fully resourced, quality public education. He is a writer, a high school and adult literacy teacher, a teacher trainer, and an activist. A son of refugees who fled war, Jobin-Leeds has been engaged in struggles for racial, gender, and economic transformation in Boston, New York, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America. He has launched and nurtured high-impact social justice organizations that have won milestone victories for underserved children and families. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.\n\n**Rinku Sen** is the president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation (formerly the Applied Research Center) and the publisher of the award-winning news site _Colorlines_. Race Forward brings systemic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity through research, media, and practice. She is co-chair of the board (with Greg Jobin-Leeds) of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Rinku is the author of _Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy,_ and the _Accidental American,_ and an editor of _When We Fight, We Win!._ She wrote the foreword for this book and has been an important guide and source of characters and resources.\n\n**Antonia Darder** is an internationally recognized scholar, who has authored and edited numerous books in the field, including _Culture and Power in the Classroom_ , _Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love_ , _After Race: Racism After Multiculturalism_ , _A Dissident Voice_ , and _Freire and Education_. Her scholarship over three decades has sought to interrogate questions of inequalities and social exclusions in ways that make a critique of capitalism and class struggle central to her critical theory of cultural democracy and biculturalism. Over the years, she has also been active in community struggles related to the eradication of poverty and racism, bilingual education, gender inequalities, immigration rights, and community projects that seek to integrate art as a political force. Antonia holds the Leavey Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership at Loyola Marymount University and is Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She wrote the afterword for the book and has been a consistent editor, mentor, coach, and source of stories and lessons.\n\n**Deymirie Hern\u00e1ndez** is an architect, multimedia artist, and educator. Issues of race, identity, language, and community are fundamental to her work. She experiences first-hand the power of the creative process in the lives of youth as a teaching artist throughout the city of Boston. She designs and directs art workshops with AgitArte, a nonprofit organization dedicated to artistic and popular education projects in marginalized communities, where she is also a board member. Dey is also a puppeteer of the radical workers' theater collective, Papel Machete, which is based in Puerto Rico. Her work and performances most recently have been exhibited at the Mills Gallery of the Boston Center for the Arts, and Loisada Center, Lower East Side, New York City. She is the art director and curator of this book.\n\n**Jorge D\u00edaz Ortiz** is a cultural worker\/popular educator, community organizer, puppeteer, and DJ (Cano Cangrejo) from Puerto Rico with over twenty years of praxis in the field. Jorge is deeply committed to working class struggles that challenge patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalism in all of its forms. He is currently the artistic director of AgitArte, a nonprofit which generates workshops and projects in communities in Boston and San Juan. He is actively engaged in struggles for liberation and an active member of the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores. Jorge is also a founding member and co-director of Papel Machete, a collective of radical artists and street theater\/puppetry dedicated to education, agitation, and solidarity work in twenty-first-century Puerto Rico and its Diaspora. He has been a political advisor, mentor, and developmental editor of the book and gathering design.\n\n**David Goodman** is an award-winning independent journalist, a contributing writer for _Mother Jones_ , and the author of ten books, including three _New York Times_ bestsellers co-authored with his sister Amy Goodman, host of _Democracy Now!_ His work has appeared in the _New York Times,_ the _Washington Post, Outside,_ the _Boston Globe, The Nation,_ and numerous other publications. Goodman has appeared as a guest on national radio and television shows, including PBS _NewsHour_ , _Democracy Now!,_ NPR's _Fresh Air_ , and CNN. He also hosts a public affairs radio show, _The Vermont Conversation._ David was an editor, writer, and an advisor in the interviews and in creating the stories in this book.\nNOTES\n\n**INTRODUCTION**\n\n Attributed to Pastor Martin Niem\u00f6ller, as stated in Franklin H. Littell's foreword to _Exile in the Fatherland: Martin Niem\u00f6ller's Letters from Moabit Prison_ , ed. Hubert G. Locke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1986), viii.\n\n**1: RECLAIMING WHOLENESS**\n\n \"Half of Americans Support Legal Gay Marriage,\" Gallup, May 8, 2012, www.gallup.com\/poll\/154529\/half-americans-support-legal-gay-marriage.aspx.\n\n \"Testimony of 12-Year-Old with Two Moms Moves Some Vermont Legislators to Support Gay Marriage Bill,\" _Democracy Now!_ , April 8, 2009.\n\n David Goodman, \"Vermont's 'Happily Ever After,'\" _Mother Jones_ , April 8, 2009.\n\n Martin B. Duberman, \"The Stonewall Riots,\" _The Martin Duberman Reader: The Essential Historical, Biographical, and Autobiographical Writings_ (New York: The New Press, 2013), 91.\n\n \"Poll Indicates Majority Favor Quarantine for AIDS Victims,\" _New York Times_ , December 19, 1985.\n\n \"State Sodomy Laws Continue to Target LGBT Americans,\" Equality Matters, August 8, 2011, <http:\/\/equalitymatters.org\/blog\/201108080012>.\n\n Elizabeth Sheyn, \"The Shot Heard Around the LGBT World: _Bowers v. Hardwick_ as a Mobilizing Force for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,\" _Journal of Race, Gender and Ethnicity_ 4, no. 1 (2009): 2.\n\n George Chauncey, \"The Lesbian Baby Boom,\" _Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate over Gay Equality_ (New York: Basic Books, 2004).\n\n Evan Wolfson, \"Freedom to Marry's Ladder of Clarity: Lessons from a Winning Campaign (That Is Not Yet Won),\" _Columbia Journal of Gender and Law_ 29, no. 1 (2015): 236\u201343.\n\n**2: GROUNDED IN COMMUNITY**\n\n Eric \"Rico\" Gutstein and Pauline Lipman, \"The Rebirth of the Chicago Teachers Union and Possibilities for a Counter -Hegemonic Education Movement,\" _Monthly Review_ , June 2013, 2.\n\n \"Civil Rights and Education Justice Groups File Title VI Complaints in Chicago, New Orleans and Newark,\" Advancement Project, May 13, 2014, www.advancementproject.org\/news\/entry\/civil-rights-education-justice-groups-file-title-vi-complaints-in-chicago-n.\n\n \"Amazing 9 Year Old Asean Johnson Brings the Crowd to Their Feet at Chicago School Closings Rally,\" Catalyst Project, May 20, 2013, <https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oue9HIOM7xU>.\n\n \"National Charter School Study 2013,\" Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University, 2013, <http:\/\/credo.stanford.edu\/documents\/NCSS> 2013 Final Draft.pdf.\n\n Ibid.; Pedro Noguera, \"Why Don't We Have Real Data on Charter Schools?,\" _The Nation_ , October 13, 2014.\n\n Diane Ravitch, \"The Secret to Eva Moskowitz's 'Success,'\" _The Nation_ , September 24, 2014.\n\n For the New Orleans example, see Beth Sondel and Joseph L. Boselovic, \"'No Excuses' in New Orleans,\" _Jacobin_ , July 24, 2014, www.jacobinmag.com\/2014\/07\/no-excuses-in-new-orleans. For the Michigan example, see Jennifer Dixon, \"Michigan Spends $1B on Charter Schools but Fails to Hold Them Accountable,\" Michigan.com, June 22, 2014, www.freep.com\/article\/20140622\/NEWS06\/306220096\/Michigan-charters-1-billion-taxpayer-dollars.\n\n Robert Barlett, \"Creating a New Model of a Social Union: CORE and the Chicago Teachers Union,\" _Monthly Review_ , June 1, 2013.\n\n Alexander Russo, \"Political Educator,\" _Education Next_ , Winter 2003.\n\n Gutstein and Lipman, \"The Rebirth of the Chicago Teachers Union.\"\n\n Michael Fullan, \"Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform,\" Centre for Strategic Education, Seminar Series Paper No. 204, May 2011, www.michaelfullan.ca\/media\/13436787590.html.\n\n Michelle Fine and Michael Fabricant, \"What It Takes to Unite Teachers Unions and Communities of Color,\" _The Nation_ , September 24, 2014.\n\n Gutstein and Lipman, \"The Rebirth of the Chicago Teachers Union.\"\n\n Jerusha Conner and Sonia Rosen, \"How Students Are Leading Us: Youth Organizing and the Fight for Public Education in Philadelphia,\" _Perspectives on Urban Education_ , Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2013, <http:\/\/urbanedjournal.org\/archive\/volume-10-issue-1-summer-2013\/how-students-are-leading-us-youth-organizing-and-fight-public->.\n\n \"Attorney General Eric Holder Delivers Remarks at the Department of Justice and Department of Education School Discipline Guidance Rollout at Frederick Douglass High School,\" news release, U.S. Department of Justice, January 8, 2014, www.justice.gov\/opa\/speech\/attorney-general-eric-holder-delivers-remarks-department-justice-and-department-education.\n\n**3: TRANSFORMING VISIONS**\n\n \" _The New Jim Crow_ Author Michelle Alexander Talks Race and Drug War,\" _Drug War Chronicle_ , Issue 825, March 10, 2014, www.stopthedrugwar.org\/chronicle\/2014\/mar\/10\/new_jim_crow_michelle_alexander_talk.\n\n The Sentencing Project, \"Report of the Sentencing Project to the UN Human Rights Committee,\" August 1, 2013, <http:\/\/sentencingproject.org\/doc\/publications\/rd_ICCPR> Race and Justice Shadow Report.pdf.\n\n National Center for Transgender Equality, \"National Transgender Discrimination Survey,\" September 11, 2012, 163, <http:\/\/transequality.org\/issues\/resources\/national-transgender-discrimination-survey-full-report>.\n\n Michelle Alexander, _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness_ , rev. ed. (New York: The New Press, 2011), 11.\n\n The Sentencing Project, \"The Sentencing Project News\u2014Racial Disparity,\" www.sentencingproject.org\/template\/page.cfm?id=122.\n\n The Sentencing Project, \"Women in the Justice System,\" www.sentencingproject.org\/template\/page.cfm?id=138; Julie Ajinkya, \"Rethinking How to Address the Growing Female Prison Population,\" Center for American Progress, March 8, 2013, www.americanprogress.org\/issues\/women\/news\/2013\/03\/08\/55787\/rethinking-how-to-address-the-growing-female-prison-population.\n\n Andy Kroll, \"This Is How Private Prison Corporations Make Millions Even When Crime Goes Down,\" _Mother Jones_ , September 19, 2013.\n\n Laura Sullivan, \"Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law,\" NPR, October 28, 2010.\n\n Adam Gopnik, \"The Caging of America,\" _New Yorker_ , January 30, 2012.\n\n Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, _Stained: An Intimate Portrayal of State Violence_ , <http:\/\/www.wherevent.com\/detail\/Patrisse-Marie-Cullors-Stained-An-Intimate-Portrayal-of-State-Violence>.\n\n Angela Davis, _Are Prisons Obsolete?_ (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), 107.\n\n Ibid., 108.\n\n \"What Is Transformative Justice?,\" _Philly Stands Up!_ , www.phillystandsup.com\/tj.html.\n\n David Goodman, \"Hard Time Out,\" _Mother Jones_ , August 2008. Reprinted here by permission of the author.\n\n Sylvia Rivera Law Project, \"'It's War in Here': A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Intersex People in New York State Men's Prisons,\" 2007, <http:\/\/srlp.org\/files\/warinhere.pdf>.\n\n \"'Black Trans Bodies Are Under Attack': Freed Activist CeCe McDonald, Actress Laverne Cox Speak Out,\" _Democracy Now!_. February 19, 2014.\n\n Shaena Fazal, \"Safely Home,\" Youth Advocate Programs, June 24, 2014, www.safelyhomecampaign.org\/Portals\/0\/Documents\/Safely%20Home%20Preview\/safelyhome_es.pdf?ver=2.0.\n\n Ian Lovett, \"Inmates End Hunger Strike in California,\" _New York Times_ , September 5, 2013.\n\n \" _The New Jim Crow_ Author Michelle Alexander Talks Race and Drug War.\"\n\n Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal, \"Obama Orders Review of U.S. Police Use of Military Hardware,\" Reuters, August 23, 2014.\n\n \"Michelle Alexander: Locked Out of America,\" _Moyers & Company_, December 20, 2013, <http:\/\/billmoyers.com\/segment\/michelle-alexander-locked-out-of-the-american-dream\/>.\n\n \"The Campaign to End the New Jim Crow,\" brochure, <http:\/\/nationinside.org\/images\/pdf\/CENJC_Brochure.pdf>.\n\n**4: THE POWER OF STORIES**\n\n Jose Antonio Vargas, \"My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,\" _New York Times_ , June 25, 2011.\n\n \"The Immigration Spring,\" editorial, _New York Times_ , March 31, 2013.\n\n David Bacon, \"How US Policies Fueled Mexico's Great Migration,\" _The Nation_ , January 4, 2012.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Juan Gonz\u00e1lez, \"Immigrant Workers Point the Way to a Better World,\" _Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA_ (New York: HarperCollins, 2014).\n\n \"The 'Secure Communities' Illusion,\" editorial, _New York Times_ , September 5, 2014.\n\n Elise Foley, \"Deportations Continue as Congress Seeks Immigration Reform,\" _Huffington Post_ , April 24, 2013.\n\n \"Immigrants in Solitary,\" editorial, _New York Times_ , April 1, 2013.\n\n Detention Watch Network, \"The Influence of the Private Prison Industry in Immigration Detention,\" www.detentionwatchnetwork.org\/privateprisons.\n\n Ibid.\n\n \"Profit Motive Influences Immigration Detention Policy, Says Report,\" Fox News Latino, May 13, 2011.\n\n Peter Wallsten, \"President Obama Bristles When He Is the Target of Activist Tactics He Once Used,\" _Washington Post_ , June 10, 2012.\n\n Peter Wallsten, \"Marco Rubio's Dream Act Alternative a Challenge for Obama on Illegal Immigration,\" _Washington Post_ , April 25, 2012.\n\n Gonz\u00e1lez, \"Immigrant Workers Point the Way to a Better World.\"\n\n**5: \"WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!\"**\n\n National Poverty Center, University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, www.npc.umich.edu\/poverty.\n\n Oxfam, \"Working for the Few,\" January 1, 2014, www.oxfam.org\/sites\/www.oxfam.org\/files\/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf.\n\n Ben Stein, \"In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning,\" _New York Times_ , November 25, 2006.\n\n Laura Shin, \"The 85 Richest People in the World Have as Much Wealth as the 3.5 Billion Poorest,\" _Forbes_ , January 23, 2014.\n\n Manissa McLeave Maharawal, \"So Real It Hurts,\" in Kate Khatib and Mike McGuire, eds., _We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation_ (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012), 174\u201375.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Joel Olson, \"Whiteness and the 99%,\" in Khatib and McGuire, eds., _We Are Many_ , 46.\n\n Occupy Research and Data Center. \"Research By and For the Movement,\" in Khatib and McGuire, eds., _We Are Many_ , 70.\n\n New York Civil Liberties Union, \"Stop and Frisk Facts,\" www.nyclu.org\/node\/1598.\n\n Noam Chomsky, \"America Hates Its Poor,\" _Salon_ , December 1, 2013.\n\n Naomi Wolf, \"Revealed: How the FBI Coordinated the Crackdown on Occupy,\" _Guardian_ , December 29, 2012.\n\n Stan Humphries, \"Getting to Know Underwater Homeowners,\" _Forbes_ , August 4, 2012.\n\n Laura Gottesdiener, \"The Backyard Shock Doctrine,\" TomDispatch.com, August 1, 2013, www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175731\/tomgram:_laura_gottesdiener,_the_backyard_shock_doctrine.\n\n Alan J. Heavens, \"$25 Billion 'Robo-Signing' Settlement Reached with Five Banks,\" _Philadelphia Inquirer_ , February 9, 2012.\n\n David Dayen, \"Bank of America Whistle-blower's Bombshell: \"We Were Told to Lie,\"\" _Salon_ , June 18, 2013.\n\n Jillian Berman, \"Darden Restaurants Profit Plunges 37 Percent After Bad Publicity over Attempt to Skirt Obamacare,\" _Huffington Post_ , December 20, 2012.\n\n Josh Eidelson, \"Private Documents Reveal How Big Restaurant Lobby Monitors Fast Food Protests,\" _Salon_ , May 5, 2014.\n\n Lawrence Mishel and Natalie Sabadish, \"CEO Pay and the Top 1%: How Executive Compensation and Financial-Sector Pay Have Fueled Income Inequality,\" Economic Policy Institute, May 2, 2012, www.epi.org\/publication\/ib331-ceo-pay-top-1-percent.\n\n Michael Halper, \"Five Questions with Saru Jayaraman of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United,\" Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, January 22, 2015, <https:\/\/gspp.berkeley.edu\/news\/news-center\/five-questions-with-saru-jayaraman-of-restaurant-opportunities-centers-unit>.\n\n Mark Bray, \"Something That Takes Time,\" in Khatib and McGuire, eds., _We Are Many_ , 370.\n\n Ryan Harvey, \"Occupy Before and Beyond,\" in Khatib and McGuire, eds., _We Are Many_ , 124.\n\n Frances Fox Piven, \"Is Occupy Over?,\" in Khatib and McGuire, eds., _We Are Many_ , 378\u201379.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Martin Luther King Jr., \"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,\" April 4, 1967, World History Archives, www.hartford-hwp.com\/archives\/45a\/058.html.\n\n Frances Fox Piven, \"Welfare in a New Society,\" in Frances Goldin, Debby Smith, and Michael Steven Smith, eds., _Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA_ (New York: HarperCollins, 2014).\n\n**6: ENVIRONMENTAL WARRIORS**\n\n Clayton Thomas-M\u00fcller, \"A Healing Walk Through Canada's Tar Sands Dystopia,\" _Yes!_ , June 6, 2013, www.yesmagazine.org\/planet\/a-healing-walk-through-canada-s-tar-sands-dystopia.\n\n Bill McKibben, \"Jailed over Big Oil's Attempt to Wreck the Planet,\" TomDispatch.com, August 24, 2011, www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175435\/tomgram:_bill_mckibben,_jailed_over_big_oil's_attempt_to_wreck_the_planet.\n\n J. Andrew Hoerner and Nia Robinson, \"Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S.,\" July 1, 2008, <http:\/\/rprogress.org\/publications\/2008\/climateofchange.pdf>.\n\n Bill McKibben, \"Global Warming's Terrifying New Math,\" _Rolling Stone_ , July 19, 2012.\n\n Suzanne Goldenberg, \"Heirs to Rockefeller Oil Fortune Divest from Fossil Fuels over Climate Change,\" _Guardian_ , September 22, 2014.\n\n Carolyn Jones, \"Chevron's $3 Million Backfires in Richmond Election,\" SFGate, November 5, 2014, www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/article\/Chevron-s-3-million-backfires-in-Richmond-5873779.php.\n\n Bill McKibben, \"The Fossil Fuel Resistance,\" _Rolling Stone_ , April 11, 2013.\n\n Bill McKibben, \"A Movement for a New Planet,\" TomDispatch.com, August 18, 2013, www.tomdispatch.com\/blog\/175737\/.\n\n \"MTA Bus Fare Increases Challenged in Court by Environmental, Community Groups,\" press release, NRDC, June 26, 2007, www.nrdc.org\/media\/2007\/070626.asp.\n\n Naomi Klein, \"Why Unions Need to Join the Climate Fight,\" September 3, 2013, www.naomiklein.org\/articles\/2013\/09\/why-unions-need-join-climate-fight.\n\n Ibid.\n\n Naomi Klein, \"How Science is Telling Us All to Revolt,\" _New Statesman_ , October 29, 2013, <http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/2013\/10\/science-says-revolt>.\nINDEX\n\nNote: _**Italicized**_ , _**boldface**_ page numbers represent photographs, artwork, and the information in captions.\n\nAbu-Jamal, Mumia,\n\nACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), 6\u20138\n\n_Adbusters,_\n\nAffordable Care Act,\n\nAgitArte, xvii, , **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** ,\n\nAhrens, Lois, **__**\n\nAkom, Antwi, 137\u201338, ,\n\nAlas, Jose \"Chencho,\"\n\nAlexander, Michelle, , , ,\n\nAll of Us or None, ,\n\nAmerican Bankers Association convention (October 2010), **_102\u20133_**\n\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), , ,  American Civil Liberties Union\n\nNational Prison Project,  American Civil Liberties Union\n\nreport on L.A. County Jails,\n\nAmerican Clean Energy and Security Act (Waxman-Markey bill),\n\nAmerican Indian Movement (AIM),\n\nAmerican Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), , ,\n\nAmerican Psychiatric Association (APA),\n\nAmica Mutual Insurance,\n\nanti-eviction campaigns, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** , **__** , 115\u201317\n\nCity Life\/Vida Urbana of Boston, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , 115\u201317, , ,\n\neviction blockade,\n\nand Massachusetts tenant protections,\n\npredatory lending and the home foreclosure crisis, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** , 115\u201317\n\npreserving affordable housing in Oakland's Chinatown, **__**\n\nanti-fracking (hydraulic fracturing) protests, **__** ,\n\nApplied Research Center, **__**\n\nArab Spring, , , , ,\n\nArcus Foundation,\n\nArizona's anti-immigrant law (SB 1070), , **__** , , , **__**\n\nArpaio, Joe, **__**\n\nartist interviews, xx\n\nD\u00edaz Ortiz, 48\u201349\n\neconomic justice movement, 126\u201327\n\neducational justice movement, 48\u201349\n\nenvironmental justice movement, 152\u201353\n\nimmigrant rights movement, 100\u2013101\n\nJohnson, 74\u201375\n\nLGBTQ movement, 22\u201323\n\nPaulina, 126\u201327\n\nRodr\u00edquez, 100\u2013101\n\nSalgado, 22\u201323\n\nSchragis, 152\u201353\n\nAssociated Press,\n\nBaker, Ella, xix, **__**\n\nBaldwin, James, xx\n\nBambara, Toni Cade,\n\nBank of America, **__** , 115\u201316\n\nBarraza, Jes\u00fas, **__** , **__** , **__**\n\nBazant, Micah, **__** , **__**\n\nBeehive Design Collective, **_134\u201335_**\n\nBendib, Khalil, **__**\n\nBhargava, Deepak, 94\u201397,\n\nBivens, Josh,\n\nBlack Alliance for Just Immigration,\n\nBlack Panther Party, , ,\n\nSurvival Pending Revolution Program,\n\nblack power movement, xix\n\n#BlackLivesMatter, **__** , , , **_66\u201367_** , ,\n\n#BlackLivesMatterBoston, **__**\n\nBloomberg, Michael, xvi\n\nBoeve, May,\n\nBoggs, Grace Lee, xix\n\nBotello, Raul, 43\u201344\n\nBoucher, Roan, **__**\n\n_Bowers v. Hardwick_ (1986), ,\n\nBoycott FreshDirect, **__**\n\n_Boys Will Be Girls Will Be Boys_ (Bunnell and Reinheimer coloring book), **__**\n\nBray, Mark,\n\nBrecht, Bertolt,\n\nBronski, Michael, 20\u201321\n\nbrown, adrienne maree,\n\nBrown, Jerry,\n\nBrown, Jitu, 35\u201338, ,\n\nBrown, Michael (Ferguson, Missouri shooting), **_xii_** , **_50\u201351_** , **__** , , , , 164\u201366\n\nBuchanan, Pat,\n\nBuffett, Warren,\n\nBunnell, Jacinta, **__**\n\nBush, George W.,\n\nCain, Herman,\n\nCalifornia DREAM Act (2011),\n\nCalifornia DREAM Network,\n\nCalifornians United for a Responsible Budget,\n\nCampaign for Fair Food, **_118\u201319_**\n\nCampaign to End the New Jim Crow,\n\nCanada. _See_ indigenous people of Canada's First Nations\n\ncapitalism\n\nart and,\n\nand climate justice, xix, , , 142\u201345, **__** , , 148\u201349\n\nand colonialism, , , ,\n\nand the economic justice movement, , 109\u201313, , **__** , 124\u201325,\n\nGramsci's theory of capitalist cultural hegemony,\n\nand immigrants\/migrant workers, , **__** , **__**\n\nand LGBTQ rights, **__** , ,\n\nMcKibben on the \"perverse logic\" of, xix,\n\nand neoliberalism, 31\u201332, , , 163\u201364, **__**\n\nand the prison industry, , , **__** ,\n\nand public education movement, ,\n\nand racism, , , , , 164\u201366\n\n_See also_ economic justice movement\n\nCarey, Rea, , 11\u201313\n\nCaron, Mona, **__**\n\nCASA (Maryland Latino rights group),\n\nCaucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) (Chicago), ,\n\nCausa Justa\/Just Cause Oakland, **__**\n\nCenter for Community Change, ,\n\nChampion Award, xvi\n\nCentral American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA),\n\nCentral Committee for Conscientious Objectors (Philadelphia),\n\nCervantes, Melanie, **__**\n\ncharter schools and private-run schools, , 29\u201334\n\nChauncey, George,\n\nChavez, Cesar, **__** , ,\n\nChen, Jess X., **__**\n\nChevron,\n\nChicago schools system, xviii, **__** , 27\u201339, 42\u201344,\n\ncharter schools and private-run schools, , 29\u201334\n\nChicago Model of neoliberal educational reform, 31\u201332,\n\nthe Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), 34\u201339, 42\u201344\n\nCTU teachers' strike (2012), **_24\u201325_** , , 38\u201339, **_40\u201341_** , 42\u201344,\n\neducational justice movement, xviii, **__** , 27\u201339, 42\u201344,\n\nhigh-stakes testing, , , , 32\u201334\n\nschool closures and their impact, 27\u201330, 32\u201334, 35\u201338\n\nSouth Side, ,\n\nstudent incarcerations for disciplinary infractions,\n\nChomsky, Noam, 110\u201312\n\nChorus Foundation (Boston),\n\n_Citizens United_ decision (2010),\n\nCity Life\/Vida Urbana (CL\/VU), **_102\u20133_** , **__** , 115\u201317, , ,\n\neviction blockade,\n\nand Massachusetts tenant protections,\n\nCity University of New York (CUNY), 106\u20137\n\ncivil rights movement, xi, , , , , , ,\n\nclimate justice. _See_ environmental justice movement\n\n_A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S._ (Hoerner and Robinson),\n\nClinton, Bill,\n\nCoalition for Educational Justice,\n\nCoalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and the Fair Food Program, **_118\u201319_**\n\nCoalition to End Sheriff Violence in the L.A. Jails, , 59\u201361, **__**\n\nCOINTELPRO,\n\nColombia, U.S-backed drug war in, , 85\u201386\n\n_Colorlines,_ , , **__**\n\nColorofChange.org, , ,\n\nCommercial Club of Chicago,\n\nCommunities United (Chicago),\n\nCommunity Rejuvenation Project, **_90\u201391_**\n\nConcept Charter,\n\nConner, Jerusha,\n\n_Control Unit Torture_ (Johnson), **__**\n\nConway, Butch,\n\nCooper, Marshall, **_102\u20133_**\n\n_Cops_ (Fox TV show),\n\nCorrections Corporation of America (CCA), 56\u201358, **__** ,\n\nCostanza-Chock, Sasha,\n\nCotton, Shaquanda,\n\nCouncil on Foundations, Critical Impact Award, xvi\n\nCox, Laverne,\n\nCrabapple, Molly, **_xii\u2013xiii_**\n\nCreative Interventions,\n\nCreedon, Kelly, **__**\n\nCrenshaw, Kimberl\u00e9,\n\nCrimethinc, **__**\n\nCritical Resistance,\n\n\"Cruel and Usual Punishment\" (2011 ACLU report on L.A. County jails),\n\nCullors, Monte, 55\u201356,\n\nCullors-Brignac, Patrisse, 55\u201356, 58\u201359, **__**\n\n_CultureStrike,_ , , **_60\u201361_** , **__**\n\nCuomo, Andrew, xvi\n\nCushman, Joy,\n\nDaley, Richard,\n\n_Dandelions Rising!_ (Lee and Rivera), **__**\n\nDarden Restaurants, 120\u201322\n\nDarder, Antonia, xvi, xvii, xix, , , 162\u201366, **__**\n\nDavis, Angela, , ,\n\nDavis, Mike,\n\nde Blasio, Bill,\n\nDeal, Gregg, **__**\n\ndebt-resistance movement,\n\n_Decolonize Wall Street_ (Yerena), **_xx\u2013xxi_**\n\nDefense of Marriage Act (DOMA),\n\nDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,\n\n_Democracy Now!,_\n\nDemocratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina (2012), **__** , **__**\n\ndeportations of undocumented immigrants, **_36\u201337_** , **__** , **__** , 79\u201380, , , 94\u201397, **_._** _See also_ immigrant rights movement\n\n_Deporting and Detaining Parents Shatters Families_ (Stern), **__**\n\nDetention Watch Network,\n\n_Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_ (DSM),\n\nDiallo, Amadou,\n\nD\u00edaz, Jos\u00e9 Jorge, xvi, xvii,\n\nD\u00edaz Ortiz, Jorge, 48\u201349\n\n\"Die-In for Mike Brown\" (New York City) (2015), **_50\u201351_**\n\nDignidad Rebelde, **__** , **__** , **__**\n\nDignity and Power Now (Los Angeles), ,\n\nDo the Math campaign and bus tour (350.org), , **_140\u201341_**\n\nDo the Right Thing Tour, **_118\u201319_**\n\nDomestic Workers Bill of Rights (New York State), , **__**\n\nDomestic Workers United, **__**\n\n_Don't Stop at Marriage! Queers Are Getting Deported!_ (Salgado), **__**\n\nDouglass, Frederick, vii\n\nDREAM Act, , **_36\u201337_** , 79\u201380, , **__** ,\n\n_DREAM Act_ mural (Garc\u00eda), **_36\u201337_**\n\n_A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home_ (Gottesdiener),\n\n#DREAM4JUSTICE March in New York City (2015), **_50\u201351_**\n\nDREAMers, xviii, 79\u201398,\n\ndirect-action protests, ,\n\nand the historical movement for\n\njustice and civil rights, 89\u201392,\n\nand LGBTQ issues,\n\nand the Obama administration, 94\u201397\n\nresponses from other activists, 92\u201394\n\nstrategies of storytelling, , , ,\n\nsuccesses and new goals,\n\nthe Trail of DREAMs walkers and the 2010 march to the White House, 79\u201380, 88\u201397\n\nand women's leadership,\n\nworkers' rights workshops in small communities,\n\n_See also_ immigrant rights movement\n\nDreamers Adrift,\n\nDSM Netherlands,\n\nDuberman, Martin,\n\n_Dump the Prison Stock!_ (Cervantes), **__**\n\nDuncan, Arne, **__** , , , 43\u201344\n\nDuncombe, Stephen,\n\nEbrahimi, Farhad, **__** ,\n\neconomic justice movement, xviii\u2013xix, 102\u201327\n\nanti-eviction campaigns, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** , **__** , 115\u201317\n\nartist interview (Lily Paulina), 126\u201327\n\nand capitalism, , 109\u201313, , **__** , 124\u201325,\n\nCity Life\/Vida Urbana of Boston, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , 115\u201317, , ,\n\nand class struggle, 110\u201312\n\nand climate justice, , 137\u201338, , 142\u201345\n\ndomestic workers, , **__**\n\nimmigrant workers, , **__**\n\nand income\/wealth inequality, , 110\u201312,\n\nlegacy of Occupy-inspired activism, 113\u201315, , 124\u201325,\n\nthe LGBTQ movement and economic justice issues in the South, 13\u201318\n\nlow-wage workers' labor organizing, 117\u201322\n\nminimum wage movement, ,\n\nOccupy Wall Street (OWS), 105\u201315, , 124\u201325\n\nOccupy's leaderless movement model, ,\n\npolice crackdown on OWS, , 112\u201313, ,\n\npredatory lending and the home foreclosure crisis, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** , 115\u201317\n\nracism issues and people of color, 107\u20139, **__** , ,\n\nRestaurant Opportunity Centers United (ROC-U) campaigns, 120\u201322\n\nrestaurant workers' organizing, 117\u201322\n\nEconomic Policy Institute,\n\nEcuador, , ,\n\n_Education is a Right_ (Stern), **__**\n\n_Education vs. Incarceration_ (Killinger), **__**\n\neducational justice movement, xv\u2013xvi, xviii, 24\u201347\n\nartist interview (D\u00edaz Ortiz), 48\u201349\n\nChicago movement, xviii, **__** , 27\u201339, 42\u201344,\n\nChicago teachers strike (2012), **_24\u201325_** , , 38\u201339, **_40\u201341_** , 42\u201344,\n\nChicago Teachers Union (CTU), , 34\u201339, 42\u201344\n\nat colleges and universities, 39\u201340\n\nand corporate-driven neoliberal educational reform, 31\u201332,\n\ncosts of mass incarceration compared to education, **__**\n\nhigh-stakes testing, , , , 32\u201334\n\nMexico,\n\nnecessity for collective community accountability,\n\nand New York State school funding cuts, xv\u2013xvi\n\nand privatization model of school reform (charter schools and private-run schools), , 29\u201334\n\nPuerto Rico, **__** , , 39\u201340, **_46\u201347_**\n\nschool closures and their impact, 27\u201330, 32\u201334, 35\u201338\n\nstudent unions and strikes, 39\u201340, , **_46\u201347_**\n\nTrinational Conference (2014),\n\nEgypt, ,\n\nEl Puente (New York City), **__**\n\nEl Salvador,\n\nEmanuel, Rahm, 27\u201328, , 35\u201338, , **__**\n\nEnbridge, **__**\n\nEnd Family Detention, **_60\u201361_**\n\n_The End of Nature_ (McKibben),\n\nEnergy Action Coalition (New York City), **__**\n\nEnlace, **__**\n\nenvironmental justice movement, xix, 128\u201353\n\nanti-fracking protests, **__** ,\n\nartist interview (Rachel Schragis), 152\u201353\n\nbarriers to collaboration, 137\u201338\n\nand the broader political and economic justice movement, , 137\u201338, , 142\u201345\n\ncapitalism and climate justice, xix, , 142\u201345, **__** , , 148\u201349\n\nclimate change\/global warming crisis, , 133\u201339, 148\u201349\n\ndefining environmental justice, 137\u201338\n\nDo the Math campaign and bus tour (2012), , **_140\u201341_**\n\nfossil fuel divestment campaign, **_140\u201341_** ,\n\nindigenous people of Canada's First Nations, **_128\u201329_** , **__** , 131\u201333\n\nKeystone XL Pipeline protests at the\n\nWhite House (2011),\n\nleadership, ,\n\nLos Angeles Bus Riders Union (BRU), , 145\u201346\n\nMcKibben, xix, , 133\u201345\n\nmountaintop removal mining, **_134\u201335_**\n\nnative-led #Idle No More protests, **_128\u201329_** , 131\u201333\n\noverall successes and solutions, ,\n\nPeople's Climate March in New York City (September 21, 2014), **__** , **__** , , , **__**\n\nrace and people of color, 137\u201338, **__**\n\nrelationships between race, gender, class, and climate change,\n\ntar sands mining, 131\u201333, **__**\n\nThomas-M\u00fcller, xix, 131\u201333\n\n350.org and the climate justice movement, , 133\u201345\n\ntransformative vision, 148\u201349\n\nthe 2006 climate march to Burlington, Vermont,\n\nand women\/women of color,\n\n_Estudiante Militante_ (Militant Student) (Papel Machete), **_46\u201347_**\n\nFair Minimum Wage Act,\n\nFannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage\n\nAssociation), **__**\n\nfarmworkers, Florida, **_118\u201319_**\n\nfast-food workers and minimum wage strikes, ,\n\nFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),\n\nFederal Housing Finance Agency,\n\nFerguson Solidarity March (Boston, 2014), **__**\n\nFight for the Soul of the Cities Campaign (L.A.-based Labor\/Community Strategy Center),\n\n_Fight Patriarchy_ (Rodr\u00edguez), **__**\n\nFireman Hospitality Group,\n\n#FloodWallStreet,\n\nFonta\u00f1a, Maria Elena Lara,\n\n_Foreclose on the 1%_ (Barraza), **__**\n\nFormerly Incarcerated People's Movement,\n\nfossil fuel divestment campaign, **_140\u201341_** ,\n\nfossil fuel industry, 133\u201345. _See also_ environmental justice movement\n\nFox, Herb,\n\nFraser, Chelsea, 63\u201364\n\nFreddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), **__**\n\nFree University,\n\nFreedom Archives,\n\nFreedom Harvest (L.A. artist collective), , **__**\n\nFreedom to Marry, 9\u201310\n\nFreire, Paulo, xix,\n\nGandhi, Mahatma,\n\nGanz, Marshall,\n\nGarc\u00eda, Francisco \"Enuf,\" **_36\u201337_**\n\nGarcia, Jesus \"Chuy,\"\n\nGarner, Eric,\n\nGarza, Alicia, , **__**\n\nGass, Robert, xix\n\n_Gender Subversion Kit,_ **_18\u201319_**\n\nGEO Group, Inc., , **__** ,\n\nGeorgia's anti-immigrant law,\n\nGilmore, Ruth,\n\nGLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), ,\n\n\"Global Warming's Terrifying New Math\" (McKibben),\n\nglobalization and immigration, 85\u201386, **__**\n\nGoebbels, Joseph,\n\nGonz\u00e1lez, Juan, ,\n\nGoodman, David, xvi, xvii, xx,\n\nGoodson, Adria, xix\n\nGossett, Che, , ,\n\nGossett, Reina, **__**\n\nGottesdiener, Laura,\n\nGramsci, Antonio,\n\nGrassroots Education Movement (Chicago), , 35\u201338\n\nGreat American Boycott (May 1, 2006),\n\n_Guardian,_ ,\n\nGutstein, Rico, , ,\n\n_Hands Up Don't Shoot_ (Crabapple), **_xii\u2013xiii_**\n\nHarding, Vincent,\n\nHarper, Stephen, **__**\n\nHarvey, Ryan,\n\nHawken, Paul, xviii\n\nHealing Walk (#Idle No More), 131\u201332,\n\nHeintz, Stephen,\n\nHelm-Hern\u00e1ndez, Paulina, 13\u201318, ,\n\nHern\u00e1ndez, Deymirie, xvi, xvii,\n\nHern\u00e1ndez, Jos\u00e9 \"Primo,\" xvii\n\nHighlander Research and Education Center (Tennessee),\n\nHIV\/AIDS crisis, 6\u20138,\n\nHoerner, J. Andrew,\n\nHolder, Eric, 43\u201344,\n\nhome foreclosure crisis, **_102\u20133_** , **__** , **__** , 115\u201317. _See also_ anti-eviction campaigns\n\nHonk! Festival of Activist Street Bands, **__** , **__**\n\nHuerta, Dolores,\n\nHuffnagle, Erica,\n\nHuman Rights Coalition (Philadelphia), ,\n\nhunger strikes against solitary confinement in California jails (2013), **__** , , **_60\u201361_** , , **__**\n\nHunt, Deborah, **__**\n\nHurricane Sandy (October 2012),\n\n_I Am Undocuqueer_ (Salgado), **_16\u201317_**\n\n#Idle No More protests against destruction of native lands, **_128\u201329_** , 131\u201333\n\nthe Healing Walk, 131\u201332,\n\n_If Capital Can Cross Borders_ (Barraza), **__**\n\nImarisha, Kakamia Jahad,\n\nImarisha, Walidah, 62\u201365,\n\nimmigrant rights movement, xviii, 76\u2013101\n\nand Arizona's anti-immigrant law, , **__** , , , **__**\n\nartist interview (Favianna Rodr\u00edquez), 100\u2013101\n\nand art\/media, , 100\u2013101\n\nChicago, **__**\n\nDACA program,\n\ndeportations of undocumented immigrants, **_36\u201337_** , **__** , **__** , 79\u201380, , , 94\u201397, **__**\n\ndepression and suicide among undocumented youth,\n\ndirect-action protests, ,\n\nand the DREAM Act, , **_36\u201337_** , 79\u201380, , **__** ,\n\nthe DREAMers, xviii, 79\u201398,\n\n\"drop the i-word campaign,\" , **__** ,\n\nand economic justice movements, , **__**\n\nand globalization, 85\u201386, **__**\n\nimmigrant detainees and the prison justice movement, **__** , , , **__**\n\n\"Immigration Spring\" (2013),\n\nlearning from other movements,\n\nLGBTQ immigrants and LGBTQ movement organizing for, **__** , 11\u201313, , **_16\u201317_** ,\n\nlinks to historical movement for justice and civil rights, 89\u201392,\n\nand local police authorization to enforce immigration laws, , ,\n\nNo Papers, No Fear campaign and the UndocuBus, **_76\u201377_** , **__** , **_82\u201383_**\n\nObama's deportation policy, **__** , 79\u201380, , 94\u201397\n\nand reasons for emigration to the U.S., 85\u201386\n\nstorytelling strategies, , , ,\n\nstudents denied college financial aid or in-state tuition, , ,\n\nTrail of DREAMs walkers and the 2010 march to the White House, 79\u201380, 88\u201397\n\nthe 2006 national immigration protests,\n\nwomen's leadership,\n\nworkshops in small communities,\n\nINCITE! Reproductive Justice Task Force, **__**\n\nINCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, **__**\n\n#IndictAmerica, **__**\n\nIndigenous Environmental Network,\n\nindigenous people of Canada's First Nations\n\nanti-fracking protest in New Brunswick, **__**\n\nenvironmental justice movement, **_128\u201329_** , **__** , 131\u201333\n\nthe Healing Walk, 131\u201332,\n\n#Idle No More protests against destruction of native lands, **_128\u201329_** , 131\u201333\n\ntar sands mining protests, 131\u201333\n\n_indignados_ (Spain),\n\nI\u00f1iguez, Jes\u00fas, **__**\n\nInstitute for Sustainable Economic, Educational, and Environmental Design (I-SEEED),\n\nInternational Workers' Day (May 1),\n\nJackson, John H., 32\u201334, ,\n\nJames, Taj, xix\n\nJayaraman, Saru, 120\u201322\n\nJim Crow segregation laws, , 56\u201358, , **__**\n\nJim\u00e9nez, Salvador, **__**\n\nJohnson, Asean, 27\u201329,\n\nJohnson, Kevin \"Rashid,\" **__** , 74\u201375, **__** , **__**\n\nJohnson, Lyndon B.,\n\nJohnson, Marsha P., **__**\n\nJohnson Family Foundation,\n\nJohst, Hanns,\n\nJourney for Justice Alliance,\n\nJust Leadership USA,\n\nJustice for Families, **__**\n\nKampia, Rob,\n\n_Keep America Clean_ (Darder), **__**\n\nKeepers of the Athabasca,\n\nKenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) (Chicago), ,\n\nKeystone XL Pipeline,\n\nKillinger, Jason, **__**\n\nKing, Martin Luther Jr., 9\u201310, , **__** , , , ,\n\nKlein, Naomi, 139\u201342, 148\u201349\n\nKoch brothers, ,\n\nKu Klux Klan, ,\n\nLa Guardia High School (New York City), 106\u20137\n\nLabor\/Community Strategy Center (Los Angeles), , ,\n\nLacey, Michael, **__**\n\nLane, Andy, 8\u201311\n\n_Lawrence v. Texas_ (2003), ,\n\nLee, Gonji, **__**\n\nLevins Morales, Ricardo, **__**\n\nLewis, Karen, , 30\u201331, 38\u201339, ,\n\nLGBTQ movement, xviii, 1\u201321,\n\nartist interview (Salgado), 22\u201323\n\nchallenging anti-sodomy laws, ,\n\ncross-issue organizing and efforts to diversify, 8\u201313,\n\ndifference from early gay liberation movement, 20\u201321\n\neconomic justice issues in the South, 13\u201318\n\nHIV\/AIDS crisis, 6\u20138,\n\nmarriage equality (same-sex marriage), **__** , 5\u201311, 14\u201318, ,\n\nNational LGBTQ Task Force, , , , 11\u201313, ,\n\nNorth Carolina organizing, ,\n\n\"queer\" identity, ,\n\nSoutherners on New Ground (SONG)\n\nand the movement in the South, , 13\u201318\n\nthe term \"LGBTQ\" (and LGBTQIA),\n\ntransgender identity,\n\nand undocumented immigrants rights, **__** , 11\u201313, , **_16\u201317_** ,\n\n_Liberty for All_ (Salgado\/V\u00e1squez comic strip), , **__**\n\nLieberman, Donna,\n\nLight Brigade Network, **__**\n\nLipman, Pauline, , 31\u201332, ,\n\nLMNOPI, **_66\u201367_**\n\nLorber, Jason,\n\nLos Angeles Bus Riders Union (BRU), , 145\u201346\n\nNo Cars in L.A. campaign, 145\u201346\n\nLos Angeles County Jails, , 58\u201361\n\n_Los Angeles Times,_\n\nlow-wage workers' labor organizing, 117\u201322. _See also_ restaurant workers movement\n\nMacDowell, Adourthus, 42\u201343\n\n_Maestra Combativa_ (Combative Teachers) (Papel Machete), **__**\n\nMaharawal, Manissa McCleave, 106\u201315, ,\n\nMann, Eric, xix, 145\u201346,\n\nMarch for Women's Lives (2004),\n\nMarch on Washington (1963), ,\n\nMar\u00eda de Hostos, Eugenio, **__**\n\nmarijuana legalization, 71\u201372\n\nMarijuana Policy Project,\n\nMariposas Sin Fronteras, **_60\u201361_**\n\nMarks, Claude,\n\nmarriage equality and same-sex marriage, **__** , 5\u201311, 14\u201318, , . _See also_ LGBTQ movement\n\nMartin, Trayvon, **__** ,\n\nMartinez, Channing, ,\n\nMarx, Karl,\n\nmass incarceration. _See_ prison justice movement\n\nMathias Colomb Cree Nation (Manitoba, Canada), 132\u201333\n\nMatos, Felipe, , , 88\u201392\n\nMcCoullough, Diamond,\n\nMcGregor, Erik, **__**\n\nMcKever, Myles, **__**\n\nMcKibben, Bill, xix, , 133\u201345\n\nMcLaughlin, Gayle,\n\nMeacham, Steve, 116\u201317, , , 159\u201360\n\nMexico\n\neducational justice movement,\n\nimmigrants to the U.S.,\n\nimpact of NAFTA,\n\nZapatistas, xix,\n\nMiami Dade College, , , ,\n\nMichelin, Ossie, **__**\n\nMichigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, **__**\n\nMigration Now Portfolio, **__**\n\nMiller-Mack, Ellen, **__**\n\nMilo\u0161evi\u0107, Slobodan,\n\nminimum wage campaigns, ,\n\nMIT's Center for Civic Media, **__**\n\nMor\u00e1n Jahn, Marisa, **__**\n\nmountaintop removal mining, **_134\u201335_**\n\nMubarak, Hosni,\n\nNakagawa, Scot, ,\n\nNarasimhan, Sabelo, **__**\n\n_Nation_ (magazine), ,\n\nNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), ,\n\nNational Domestic Workers Alliance, ,\n\nNational Farm Workers Association,\n\nNational LGBTQ Task Force, , , , 11\u201313, ,\n\nNational Museum of Mexican Art, **__**\n\nNational Night Out, **__**\n\nNational Opportunity to Learn Campaign,\n\nNational Restaurant Association (NRA), 120\u201322\n\nNational Security Agency (NSA),\n\nNational Women's Law Center, **__**\n\nNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC),\n\nNavajo Nation, **_150\u201351_**\n\nNazi Germany,\n\n_The Negro Family_ (the Moynihan report),\n\nneighborhood watch movement, **__**\n\nneoliberalism, , , 163\u201364, **__**\n\nand Chicago Model of corporate-driven educational reform, 31\u201332,\n\nand working people of color, , **__**\n\n_See also_ capitalism\n\nNew Day, New Standard, **__**\n\n_The New Jim Crow_ (Alexander),\n\nNew Organizing Institute,\n\nNew York City police (NYPD)\n\nDiallo shooting (1999), 106\u20137\n\nand Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park, , 112\u201313\n\nSchool Safety Division and patrols in schools,\n\nstop-and-frisk policy, ,\n\nNew York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU),\n\nNew York State public schools, xv\u2013xvi\n\nNew York State Youth Leadership Council,\n\n_New York Times,_ , , ,\n\n_New York Times Magazine,_\n\nNiem\u00f6ller, Martin, xix\n\nNies, Judith, vii\n\nNight Out for Safety and Democracy, **__**\n\nNo Cars in L.A. campaign, 145\u201346\n\nNo Child Left Behind (NCLB),\n\n_No Human Being Is Illegal_ (Y cada uno tiene un sue\u00f1o) (Pescador), **_90\u201391_**\n\nNo Papers, No Fear campaign, **_76\u201377_** , **__** , **_82\u201383_**\n\n_No Pride for Some of Us_ (Bazant), **__**\n\nNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), ,\n\n_Nuestro Labor Mantiene La Econom\u00eda del Mundo_ (Rodr\u00edguez), **__**\n\nNwankwo, Aloysius, 115\u201316\n\nOakland housing activists, **__** , **__**\n\nObama, Barack, xvi, ,\n\nAffordable Care Act,\n\nDACA program,\n\neducation policy, ,\n\nending the school-to-prison pipeline,\n\nimmigration and deportation policies, **__** , 79\u201380, , 94\u201397\n\nKeystone XL Pipeline and indigenous organizers' protests,\n\nSecure Communities program,\n\nand the Trail of DREAM walkers, 94\u201397\n\nOccupy Boston, ,\n\nOccupy Harlem,\n\nOccupy Our Homes, ,\n\nOccupy Philanthropy,\n\nOccupy Research, ,\n\nOccupy Sandy,\n\nOccupy Student Debt,\n\nOccupy the Department of Education,\n\nOccupy the Hood, , **__**\n\nOccupy Wall Street (OWS), 105\u201315, , 124\u201325\n\naccomplishments and legacy of Occupy-inspired activism, 113\u201315, **__** , , 124\u201325,\n\nthe armed police crackdown and evictions, , 112\u201313, ,\n\nand class struggle, 110\u201312\n\ncolorblindness and failure to implement a strong anti-racism platform, 107\u20139, **__** ,\n\nDeclaration of Occupy Wall Street,\n\nand international movement challenging inequality and global capitalism, ,\n\nLabor Working Group,\n\nleaderless movement model, ,\n\nwomen's roles,\n\nZuccotti Park encampment in lower Manhattan, 106\u201310, 112\u201313\n\n_Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements_ (Imarisha and Brown, eds.),\n\nOlsen, Scott,\n\nOlson, Joel,\n\nOregon Humanities Conversation Project,\n\nOrleck-Jetter, Evann,\n\nOtpor!,\n\nOverpass Light Brigade, **_40\u201341_**\n\nOwens, Lisa,\n\nOxfam,\n\nPacheco, Gaby, , 80\u201381, 84\u201397, ,\n\nPapel Machete, **__** , **_46\u201347_** , 48\u201349, **__** , **__** , **__**\n\nParedes, Pablo, **__**\n\nParks, Rosa, ,\n\nPartnership for Civil Justice,\n\nPastor, Manuel, xix\n\nPaulina, Lily, 126\u201327\n\nPeople's Climate March in New York City (September , 2014), **__** , **__** , , , **__**\n\nPerry, Pat, **__**\n\nPescador, Pancho, **_90\u201391_**\n\nPhiladelphia Student Union (PSU),\n\nPhilly Stands Up,\n\n_Phoenix New Times,_ **__**\n\nPiven, Frances Fox, 124\u201325\n\n_Playbook for Progressives:_\n\n_Qualities of the Successful Organizer_ (Mann),\n\nPolaris Institute's Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign,\n\nPolchies, Amanda, **__**\n\npolice\n\nthe anti-police-brutality movement, **_xii_** , **_50\u201351_** , **__** , 58\u201359,\n\nbrutality and killings of unarmed people of color, **_xii_** , **_50\u201351_** , , 106\u20137, , 164\u201366\n\nCoalition to End Sheriff Violence in the L.A. Jails, , 59\u201361, **__**\n\nimmigration enforcement by, , ,\n\nNYPD stop-and-frisk policy, ,\n\nand Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park, , 112\u201313\n\nschool patrols,\n\ntargeting\/criminalization of LGBTQ people, ,\n\nPoo, Ai-jen,\n\nPotter, Jackson, ,\n\nPresente.org,\n\nPride Festival (San Francisco, 2013), **__**\n\nprison justice movement, xviii, 50\u201373,\n\nalternatives to prisons, 61\u201362,\n\nand the anti-police-brutality movement, **_xii_** , **_50\u201351_** , **__** , 58\u201359,\n\nartist interview (Johnson), 74\u201375\n\n#BlackLivesMatter, **__** , , , **_66\u201367_** , ,\n\nand California prisoners' hunger strike, **__** , 59\u201361, , **__**\n\ncapitalism and the prison industry, , , **__** ,\n\ncivilian oversight commissions,\n\ncommunity-based alternatives to policing and prison, 61\u201362,\n\ncosts of mass incarceration compared to education, **__**\n\nending mandatory sentences,\n\nand immigrant detainees and immigration reform, **__** , , , **__**\n\nand L.A. County jails, , 58\u201361\n\nand negative depictions of people of color in popular media, **__** ,\n\nprison abolition movement, 61\u201365, 71\u201372, **__**\n\nprison divestment campaign, , **__**\n\nthe private corporate prison industry (\"prison industrial complex\"), , 56\u201358, , **__** ,\n\nqueer and transgender people imprisoned, ,\n\nracism and the new Jim Crow, , 56\u201358,\n\nthe role of art, 59\u201361, **__** , 74\u201375\n\nschool-to-prison pipeline, **__** , 43\u201344, 63\u201364,\n\nsentence reduction\/reform, ,\n\nand transformative justice, 62\u201365\n\nwomen incarcerated, , , **__** ,\n\nyouth incarceration, **__** , **__** , 43\u201344, 63\u201364,\n\nPrison Radio,\n\n_Prison vs. College_ (Bendib), **__**\n\n_Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children_ (Wilmarth), **__**\n\nPrivacy Project (National LGBTQ Task Force),\n\n_Protecting Our Mother For Our Unborn Children_ (Deal), **__**\n\npublic transport, 145\u201346\n\nPublix (Florida supermarket chain), **_118\u201319_**\n\nPuerto Rico, **__** , , 39\u201340, **_46\u201347_** ,\n\nPuerto Rico Teachers Federation (FMPR), **__** ,\n\nPussy Power Imaginary,\n\nQueer Undocumented Immigrant Project, **__**\n\nQueers Demand series (Boucher), **__**\n\nRadio Arte, **__**\n\nRamirez, Al,\n\nRavitch, Diane,\n\nReagan, Ronald, ,\n\nThe Real Cost of Prison Project, **__** ,\n\nReal Cost of Prisons Comix series, **__**\n\nReinheimer, Irit, **__**\n\nRenaissance 2010 (Chicago),\n\nRestaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-U), 120\u201322\n\nrestaurant workers' movement, 117\u201322\n\nfast-food workers and minimum wage strikes, ,\n\nfighting sexual harassment,\n\ngender pay inequity,\n\nindustry lobbies and resistance to reform, 120\u201322\n\nROC-U campaigns, 120\u201322\n\n\"tipped workers,\"\n\nrestorative justice, , ,\n\nRhasaan, Malik, **__**\n\nRice, Tamir,\n\nRichmond, California, ,\n\nRivera, Andr\u00e9s \"RHIPS,\" **__**\n\nRivera, Denis,\n\nRivera, Gibr\u00e1n, 155\u201356,\n\nRivera, Sylvia Ray, **__**\n\nRoa, Carlos, ,\n\nRoad, Cristy C., **__**\n\nRobinson, Nia,\n\nRobinson, Rashad, , ,\n\nRockefeller, John D.,\n\nRockefeller Brothers Fund,\n\nRodr\u00edguez, Favianna, **__** , , **__** , 100\u2013101, **__** , **__** , ,\n\nRodriguez, Juan, , , 84\u201397,\n\n_Rolling Stone,_ ,\n\nRomero, \u00d3scar,\n\nRosen, Sonia,\n\nRoy, Arundhati,\n\nRubio, Marco,\n\nRude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO), **__** , **__** , 126\u201327, **__**\n\nSaavedra, Carlos,\n\nSafe OUTside the System (New York City),\n\nSalgado, Julio, **__** , **_16\u201317_** , 22\u201323, **__** , **_82\u201383_** , **__**\n\n_Salon,_\n\nsame-sex marriage, **__** , 5\u201311, 14\u201318, , .\n\n_See also_ LGBTQ movement\n\nSamuel DeWitt Proctor Conference,\n\n_School to Jail Track_ (Youth Justice Coalition), **__**\n\nschool-to-prison pipeline, **__** , 43\u201344, 63\u201364,\n\nSchott Foundation for Public Education, xvii, 32\u201334, ,\n\nSchragis, Rachel, **_140\u201341_** , 152\u201353\n\nScopia Capital,\n\nSeattle minimum wage campaign,\n\nSecure Communities Act and program,\n\nSelma to Montgomery March (1965),\n\nSen, Rinku, x\u2013xii, xvi, xvii, xix, , ,\n\nSentencing Project,\n\nService Employees International Union (SEIU), ,\n\n67 Sue\u00f1os, **_90\u201391_**\n\nSharkey, Jessie,\n\n_Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System_ (Applied Research Center), **__**\n\nSheyn, Elizabeth,\n\nSilva, Diana,\n\nSilvia Rivera Law Project,\n\nSolar Richmond,\n\nSolnit, David, **__**\n\nSolomon, Joe, **__**\n\nSoules, Athena, **__**\n\nSouth Bronx Unite, **__**\n\nSoutherners on New Ground (SONG), , 13\u201318\n\nSpain,\n\nSpitzer, Eliot, xv\u2013xvi\n\n_Stained: An Intimate Portrayal of State Violence_ (Cullors-Brignac performance), 58\u201359\n\nStern, Meredith, **__** , **__**\n\nStonewall Riots (1969), , **__**\n\nStop Chinatown Evictions Coalition (SCEC), **__**\n\n_STOP C.R.A.C.K._ (Road), **__**\n\n_Stop Juan Crow_ (Rodr\u00edguez), **__**\n\nStreet Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R), **__**\n\nStrike Debt, 39\u201340\n\nstudent debt, 39\u201340\n\nStudent Immigrant Movement of Massachusetts,\n\nStudents Working for Equal Rights,\n\nStudio REV, **__**\n\nSylvia Rivera Law Project, **__**\n\nSystem Change Not Climate Change,\n\ntar sands mining, 131\u201333, **__**\n\nCanada's First Nations and indigenous campaign, 131\u201333\n\nGreat Lakes campaign, **__**\n\nTaylor, Jeanette,\n\nTeachers for Social Justice,\n\nThomas, James \"Chip,\" **_150\u201351_**\n\nThomas-M\u00fcller, Clayton, xix, 131\u201333,\n\n350.org, , 133\u201345\n\nclimate justice movement, , 133\u201345\n\nDo the Math campaign and bus tour (2012), , **_140\u201341_**\n\nfossil fuel divestment campaign, **_140\u201341_** ,\n\nand indigenous protests against Keystone XL Pipeline,\n\nMcKibben, , 133\u201345\n\nthe October 2009 demonstrations for action on climate change, 133\u201339\n\nSummer Heat campaign (2013),\n\nTomDispatch,\n\nTometi, Opal, , **__**\n\nTorres, Gustavo,\n\nTrail of DREAMs walkers, 79\u201380, 88\u201397. _See also_ immigrant rights movement\n\nTrans Day of Action (New York City, 2012), **__**\n\ntransformative movements, xiv\u2013xx, 154\u201361, 162\u201366\n\nand art, xx, , , 59\u201361, **__** , 74\u201375, 100\u2013101, 126\u201327,\n\nbuilding organizations and beloved communities, 159\u201360\n\nchanging the story (alternative media), 157\u201358\n\nthe constant creation of change, 155\u201356\n\ndaring to transgress,\n\ndefining transformative organizing, xix\u2013xx\n\ndisrupting power (and standing up to power), 156\u201357\n\neconomic justice movement, 124\u201325\n\nenvironmental justice movement, 148\u201349\n\nhaving a big vision (rethinking the paradigm of power), 158\u201359\n\nnecessity of solidarity, ,\n\npreparing for opposition,\n\nand prison justice movement, 62\u201365\n\nseven attributes, xix\u2013xx storytelling as tool of, xv, , , , , 100\u2013101,\n\ntransgender people\n\nprison justice movement and police targeting\/criminalization of, ,\n\ntransgender identity,\n\n_See also_ LGBTQ movement\n\n_Travon Martin-Ella Baker_ (Morales), **__**\n\nTreibitz, Janelle,\n\nTrinational Coalition to Defend Public Education,\n\n_The True Cost of Coal_ (Beehive Design Collective), **_134\u201335_**\n\nTubman, Harriet,\n\nTucker, Emily,\n\nUhuru, Ife Johari, **__**\n\nUnderground Railroad, ,\n\nUndocuBus, **_76\u201377_** , **__** , **_82\u201383_**\n\nUndocumented Queer Youth Collective, **__**\n\nUndocuqueer, **_16\u201317_**\n\nunions, . _See also_ Chicago Teachers Union (CTU); restaurant workers' movement\n\nUnited Farm Workers, **__** , , ,\n\nUnited Neighborhood Organization (Chicago),\n\nUnited We Dream, , ,\n\nUniversity Leadership Initiative (Austin, Texas),\n\nUniversity of Puerto Rico (UPR), , **_46\u201347_**\n\nU.S. Border Control, 85\u201386\n\nU.S. Department of Homeland Security, ,\n\nU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), **__** , 80\u201381\n\nU.S. Sentencing Commission,\n\nU.S. Supreme Court\n\nanti-sodomy rulings, ,\n\n_Citizens United_ decision (2010),\n\nand LGBTQ rights movement, **__** , , ,\n\nmarriage equality rulings, **__** , ,\n\nruling on mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles,\n\nUSA PATRIOT Act,\n\nVaid, Urvashi,\n\nVallas, Paul,\n\nVargas, Jose Antonio,\n\nV\u00e1squez, Tina, , **__**\n\nVoiP Drupal, **__**\n\nWalmart,\n\n_Washington Post,_ ,\n\n_We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation_ (Khatib and McGuire, eds.), ,\n\n_We Make Our Communities Safer Together_ (Bazant), **__**\n\n\"We Shall Not Be Moved\" (AgitArte skit in collaboration with CL\/VU), **_102\u20133_**\n\nWe Will Not Comply, **__**\n\nWedes, Justin,\n\n_Why I Ride_ (El porqu\u00e9 yo viajo) (Salgado), **_82\u201383_**\n\nWilmarth, Susan, **__**\n\nWilson, Darren, **__**\n\nWinter, Margaret,\n\nWolf, Naomi,\n\nWolfson, Evan, 9\u201310\n\nwomen\n\nand the DREAMers,\n\nand environmental justice\/climate justice,\n\nincarcerated, , , **__** ,\n\nin Occupy Wall Street,\n\nand the patriarchy, **__**\n\npoverty, **__**\n\nPussy Power Imaginary,\n\nrestaurant industry workers and gender pay inequity,\n\nsuffrage movement,\n\nwomen of color, **__** , **__**\n\nX, Malcolm,\n\nYap, Christine Wong, **__**\n\nYerena, Ernesto, **_xx\u2013xxi_**\n\n_Yes!_ magazine, 131\u201332\n\nYollocalli Arts Reach, **__**\n\n_You Shouldn't Have to Read This Poster_ (Shragis), **_140\u201341_**\n\n_Your Life Matters_ (LMNOPI and #BlackLives-Matter), **_66\u201367_**\n\nYouth Justice Coalition, **__**\n\nZapata, Emiliano,\n\nZapatistas, xix,\n\nZimmerman, George, **__** ,\n\nZinn, Howard, xix\n\nZuccotti Park encampment, 106\u201310, 112\u201313. _See also_ Occupy Wall Street (OWS)\nTable of Contents\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Copyright\n  4. Dedication\n  5. Contents\n  6. Foreword\n  7. Introduction: Inspiration from Stories\n  8. 1. Reclaiming Wholeness: The Lgbtq Movement\n  9. 2. Grounded in Community: The Fight for the Soul of Public Education\n  10. 3. Transforming Visions: Ending Mass Incarceration\n  11. 4. The Power of Stories: The Dreamers and Immigrant Rights\n  12. 5. \"When We Fight, We Win!\": The Struggle for Economic Power\n  13. 6. Environmental Warriors: Going to the Root of the Problem\n  14. Epilogue: Solidarity--A Gathering\n  15. Afterword: Stories of Love and Fury\n  16. Designers' Note\n  17. Acknowledgments\n  18. The When We Fight, We Win! Team\n  19. Notes\n  20. Index\n\n# Guide\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Contents\n  3. Title Page\n\n  1. i\n  2. ii\n  3. iii\n  4. iv\n  5. v\n  6. vi\n  7. vii\n  8. viii\n  9. ix\n  10. x\n  11. xi\n  12. xii\n  13. xiii\n  14. xiv\n  15. xv\n  16. xvi\n  17. xvii\n  18. xviii\n  19. xix\n  20. xx\n  21. xxi\n  22. xxii\n  23. \n  24. \n  25. \n  26. \n  27. \n  28. \n  29. \n  30. \n  31. \n  32. \n  33. \n  34. \n  35. \n  36. \n  37. \n  38. \n  39. \n  40. \n  41. \n  42. \n  43. \n  44. \n  45. \n  46. \n  47. \n  48. \n  49. \n  50. \n  51. \n  52. \n  53. \n  54. \n  55. \n  56. \n  57. \n  58. \n  59. \n  60. \n  61. \n  62. \n  63. \n  64. \n  65. \n  66. \n  67. \n  68. \n  69. \n  70. \n  71. \n  72. \n  73. \n  74. \n  75. \n  76. \n  77. \n  78. \n  79. \n  80. \n  81. \n  82. \n  83. \n  84. \n  85. \n  86. \n  87. \n  88. \n  89. \n  90. \n  91. \n  92. \n  93. \n  94. \n  95. \n  96. \n  97. \n  98. \n  99. \n  100. \n  101. \n  102. \n  103. \n  104. \n  105. \n  106. \n  107. \n  108. \n  109. \n  110. \n  111. \n  112. \n  113. \n  114. \n  115. \n  116. \n  117. \n  118. \n  119. \n  120. \n  121. \n  122. \n  123. \n  124. \n  125. \n  126. \n  127. \n  128. \n  129. \n  130. \n  131. \n  132. \n  133. \n  134. \n  135. \n  136. \n  137. \n  138. \n  139. \n  140. \n  141. \n  142. \n  143. \n  144. \n  145. \n  146. \n  147. \n  148. \n  149. \n  150. \n  151. \n  152. \n  153. \n  154. \n  155. \n  156. \n  157. \n  158. \n  159. \n  160. \n  161. \n  162. \n  163. \n  164. \n  165. \n  166. \n  167. \n  168. \n  169. \n  170. \n  171. \n  172. \n  173. \n  174. \n  175. \n  176. \n  177. \n  178. \n  179. \n  180. \n  181. \n  182. \n  183. \n  184. \n  185. \n  186. \n  187. \n  188. \n  189. \n  190. \n  191. \n  192. \n  193. \n  194. \n  195. \n  196. \n  197. \n  198. \n  199. \n  200. \n  201. \n  202. \n  203. \n  204. \n  205. \n  206. \n  207. \n  208.\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}