George Saunders: The Braindead Megaphone

Also, I would like to thank the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation: it would be impossible to overstate how much your generous support has meant to me and my family.

On the personal front, I’d like to acknowledge and thank my sisters Nancy (who did such a great thing for NM) and Jane (my funny pal, aka Hane, who is very sentimental, and is probably crying right now as she reads this); Joe and Sheri Lindbloom, who did so much to teach me early on that ideas mattered, and especially my grandmother Marie Saunders, who has been, since my earliest memory, a model of loving kindness. I’d also like to thank my best friend, Pat Pacino. We’ve debated and discussed and developed many of the ideas in this book over the years, in various places and contexts, and I’m grateful to have such a dedicated, brilliant friend. Let us chicken-walk together, vigorously debating, to the grave, but not yet.

Finally, unending thanks to Paula, Caitlin, and Alena, who not only encouraged me to do the trips described in this book, but in one case even forced me (thanks, Alena), then listened lovingly to my incoherent ramblings afterward. These were beautiful, life-changing experiences that wouldn’t have been anywhere near as wonderful if I hadn’t known that the three of you were waiting for me at home, rooting for me.

And although I’ve thanked you above, and because I could never thank you enough: Paula, Paula, Paula. Odd to thank the air one breathes, but crazy not to.