by Will Boast
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY ENDURING GRATITUDE to everyone who read, listened, and helped me along the way, especially:
Ann Beattie, Ryan Bieber, Kat Carlson, John Casey, Deborah Eisenberg, Tom Franklin, Gail Hochman, Leslie Jamison, Drew Johnson, Jody Kahn, Jason Labbe, Catherine Lacey, John L’Heureux, Paul Reyes, Erin Saldin, Caitlin Satchell, Elizabeth Tallent, Ted Thompson, Chris Tilghman, Gemma Trevisani, Tobias Wolff, and Cutter Wood.
For all of their passionate, intelligent work and guidance in bringing Daphne into the world:
Jin Auh, Jessica Friedman, Alba Ziegler-Bailey, and everyone at the Wylie Agency. Cordelia Calvert, India Cooper, Gina Iaquinta, Phil Marino, Peter Miller, and everyone at Liveright. Ka Bradley, Sarah Wasley, and everyone at Granta Books.
My brilliant, insightful, and patient collaborators: Katie Adams and Max Porter.
For the generous support of these institutions and individuals:
The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the John Guare Writer’s Fund, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman, Michael Collier, Noreen Cargill, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Martin Pick, the Charles Pick Fellowship, Stanford University, the Truman Capote Literary Trust, the University of East Anglia, the University of Manchester, the MacDowell Colony. The University of Chicago, the American Academy in Rome, and my friends and colleagues at both.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the support and love of my friends and family. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.
ALSO BY WILL BOAST
Epilogue: A Memoir
Power Ballads: Stories
Daphne is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are the
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously for the
purpose of plot enhancement and color. All characters, other than
well-known historical or public figures, have been invented, and any
resemblance to actual persons, or to real situations involving actual
persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Will Boast
All rights reserved
First Edition
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write to Permissions, Liveright Publishing Corporation,
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Book design by Fearn Cutler de Vicq
Production manager: Julia Druskin
JACKET DESIGN BY STEVE ATTARDO
JACKET ART BY BEDELGEUSE
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as folows:
Names: Boast, Will, author.
Title: Daphne : a novel / Will Boast.
Description: First edition. | New York : Liveright Publishing
Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2018
Identifiers: LCCN 2017052089 | ISBN 9781631493034 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-realization in women—Fiction. | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3602.O19 D36 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052089
ISBN: 978-1-63149-304-1 (e-book)
Liveright Publishing Corporation
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Table of Contents
Title
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgements
Also by Will Boast
Copyright