Red Clocks (31 page)

Authors: Leni Zumas

BOOK: Red Clocks

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“They rob the poor under the cover of law
… and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage”: Captain Samuel Bellamy, as recorded in
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates,
by Captain Charles Johnson [pseud.] (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2010; originally published in 1724).

“I love the old way best, the simple way / Of poison, where we too are strong as men”
:
The Medea of Euripides,
translated by Gilbert Murray (New York: Oxford University Press [American Branch], 1907; first performed in 431 BC).

“Geography has made us neighbors
….Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder”: John F. Kennedy, “Address Before the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa” [speech], May 17, 1961, online transcript, The American Presidency Project website,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8136
.

“The red morn betoken’d wreck
… to herdmen and to herds”: William Shakespeare, “Venus and Adonis,” in
The Works of William Shakespeare,
vol. 2, edited by Charles Knight (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875), ebook.

“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
… We are the dinosaurs. We make the earth flat!”:
Laurie Berkner Band, “We Are the Dinosaurs,”
Whaddaya Think of That?
(New York: Two
Tomatoes Records, 1997).

“I have been lifted off the earth to sit on the ocean
…” borrows from a line in Virginia Woolf’s
The Voyage Out
(London: Duckworth, 1915): “how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit next each other in mid ocean …”

“
Warm as toast, smaller than most”
: Margaret Wise Brown,
Little Fur Family
(New York: Harper Brothers, 1946).

Some particulars of Mínervudottír’s
ice research are taken from Adolphus Washington Greely’s
Handbook of Arctic Discoveries
(Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1896).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful beyond measure to Lee Boudreaux, whose brilliant editing led this book into bolder, deeper territory; and to the phenomenal Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, who has been my dream agent in every way. Huge thanks also to Suzie Dooré, my editor in the UK, for her astute suggestions and excellent sense of humor.

For their artistry and expertise, I’m indebted to Carina Guiterman
at Lee Boudreaux Books; Charlotte Cray at The Borough Press; Lauren Harms, Karen Landry, Sabrina Callahan, Katharine Myers, and Julie Ertl at Little, Brown; the keen-eyed Dianna Stirpe; Alice Lawson at Gersh; and Reiko Davis, Colin Farstad, Linda Kaplan, and Gabbie Piraino at DeFiore and Company.

Thanks to the Money for Women / Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and the Regional Arts and Culture Council
for their generosity, as well as to the editors of
Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art
and
Winged: New Writing on Bees,
where excerpts from this novel appeared, in very different form.

For their encouragement, support, and inspiration, I thank Heather Abel, John Beer, Liz Ceppi, Paul Collins, Sarah Ensor, Brian Evenson, Jennifer Firestone, Michele Glazer, Adria Goodness, Amy Eliza Greenstadt,
Noy Holland, Alastair Hunt, Michelle Latiolais, Elena Leyva, Nanci McCloskey, Tony Perez, Peter Robbins, Shauna Seliy, Sophia Pfaff Shalmiyev, Anna Joy Springer, and Adam Zucker. Special gratitude to the early readers of this manuscript: Zelda Alpern, Kate Blackwell, Eugene Lim, and Diana Zumas.

Thank you to my family: Kate, Felix, Diana, Casey, Bridget, Greg, and little Charles. E grazie ai
miei amici e alla mia famiglia in Italia: Lucia Bertagnolli, Pietro Dipierro, Chiara Berattino, e Federico Zanatta.

Above all else, thank you to Luca, for his fierce and marvelous love; and to Nicholas, for being exactly himself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

L
ENI
Z
UMAS
is the author of the story collection
Farewell Navigator
and the novel
The Listeners,
which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Portland State University.

ALSO BY LENI ZUMAS

Farewell Navigator

The Listeners