To the librarians and booksellers, particularly at Broadside Bookshop and Meekins Library, who are my 151st strata.
To Craig Davis, Professor of English Language & Literature at Smith College, who helped me develop what he calls a “middle backwater” guild tongue for Thebes, suggesting words that were themselves fully packed with plot, and he straightened out my Welsh too. All mishaps and contortions of language in this work are my own.
To my colleagues at Signature Sounds, who could settle a deserted island and throw a music festival that weekend, and to the two bands I manage and adore: The Suitcase Junket and Twisted Pine. To the A-Team: Georgia Teensma, Abbie Duquette, Kelsey O’Brien, Kathleen Page, and Emily Woodland, for devotion beyond all call of duty.
To Sam Stein, Chris Jerome, Max Wareham, Jeff Lewis, Ali Telmesani, Laura Lefebvre, and Brie Sullivan, who’ve actually or metaphorically driven across the country listening to ideas or chapters long into the night on dark highways.
To Rick Beaupre, who tatued the guild mark for Thebes on my arm.
To my agent, Melanie Kroupa, who believed in this manuscript long before I did, and despite the fact that it’s not her usual cup of tea but rather a weird and horrifying tale that arrived in her mail in “tiny” 500-page installments. She made it possible for me to do the work I love. And to our agency chief, Rubin Pfeffer, who treats his writers like family, and found this book its home.
To the team at Dutton and Penguin Random House, for taking this book into their care and giving it a glorious life. To Julie Strauss-Gabel, publisher; Melissa Faulner, publishing manager; Anna Booth, designer (her many ideas included scrubbing the pages to make them appear as palimpsest); Natalie Vielkind, managing editor; Rob Farren, copy cheef (jk), Anne Heausler, coppy editor (ditto)—imagine the trouble Odd Thebes gave the copy department; Kristin Boyle, cover design (who hid the spikes in front of our eyes); Lizzie Goodell, heading publicity; to AJ Frena for the thrilling cover art (I carry that first draft of the cover around with me everywhere); to Francesca Baerald, for the breathtaking maps and borderwork. I wrote this city and yet, when AJ’s art and Francesca’s maps arrived, I could no longer navigate without checking first with those images and maps. And especially to my editor, Andrew Karre, who uses every skill in his possession to understand and forward the causes of others, who holds the city’s interest above his own, who knows the time to leave so-called safety and drop to the streets, and who makes, of all that seems impossible, a festival on the tower roofs.
To my family: George and Shirley Bertrand, who are righteous and taught me love; Henny and Eddy Teensma, who survived the war and Nazi occupation with sturdy splendor; Ton, Pablo, Kymo Vermeulen and Ingrid DeRaat, my beloveds; Peri Hall, Janet Street, Carol Boyd, Emma Rodrigue, and, from long ago, Shosh Marchand, Kathy Smith, Emily and Eleni Dines, sisters of an only child. To Nick Teensma, who drives the backroads and listens to the tales and is the closest thing to a runner I know; and Georgia Teensma, who is my first reader and is as dear to me as the girlfriends of my childhood. Most of all, to Hans, who never flinches when I buy printer ink when what we need is milk, who loves even the parts that freak him out, who shows up every morning for coffee and makes that my favorite time of every day, and who is the city in which I live.
Stay high.
JULY 1, 2020
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Bertrand is the author of two books for very young readers. This is her first book for young adult readers. She works in A&R for a music label and lives with her family in Northampton, MA.
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City of the Uncommon Thief Page 42