Waking the Dead (55 page)

Scott and Charles on vacation in Arizona around 1958.

Spencer with Victoria Wilson, his editor at Knopf. Wilson edited many of his books, including
Endless Love
,
Waking the Dead
, and
Preservation Hall
. The two have remained friends.

An exhausted Spencer holding his newborn daughter, Celeste, at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City in 1979. Celeste is now a painter living in Brooklyn.

Celeste in 1984, standing in front of the Spencer house on the South Side of Chicago. Spencer remembers Celeste as being determinedly artistic throughout her childhood.

Spencer and his son, Asher, in New Orleans, Asher’s mother’s hometown, in 1987. Asher now lives in Brooklyn and is working toward his PhD in economics from CUNY.

Asher on vacation he took with his father to St. Petersburg, Russia, in front of a restored war ship that the Bolsheviks used to fire upon the Winter Palace during the Russian Revolution.

Celeste with her dog, Oliver, in Rhinebeck, New York, taken while she was studying at Bard College.

Charles Spencer, Scott’s father, reading a selection from his second book,
Left
,
Two Three
(1986), in a Chicago bookstore, with Scott’s children Celeste and Asher listening on.

Nominees at the PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony in 1995. Among those present are Spencer (front row, second from left), George Plimpton (back row, center), Francine Prose (back row, second from left), and Mary Lee Settle (front row, fourth from right).

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Jobete Music Company, Inc. / Black Bull Music, Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from “I Was Made to Love Her,” words and music by Stevie Wonder, Sylvia Moy, Henry Cosby, and Lulu Mae Hardway. Copyright 1967 Jobete Music Company, Inc. / Black Bull Music, Inc. Sawandi Music. Used by Permission. International Copyright secured. All Rights Reserved.

copyright © 1986 by Scott Spencer

cover design by Joanna Rieke

ISBN: 978-1-4532-0548-8

This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com