There has also been human development. During this novel I received unpleasant news about Cousin Dick. Let me clarify the background. Cousin Dick is actually my fifth cousin, about fifteen years my senior; we got in touch because of a mutual interest in genealogy, researching our Jacob lineage. We had the same great-great-great-great grandfather. Cousin Dick had aspired to be a writer, and had tried a year or so doing full time writing of fiction, with the understanding that if he did not make it, he would give up that ambition and concentrate instead on making money. He did not make it, and so he went into mundane work and provided for his family quite nicely. But there was always that regret: suppose he had made it? How would his career as a writer have gone? There may be myriads of folk with similar ambition and similar disappointment; failed writers are a dime a dozen, and no one seems to care about their stifled dreams. But then, independently, I tried the same thing—and succeeded. Thus, in a manner, I represented the answer, for I had similar lineage and ambition, and a roughly similar personal history. We compared notes in some detail. I believe, to a degree, he regarded me as the fulfilment of his dream, while I regarded him as my alternate course, the one I did not take, about fifteen years ahead. Thus our correspondence, always amicable, had a certain extra element; we understood each other on a deeper level than is usual. He visited, and met my daughters, and of course he knew other members of my branch of the family. I believe everyone liked him. He was always alert for the appearance of my novels, and sometimes sent reviews I had missed.

But now the news was grim. Cousin Dick had lung cancer, and brain tumors, and was having seizures. "It's a hell of a way to live," he wrote in NoRemember, "but after 66 years of comfortable health, it seems to be my turn."

Then, the day before Christmas, as I completed Chapter 16, I had news from his daughter: Cousin Dick was dead.

One of the last conversations he had had with her was about the third volume in this series, With a Tangled Skein, and its Author's Note, which covered my own tangled skein of life. Damn you, Satan!