Fingerprints of You
Page 22
This novel would never have come to be without the invaluable gift of time and space from the following organizations: Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, Millay Colony for the Arts, the Studios of Key West, and the Key West Literary Seminar. In truth, this book belongs to you. I am also grateful for the wisdom and encouragement of my mentors and colleagues who supported the writing of this novel in more ways than I can count: Stephen Cooper and the California State University, Long Beach MFA faculty; James Blaylock of Chapman University; Josh Weil; Jill McCorkle; and Hope Mills. But above all I would like to thank Judy Blume, the most generous and insightful mentor a young writer could ever hope for.
I can’t imagine having embarked on this journey without the continuous inspiration of my families, the Madonias, the Lomases, and the Gordons, but particularly my sister, Lisa, whom I admire and appreciate equally for the ways that we are different and the ways we are the same. This book could not have existed without the love, support, and patience of my husband, Christopher Gordon, who has always provided me with the invaluable gift of both roots and wings. And finally, I’ve dedicated the novel to my mother and father, who consistently said I could when I worried that I couldn’t, then helped me find a way to prove them right.
© Christopher Gordon
Kristen-Paige Madonia is the 2012 D.H. Lawrence Fellow and the recipient of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in various anthologies and journals including including Upstreet, New Orleans Review, and American Fiction: Best Previously Unpublished Stories by Emerging Writers. She has received awards or residencies from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Hambidge Center, The Vermont Studio Center, Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, The Millay Colony for the Arts, the Key West Literary Seminar, and The Studios of Key West. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach, and currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she teaches fiction. Visit her at kristenpaigemadonia.com.
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications where portions of this book first appeared: American Fiction, Volume 11: The Best Previously Unpublished Stories by Emerging Authors and Sycamore Review.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2012 by Kristen-Paige Madonia
Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Terry Ribera
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The text for this book is set in New Caledonia.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Madonia, Kristen-Paige.
Fingerprints of you / Kristen-Paige Madonia. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After spending her life moving from place to place with her single mother, pregnant seventeen-year-old Lemon takes a bus to San Francisco to seek the father she never knew, as well as truths about her mother and herself.
ISBN 978-1-4424-2920-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-2922-2 (eBook)
[1. Coming of age—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Single-parent families—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—Fiction. 5. Pregnancy—Fiction. 6. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 7. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M26572Fin 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011018447