People were incredibly kind to me while I wrote this book. They expressed this kindness by reading multiple drafts, encouraging me to persevere, pretending to enjoy my prose, offering unsolicited advice, or simply waiting; I couldn’t possibly name them all. Here’s an attempt.
I’m grateful to Elizabeth Tallent for commanding me to write a novel, and for being a terrific mentor thereafter; to Stephen Elliott, for his unending support and those crucial words of encouragement in 2003 that made me a writer; to Jay McInerney, for his generosity; to my teachers Adam Johnson and Tobias Wolff, for their mentorship; to my friends Nick Casey, Anthony Ha, Jenny Zhang, Ross Perlin, Zubin Shroff, Alice Kim, Aashti Bhartia, Max Doty, Chris Lee, Anna Rimoch, Greg Larson, Mansha Tandon, Benjamin Lytal, Blake Royer, Matt Wolfe, and Nick Antosca, for their criticism, advice, and conversation; to Malvika Behl, Nikhil Behl,
Arushi Gehani, Samir Gehani, and Usha Belani, for local guardianship; to my former colleagues David Poindexter, Kate Nitze, Khristina Wenzinger, Jason Wood, and Scott Allen, for their largeheartedness; to the New York State Writers Workshop, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Intersection for the Arts, and the Camargo Foundation, for the necessary funding and time to write; to Tim Duggan at HarperCollins, for being a tireless and brilliant editor; to Allison Lorentzen at HarperCollins, for her friendship and alacrity; to Andrew Wylie, for his initial belief in my writing; to my agent, Jin Auh, at the Wylie Agency, for her exceptional readings, patience, friendship, advice, and honesty; to Tracy Bohan and Charles Buchan at the Wylie Agency, for their international savvy; to my brother, Shiv Mahajan, for his unwavering affection; and finally, to my parents, Veena and Gautam Mahajan, who are not only the most supportive parents a writer could possibly ask for but also the most loving, kind and inspiring people I know.
KARAN MAHAJAN
was born in 1984 and grew up in New Delhi. A graduate of Stanford University, he now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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. Copyright © 2008 by Karan Mahajan. All 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.
Mobipocket Reader October 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-172223-3
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