Adrienne Celt: Invitation to a Bonfire

With a bit of effort, a bit of distance, I know this too can be smoothed over. We forget about the atrocities of history all the time, so long as there is a fair conclusion. The poor rising up to take the place of the rich. The dead living on in our earthly memories. Practice saying it: I am Vera Petrovna Orlova. I was born Vera Volkova, just outside Moscow, on an estate that would rival Arthur’s royal seat. I can make things happen with the strength of my mind, the force of my will, and it was my prerogative to disappear. I hold my secrets close, because there’s no one left alive who’ll understand them. No one left at all, but me.

And I am determined to be happy.

I’m endlessly grateful to Emma Patterson for her insight, friendship, and forbearance, all of which serve to make me a better and (usually) saner writer. Thanks also to Lea Beresford for being an incredible champion for this book, and for helping me realize its best possibilities. I think we three make a pretty good team.

Thank you to Sara Kitchen, Lauren Hill, and everyone at Bloomsbury USA and UK. I’m especially grateful to my UK editor Alison Hennessey for her enthusiasm and care in bringing this novel to a readership across the pond. To my phenomenal copy editor Janet McDonald: I appreciate you. To Katya Mezhibovskaya: Thank you for designing a cover that is truly better than anything I imagined.

Love and gratitude to Branden Boyer-White (first reader, second reader, hero of my heart), Angie Dell, Rachel Andoga, Lyndsey Reese, Sam Martone, Peter Turchi, Tara Ison, T. M. McNally, and Melissa Pritchard for years of friendship and inspiration. To Reneé Bibby, Lilian Vercauteren, and everyone who is a part of Write Wednesday, for sometimes letting me pick the restaurant. To Lauren Cerand for excellent advice and generosity with her time. To Katie Adams for offering valuable feedback on an early version of this manuscript, as well as her enthusiasm writ large. To Esmé Weijun Wang, for offering joy, sharing John Wick, and being brilliant. To Edan Lepucki and Alissa Nutting for support when it was most needed. To Mairead Case, for being. To Lynn Steger Strong, Katie Coyle, Rachel Fershleiser, Jaime Green, Erika Swyler, and other friends who make my daily life better, even if it’s usually through a crackling digital void.

Heartfelt thanks to the Willapa Bay Artist Residency Program, the Jentel Arts Foundation, and the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for offering me space and support while I worked on this book. (To my Launch Pad friends: this may not have been quite what you had in mind, but studying science fiction writers turns out to have been as valuable for me as studying science.) Thanks also to my mother-in-law, Karen Clark, for taking us on a vacation to Mexico where I drafted a huge swath of pages and got a nice suntan, too.

Thank you to my family, always.

Thank you to Dave, especially. I love you.

Adrienne Celt’s debut novel, The Daughters , won the PEN Southwest Book Award for Fiction and was an NPR Best Book of the Year and an NYPL Favorite Book of the Year. Her story “Temples” was included in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016 after originally appearing in Epoch . Celt’s short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Zyzzyva , Ecotone , the Kenyon Review , Prairie Schooner , Esquire , Electric Literature , and Carve Magazine , among others; her nonfiction has appeared in the Rumpus , Tin House ’s “Open Bar,” Lit Hub , the Toast , Catapult , the Millions , and elsewhere. Adrienne has an MFA in fiction from Arizona State University, draws weekly web comics at loveamongthelampreys.com, and lives in Tucson, Arizona.

The Daughters

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First published in the United States 2018

Copyright © Adrienne Celt, 2018

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ISBN: HB: 978-1-63557-152-3; eBook: 978-1-63557-151-6

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