by Julia Glass
When they stop at the first traffic light, she looks to either side and is suffused with a sense of comfort when she spots the sunlit avenues, the taller, more permanent trees. As they wait for the light to change, Fern and Fenno look at each other briefly. In this exchange, there is a kind of security, like the settling of an anchor on a harbor floor, and she reads on his face what she imagines to be the same recognition and pleasure she feels: Here we are—despite the delays, the confusion, and the shadows en route—at last, or for the moment, where we always intended to be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOR THEIR SPONSORSHIP of prizes and grants that helped support and encourage my work, I thank the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Chicago Tribune, the Bellingham Review, Literal Latté, and the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society (especially Joe DeSalvo, Rosemary James, and H. Paul and Michael X. St. Martin). For giving generously of their time and expertise to answer various research questions, I thank Dr. John Andrilli of Saint Vincents Medical Center in New York City and John and Christine Southern of C&J Medals in Reading, England. And for sharing with me their wee bit of Scotland (which I have embellished), I am happily indebted to my McKerrow cousins across the ocean, most of all Matthew, Gordon, and Allan.
For support of a more intimate kind, I thank my longtime companion, Dennis Cowley, and my parents, as well as Bette Slayton. Thanks must also go to the readers whose thoughtful responses helped me persevere: Lindsay Boyer, Shelley Henderson, Alec Lobrano, Daniel Menaker, Katherine Mosby, Nick Pappas, Tim and Jessalyn Peters, Mark Pothier, Lory Skwerer, Lisa Wederquist, James Wilcox . . . and the late Robert Trent, unforgettable and deeply missed.
Finally, for the enthusiasm, trust, and know-how that turned this story into a book, I am profoundly grateful to Dan Frank and, above all, to three remarkable women: my agent, Gail Hochman; my editor, Deborah Garrison; and Laura Mathews, loyal friend and muse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JULIA GLASS was awarded a 2000 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in fiction writing and has won several prizes for her short stories, including three Nelson Algren Awards and the Tobias Wolff Award. “Collies,” the first part of Three Junes, won the 1999 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella. She lives with her family in New York City, where she works as a freelance journalist and editor.
Copyright © 2002 by Julia Glass
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Michael Goldsen, Inc. for permission to reprint song lyrics from “If I Had a Boat” by Lyle Lovett. Copyright © 1987 by Michael Goldsen, Inc./Lyle Lovett (ASCAP). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of Michael Goldsen, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Glass, Julia, 1956–
Three Junes / Julia Glass.
1. Scots—United States—Fiction. 2. Long Island (N.Y.)—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Scotland—Fiction. 5. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.l37 T48 2002 813¢.6—dc21 2001055448
www.pantheonbooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-375-42242-3
v3.0