Exes

by Max Winter

  Then they both just stood there for a while and watched me not find lost things. We likely all knew I wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try.*

  Acknowledgments

  You can’t spend fifteen years writing a book and not have more people to thank than space and propriety allow for. But I’m way past looking cool, and there’s no guy with a hook, so . . .

  Thank you to my two best teachers, always swapping roles of devil and angel on my shoulder: Michelle Latiolais, whose brilliant crits—typed in Courier and signed in Palmer—and opinions on everything from narrative economy (overprized) to unreliable narrators (who’s reliable, again?) and even anchovies (don’t tell your guests) would show up in a scan of my brain; and Geoffrey Wolff, who taught me everything I know about on-the-page haberdashery and bullshit detection, and who, with his characteristic good humor and filthy sense of it, helped me to weather the respective highs and lows of the 2004 postseason and presidential election.

  Thanks, also, to Brad Watson, who showed me how to stick up for what matters; Maile Meloy, who taught me how to let go of what doesn’t; and Amity Gaige, who pointed out that the writer I was failing to be back then not only already existed, but had died.

  Thank you to all my readers at UC-Irvine: Aaron Miller, Marisa Matarazzo, Mona Ausubel, Michael Andreasen, Zach Braun, Peter Jacoby, Liz Chandler, Michelle Chihara, Kevin Lee, Izzy Prcic, Erin Almond, David Morris, Lauren Coleman, and Christina Byrne; and elsewhere: Matthew Derby, Mira Jacob, Will Allison, Zach Green, and Laura Healy.

  An above-and-beyond and how-could-I-possibly-thank-you thank you to my best buddy and writing husband, Matt Sumell.

  Thank you to my smart and stalwart agent, Shaun Dolan, who saw what I had here before it was even there, and who literally encourages me, and even buys me lunch.

  Thank you to my intuitive, electric, and damn-near omniscient editor, Julie Buntin, without whose help I likely wouldn’t be thanking anyone right now. Thanks also to Andy Hunter, Pat Strachan, Jennifer Abel Kovitz, John McGhee, Charlotte Strick, Claire Williams, Zohar Lazar, Natalie Degraffenried, and everyone at Catapult for giving my book a home.

  Thanks to everyone who has put me up or hooked me up with a place to write: Jane and Art Salzfass, Travis Alber, Sam Leader, and Stephen Barber. Thank you to UC-Irvine’s School of Humanities and the International Center for Writing and Translation for the grant; to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts for the fellowships. Thanks also to Cristina DiChiera and Mary-Kim Arnold. And to Roberta Rose, Dr. Eric Goldlust, and the entire staff of the Miriam Hospital Urgent Care Center. (“You’re working on a book?”)

  Thanks to my former students and current friends, who have long since closed the maybe-never-existent gap between what I taught them and what they teach me. And also to all the real-life fountain-drinkers, ham-and-eggers, mess-makers, and exes of the actual Providence, Rhode Island. You know who you are, and no, that isn’t you, or her, or him, or me, but if you squint maybe you can see our old house from here.

  But most of all, thank you to my real family for being unlike my made-up families: my parents, Margery and Milo; mes beaux parents, Leigh et Laurent, et mon beau frère, David; and my wife, Olivia, and my son, Noah, whose love and laughter and wisdom sustain and inspire me.

  About the Author

  MAX WINTER is a graduate of UC Irvine’s MFA program, and a recipient of two Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowships in Fiction. He has been published in Day One and Diner Journal. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife and son.

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