The Small Backs of Children (15 page)

My astonished gratitude to my agent and dear soul sister Rayhané Sanders and to the brilliant editor Calvert Morgan, without whom this book would not have made the leap into the hands of readers. Thank you for finding me and throwing a line into the waves.

Endless thanks to Chelsea Cain, Suzy Vitello, Monica Drake, Mary Wysong-Haeri, and Chuck Palahniuk for their support and help with this book. For years.

Of course my whole heart to Andy Mingo, who helped me transform what began as an epic poem whisper thing into an actual sort of novel. Deep in the woods of Oregon.

Thanks to Liz Fischer Greenhill, who read an early copy of the novel and helped keep me from fear with her heart-shimmer.

Gratitude to Raphael Dagold, who let me use and torque one of his astonishing poems in this story, and to Menas in Lithuania, whose paintings drove me down to the depths and back up.

I am in debt to the poets, novelists, painters, musicians, and
filmmakers whose phrases are woven throughout this novel, including but not limited to H. D., Carolyn Forché, Walt Whitman, Marguerite Duras, Francis Bacon, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Alain Resnais, and Doris Lessing.

And to my sister Brigid, who gave me literature, life.

And to Lily. Whose death rose writing in my hands.

LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
is the author of the widely acclaimed memoir
The Chronology of Water
and the novel
Dora: A Headcase
. Her writing has appeared in the
Atlantic
, the
Iowa Review
,
Mother Jones
,
Ms
., the
Sun
, the
Rumpus
,
PANK
,
Zyzzyva, Fiction International
, and other publications. She teaches writing and literature in Portland, Oregon.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Dora: A Headcase

The Chronology of Water

Her Other Mouths

Liberty’s Excess

Real to Reel

Cover design by Gregg Kulick

Cover photograph © Tom Merton / Getty Images

THE SMALL BACKS OF CHILDREN
. Copyright © 2015 by Lidia Yuknavitch. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-238324-2

EPub Edition July 2015 ISBN 9780062383266

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