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The Quality of Silence

Page 27

by Rosamund Lupton


  I would also like to thank Emma Beswetherick and David Shelley at Little, Brown Book Group for their passion and creative response to the book; it is such a pleasure to work with them. Thank you to Lindsay Sagnette at Crown Publishing for her beautiful editing.

  Thank you Susan de Soissons at Little, Brown for everything she’s done to help this novel get out into the world, Ceara Elliot for her inspired jacket design and Kate Doran, Felice Howden, Joanna Kramer, Clara Diaz and Poppy Stimpson.

  My heartfelt thanks to Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents Inc., Alice Lutyens and Kate Cooper at Curtis Brown, not only for being such great agents but for reading an early draft and their valuable responses to it. And thank you Emma Herdman for responding so quickly to so many requests and for your input.

  Thank you to Jennifer Wilson, Sara Talbot, Fabia Ma, Rachael Hum, Jenni McCann and all of the team for their energy and enthusiasm. Particular thanks to Ben Goddard and Sarah Shrubb.

  Thank you also to Grace Menary-Winefield, Alex Silcox, Eva Papastratis and Sven Van Damme.

  Thank you, Nina Calabresi and Bob Oldshue, for introducing me to the poetry of Wallace Stevens in the beautiful setting of Maine.

  Last but far from least, thank you, Karin Lewiston, Anne-Marie Casey, Lynne Gagliano, Claire Merryweather, Clare Fuller and my parents Kit and Jane Orde-Powlett for their support.

  And thank you Joe, Cosmo and Martin for talking about the story over supper and for making me leave my study for conversation and fresh air.

  I am indebted to many books, articles, photos, videos and websites and in particular to the following:

  William L. Ig˙g˙iag˙ruk Hensley, Fifty miles from tomorrow: a memoir of Alaska and the real people (New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2009)

  Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy (Skyscape, 2012)

  Dan O’Neill, The Firecracker Boys: H-bombs, Inupiat Eskimos and the roots of the environmental movement (New York: BasicBooks; London:Perseus Running [distributor], 2008)

  Nick Jans, The Last Light Breaking: Living Among Alaska’s Inupiat Eskimos (Oregon: Alaska Northwest Books, 1993)

  Bernd Heinrich, The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration (London: HarperCollins, 2014)

  Sara Wheeler, The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009)

  Pat Forgey, ‘“‘Fracking” for oil likely to grow in Alaska’ (JuneauEmpire.com, 2012)

  Margaret Kriz Hobson, ‘Shale Oil: Geologist’s Alaska Gamble Could Turn Into America’s Next Big Shale Play’, Energy Wire (E & E Publishing, 2013)

  Maureen Clark, ‘State considers checkpoints, restrictions on Dalton Highway traffic in response to attacks’ (Peninsula Clarion, 2001)

  Kyle Hopkins, ‘Frozen Landslide Threatens to Devour Dalton Highway’ (Alaska Dispatch News, 2012)

  Doug O’Harra, ‘On the Dalton Highway – Just How Bad Can it Get?’ (Anchorage Daily News, 2001)

  ‘Compendium of Scientific, Medical and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (unconventional gas and oil extraction)’ (Concerned Health Professionals of NY, 2014)

  ‘Alaska Native Villages Annual Report 2012’ (United States Environmental Protection Agency)

  I am also grateful to the following websites:

  www.inupiatheritage.org

  www.iccalaska.org

  www.alaskacenters.gov

  www.inuitcircumpolar.com

  www.adfg.alaska.gov

  dec.alaska.gov

  www.nationalgeographic.com

  www.worldwildlife.org/

  ecowatch.com

  www.handspeak.com

  www.british-sign.co.uk

  www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk

  www.ndcs.org.uk: The National Deaf Children’s Society believes that every deaf child should be valued and included by society and have the same opportunities as any other child. For more information and advice visit the above website.

  The first documentary I watched on hydraulic fracturing was ‘Gasland’ by Josh Fox. Since then I’ve read, watched and listened to many articles, reports, speeches and blogs about fracking but ‘Gasland’ remains the stand-out piece for me. ‘The Sky is Pink’ by Josh Fox and the ‘Gasland’ team can be seen on Vimeo and YouTube.

  Photos and video of almost every mile of the Dalton highway can be viewed in Google Earth and on YouTube. There are blogs by drivers, tourists and bikers who travel the Dalton Highway and post photo-journals. I am grateful to all of them for giving me their literal viewpoint.

  The following apps have also been valuable:

  British Sign Language Reference Dictionary app

  British Sign Language fingerspelling app

  Inupiat dictionary app – the many words for snow are evocative of the land where this language is spoken. The first word for snow is apiqammiaq – meaning new snow, and then words for different types of snow go all the way through the alphabet to uupkaagnaq. The dictionary also gives an Inupiat daily word. Tonight as I write this it is qailliaqsruk – ripple on water; (i) to ripple, be disturbed

  Rosamund Lupton’s debut novel Sister is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been translated into over thirty languages with international sales of over 1.5 million copies. It was the fastest selling debut of 2010 by a British author, a BBC Radio 4, Book at Bedtime and was winner of the Richard and Judy Best Debut Novel of 2011 award and the Strand Magazine Critics First Novel Award. Lupton’s critically acclaimed second novel Afterwards was published in June 2011 and went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller lists and was the No. 2 Sunday Times fiction bestseller of 2011.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

 

 


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