Cloudland
Page 28
The voices were closer now. I could hear the policemen beginning to climb the wooden stairs, the hollow sounds marching toward me. Preparing myself to answer their questions, I wondered if, like a butterfly beating its wings and precipitating a hurricane, I’d started a chain reaction of despair that began with Stephanie Prozzo and moved on to Matthew and then to me and, finally, to her frantic father. Perhaps the death of Angela Parker might somehow be linked to my difficulty believing in love; and if so, that would be impossible to share, much less even to explain.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great debt to the excellent reporting of Philip E. Ginsburg, whose book The Shadow of Death (Scribner, 1993) chronicles the events surrounding the serial murder of six women in the Upper Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as the search for the killer, who was never found.
I am grateful to Joan Harvey Cook and Nancy Anderson, who shared their stories about a famous knacker man.
I am grateful to Anne B. Adams and her account of finding one of the murdered women as well as for telling me the life story of her pig, Henrietta Rosewater, who appears in this novel under the same name.
I’d like to thank Lynne Barrett for her careful reading of an early draft of the manuscript and her triage of suggestions that made all the difference in the final draft.
I’d like to thank Ruth Sternglantz for her careful reading and her encouragement.
I’d like to thank my UK publisher of Arcadia Books, Gary Pulsifer.
I’d like to thank my U.S. editor, Keith Kahla of St. Martin’s Press.
I’d like to thank my agent, Mitchell Waters of Curtis, Brown, Ltd., for believing in this.
And I’d like to thank Bob Braunewell for being such a challenging muse.
ALSO BY JOSEPH OLSHAN
Clara’s Heart
A Warmer Season
The Waterline
The Sound of Heaven
Nightswimmer
Vanitas
In Clara’s Hands
The Conversion
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Olshan is an award-winning American novelist. His first novel, Clara’s Heart, won the Times/Jonathan Cape Young Writers’ Competition and went on to be made into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg. He is the author of eight novels, the most recent of which is The Conversion. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CLOUDLAND.
Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Olshan.
All rights reserved.
For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print version as follows:
Olshan, Joseph.
Cloudland / Joseph Olshan. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-00017-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4247-8 (e-book)
1. Serial murders—Fiction. 2. Vermont—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3565.L8237C59 2012
813'.54—dc23
2011045372
e-ISBN 9781429942478
First Edition: April 2012