“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mistake.”

And so I let her go.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I have quoted, referenced, and borrowed liberally in this novel. Many instances are indicated directly in the text; some few others I will mention here, and the rest will be left to the reader to notice, Google, or ignore.

The Tolstoy line referenced in passing is from “The Kreutzer Sonata,” as translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude: “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”

The version of Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” from which I quote was translated by Richard F. Burton.

I first came across the story of Geshé Tenpa in Lama Surya Das’s The Snow Lion’s Turquoise Mane: Wisdom Tales from Tibet.

As for the quips about the parachute and the corpse, I’ve been hearing those my entire life; like so much else, I suspect they come to me thirdhand from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

It is Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, writing in the introduction to The Bliss of Inner Fire, who describes tummo as “the real chocolate.” (However, I should tell you that the instructions for tummo in this novel are somewhat inexact, and are unlikely get you anywhere, chocolate or nay.)

While writing this book, I consulted the Online Etymology Dictionary, compiled by Douglas Harper, as well as Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche’s What Makes You Not a Buddhist, which is a book my father likes to hand out to young people.

It is, of course, the narrator of Pnin who prefers that doom not jam.

Finally, as far as I know, it was Sage Bierster who invented the term “pocketing.” I hope she will not object to its usage here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many people without whom this book would not exist. I want to thank firstly my agent, Claudia Ballard, who read an (embarrassingly) early draft and asked me—very politely—if I thought the novel was done, or if maybe I would be willing to work on it a little, and then proceeded to push me to write the much-improved version you have in your hands; and my brilliant editor, Jessica Williams, who understood me immediately, and who saw everything I could not, and who made this book shine. I am so grateful for the attention and effort and insight of these two astounding women.

My endless gratitude also goes to everyone at WME, William Morrow, the Borough Press, and HarperCollins, but especially Charlotte Cray, Julia Elliott, Carla Josephson, Eliza Rosenberry, and Molly Waxman. The same to Mary Karr, Téa Obreht, and Garth Greenwell, for their vital early kindness and support.

Thank you to my parents, Bob and Marisa, for a lifetime of love and care, for raising me in a house full of books, and most importantly—though some details were inevitably stolen, sorry, guys—for not being the parents in this book.