Joshua Mohr - Fight Song

She’s not far off. It would indeed be insane if the night rainbow rooted in this spot like some kind of monument. Coffen pauses at this idea: What would it be immortalizing? The plock marks the passing of ten years. What kind of shrine might the night rainbow be, inexplicably landing in their lives without reason or recourse or context or perspective? What’s the big idea behind such wondrous alchemy?

In the end, who really cares?

Point is it’s here.

Point is it’s here and so are all the Coffens.

They stand together, their hands flexing and stretching colorfully in the night rainbow’s rounded light. Bob’s free hand has crept up over his heart again, like it had that first evening on Schumann’s lawn. What’s that ditty he’s now humming? “Hail Purdue”?

No, actually Coffen happens to be performing his family’s fight song: “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

Jane smiles at his selection and says, “Would you have ever guessed something like this could happen to us?”

Bob Coffen looks at all the vibrant, rainbowed hands of his family. “Just lucky, I guess,” he says, then picks up the tune where he left off.

I wouldn’t have a career if it weren’t for the tireless enthusiasm of independent booksellers. The work you do often goes unnoticed, so I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart! We should all try and buy a book from an indie shop this week. Come on: you can do it.

Special thanks to Cooper Edens, author of If You’re Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow . It’s my favorite children’s book, and I wanted to pay homage to it in Fight Song .

I’d also like to thank a couple of Dans: my editor, Dan Smetanka, who has a shrewd eye and a wise spirit: scribbling this book together was a blast. And to my agent, Dan Kirschen of ICM: I know I’m in good hands with you and am stoked to grow a career together.

Eric Obenauf read this book in manuscript form and gave me kickass feedback. Thanks for your continued support, old friend.

On an unrelated note, Bucky Sinister wrote a poem for my wedding, which has nothing to do with what we’re talking about, except I want to say thanks to him one last time.

Thanks to my colleagues in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco, and also at Stanford’s Online Writer’s Studio.

I’m blessed to be surrounded by cerebral, strong, and beautiful women: Diane, Sarah, Margaret, Jessica, Katy, Shana, Rochelle, Chellis, Aubrey, Veronica.

My wife, Leota Antoinette, is my perfect playmate. We have so much fun together it should be illegal, but I’m sure thankful it isn’t.

Photo credit: Kevin Irby

Joshua Mohr is the author of the novels Termite Parade (a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection), Some Things that Meant the World to Me (one of O Magazine ’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller), and Damascus , published in the fall of 2011 to much critical acclaim. Mohr teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.