by Tessa McWatt
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I see.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Some of the medical information and inspiration for this book came from Paul Broks’ beautiful and disturbing Into the Silent Land. Further technical details on confabulation were drawn from William Hirstein’s Brain Fiction, among other books.
Thanks to the Canada Council for financial support during the writing of this novel and to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of East London for research funding.
It was a privilege to work with Aleksandar Macašev, who patiently listened to me during innumerable Skype calls and shaped my wild abstractions into Mike’s beautiful illustrations. Thanks to Stephanie Young for reading and believing in it from the start; to Jackie Kaiser for the title; and to Attila Berki for copyediting. Thanks to Anne Collins at Random House Canada for her spirit, support and commitment.
This book has two godfathers: John Berger, who sometimes ends our phone conversations with, “Now I put my hand on your shoulder and turn you back to your work”; and the wonderful Andrew Kidd, to whom I am deeply grateful for his sensitive attention, every step along the way.
TESSA McWATT was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in Toronto. Her fiction has been nominated for a City of Toronto Book Award and a Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction; Vital Signs is her fifth novel. She divides her time between Toronto and London, England, where she teaches creative writing at the University of East London.