If you’d like to follow Mr. Golod and Mr. Pike’s argument about the development of American diamond cutting, I recommend “What Did Marcel Tolkowsky Really Say?” by Barak Green, Al Gilbertson, Ilene Reinitz, Mary Johnson, and James Shigley.

Poet Amy Gerstler wrote, “Fear is a civilizing influence.” Chaplin would not think as he does here had I not read Ghost Girl, particularly her poem “The New Dog.” Also the work of Mark Newgarden.

Many other people helped, and here are some of them:

Scenario and Dialogue: Wilton Barnhardt, Lynda Barry, Aimee Bender, Owen Bly, Gavin Bryars, Mike Caveney, Bill Charman, Livia and Lucia Charman, Howard Chaykin, Dan Condon, Bernard Cooper, Henry Dunow, Polly Harvey, Phil Hay, Eli Horowitz, Bill Howard, Jan Iverson, Peter Jackson, Michelle Latiolais, Patrick McDonnell, Maria Mochnacz, Karen O’Connell, Jill Olson, Jim Ottaviani, Alison Powell, Diana Schutz, Mike Sears, Rob Stolzer, Robert Towne, Cyrus Voris, Karin Wessel, Kathy Wittwer, and the Chaplin group on yahoo.com.

Stage Managers: Susan Golomb, Matthew Snyder.

Moguls: Sonny Mehta, Carole Welch.

Foley and Looping: Diana Coglianese.

Wardrobe: J. D. King, Andy Hughes.

Craft Services: The MacDowell Colony.

Set Design: Liddell Hart Center for Military Archives.

Special Effects: The Corporation of Yaddo and its attendant spirits.

No animals were harmed in the making of this book. In fact, some of them were fed tiny cubes of cheese. A shepherd mix named Lilly came into my life in December 1998, bearing a striking resemblance to the original Rin Tin Tin. She left in February 2008, two days before I turned in a draft of this manuscript. I miss you, Lilly. We are all siblings under the skin!

Costar, provocateur, hot-splice editor, script girl, femme fatale, scream queen, gamine, America’s sweetheart, America’s pariah, belladonna, suds maven, oat princess, love interest, second-act complication, barn-burner, aviatrix, Hello Girl, lighthouse keeper, orphan, angel, allied expeditionary force, terrifying saint, daughter of the revolution, peasant, domovoi, vedma, princess, one hundred bullets, twelve immortals, seven seas, four winds, three shots of espresso, two cats, one Alice.

Speaking of credits, last, most: as of this writing, there is one surviving doughboy from World War I, Frank Buckles of West Virginia. He drove an ambulance when he was seventeen years old. He aims to turn 108 on February 1, 2009. He and a handful of tommies and diggers are the last to remember the battlefield. Thank you for your service.

And for anyone currently serving in the United States Armed Services, I wish you safety and luck and I hope you’ll come home soon.

If it’s a hundred years from now and there are still people, bless you all. I hope you have polar bears.

Glen David Gold               
San Francisco, California
December 2008

A Note About the Author

Glen David Gold’s first novel, Carter Beats the Devil, has been translated into fourteen languages. His short stories and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, Playboy, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Alice Sebold.

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