The Perfect Wife
Page 32
Readers will probably also assume that the school Danny attends, with its “graduated electronic decelerators” to administer electric shocks, is entirely a product of my imagination. Not so: At the time of writing, an educational center in America has just successfully fought off a legal challenge to its use of these devices. (I should clarify that this is a rare exception: the use of any aversive is no longer a part of most ABA programs.) But, strange as it may seem, I can understand the parents who see these devices as the only way to stop their child self-harming when all else has failed. Any fault lies not with them, but with the therapists and educators who are responsible for the “all else.”
Many people helped with the writing of The Perfect Wife. In particular I want to thank Tyler Mitchell, both for having the original idea and for his great generosity in sharing it with me. Jim Baldwin in San Francisco proved an excellent researcher—any errors remaining are, of course, my own. I should add that I have made very little attempt to convey the technical complexities of AI to the reader: I was always very clear that I was writing a novel of psychological suspense, albeit one with an unusual speculative element, not a techno-thriller. My editor, Kate Miciak, proved as open-minded as she was helpful about the evolution of the idea into a story—Kate, thank you for bearing with me, as well as for your many insightful notes. Caradoc King, Millie Hoskins, and Kat Aitken were, as always, fantastic first readers. Stefanie Bierwerth—your enthusiasm for those early pages was invaluable.
Most of all, though, I want to thank my family: my older sons, Tom and Harry, for all that they do; Ollie, for always trying so hard to master what doesn’t come naturally; and Sara, for never trying to be the perfect wife.
BY JP DELANEY
The Girl Before
Believe Me
The Perfect Wife
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Before and Believe Me, JP DELANEY has previously written bestselling fiction under other names.
jpdelaney.co.uk
Facebook.com/JPDelaneywriter
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