I am grateful for my colleagues and friends at IT Sligo, especially Tommy Weir and Rhona Trench, without whom I would be lost. Thank you, Eoin McNamee and Alice Lyons, not only for your friendship but your words. To all the students and staff on the Writing + Literature and Performing Arts courses, thank you for inspiring me every day.

For their absolute friendship, even when I’ve been truant, and for reeling me back into the world, I am forever thankful for Lisa Johnson Viveros, Thérèse O’Loughlin, Julie Ellwood, and Molly McCloskey. For her daily unflinching support through all my states of panic and writing despair, thank you Louise Kennedy, who is a total touchstone in my life. Thank you also Cecilia Mace Hardy, Isabel Grayson, Catherine McGlinchey, Mary Quill Eglinton, and Siobhan, and all the Hennessys in Sooey.

The River Mill in County Down provided sustenance and space to write. Thank you, Paul.

To my agent, Peter Straus, for his belief and his invaluable guidance, and to all at Rogers Coleridge & White, who have been so generous and supportive, including Eliza Plowden, Stephen Edwards, and Tristan Kendrick. I feel so fortunate to have you on my side.

Thank you, Noah Eaker, my editor at Harper, for your thoughtful insights and incredible editorial care. I am so grateful to you, Mary Gaule, Katherine Beitner, and all at HarperCollins. The book is better for your input. Louisa Joyner, my editor at Faber, you rewrote my reality when you chose A Crooked Tree. Thank you for your perceptive edits, your guidance, and exuberance. You and Libby Marshall are heroes. Thank you also to Lizzie Bishop and Josephine Salverda at Faber.

I now have first-hand experience of the refined art of copyediting, and thank you forever Silvia Crompton and Miranda Ottewell, for your scrupulous care and expertise, and for saving me from humiliation.

To my oldest friends, Cristin Cline Ortlieb and Jeannie McGovern Fogal, I was blessed to have spent my youth in the woods with you. You made me better.

To the family I have made, my children Dúaltagh, Brónagh, and Aoibhín—everything is good because you are in the world. Michael, for all, thank you.

Finally, I am infinitely grateful to those who are gone—my grandparents and my father.

About the Author

Una Mannion was born in Philadelphia and now lives in county Sligo, Ireland. A Crooked Tree is her first novel.

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