Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

If the first episode of Eligible: Chip & Jane’s Road to the Altar had fallen on a night other than Tuesday, Mary might have watched it or she might not have; the decision would have depended on what else she had in the way of P & G deadlines or pleasure reading. As it was, the first episode did air on a Tuesday, and Mary didn’t for a moment consider skipping bowling. Thus, at the exact moment her image first flashed on screens all over the country (“Mary Bennet: ‘The Scholar’ ”), she was waiting her turn in lane 10. When Felicia, who was Mary’s teammate and a fifty-seven-year-old special education teacher, moved out of the way, Mary walked to the ball return, inserted her fingers into her ball (she used one that weighed fourteen pounds), lifted it from the rack, purposefully approached the foul line while extending her right arm behind her, kept her gaze on the pins, and released. The ball surged down the oiled wood lane. In the seconds just before it collided with the pins, Mary knew that a strike would occur, and then it happened: All the pins fell, and when they did, it was so, so satisfying. As the pinsetter descended, Mary balled her right hand, bent her arm, and pulled it back in fist-pumping victory. Her sisters, she thought, could have their crushes and courtships, their histrionics and reconciliations. For Mary, this was heaven.

I’m incredibly lucky to work closely with a trio of strong, smart, funny women: my agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh; my editor, Jennifer Hershey; and my publicist, Maria Braeckel.

For advocating on my behalf, and for being people with whom it’s always a pleasure to interact, I’m thankful to many others at WME, including Cathryn Summerhayes, Raffaella DeAngelis, Tracy Fisher, Alicia Gordon, Erin Conroy, Suzanne Gluck, Eve Attermann, Eric Zohn, Maggie Shapiro, Katie Giarla, and Elizabeth Goodstein.

At Random House, I have benefited enormously from the support and wisdom of Gina Centrello, Avideh Bashirrad, Theresa Zoro, Sally Marvin, Leigh Marchant, Susan Kamil, Tom Perry, Sanyu Dillon, Caitlin McCaskey, Anastasia Whalen, Anne Speyer, Allyson Lord, Christine Mykityshyn, Janet Wygal, Bonnie Thompson, Alaina Waagner, Maggie Oberrender, Paolo Pepe, Robbin Schiff, and Liz Eno.

In the U.K., I’m indebted to Louisa Joyner and Katie Espiner, who approached me with the idea for this book, as well as to Kate Elton, Jaime Frost, Suzie Dooré, Cassie Brown, and Charlotte Cray at Borough Press, who saw it through to the end. I am appreciative of my friends at Transworld, among them Marianne Velmans and Patsy Irwin, who permitted a professional excursion.

My generous-hearted early readers include Emily Miller, Susanna Daniel, Samuel Park, Jynne Dilling Martin, Sheena Cook, Eric Bennett, Rory Evans, Anne Morriss, Susan Marrs, Tiernan Sittenfeld, Jo Sittenfeld, and, for being my go-to expert on all things Cincinnati, P.G. Sittenfeld. My parents, Paul and Betsy Sittenfeld, are not (thank goodness) to be confused with Fred and Sally Bennet, though I’m pretty sure they’ve all encountered one another at a cocktail party. My husband, Matt, and our children are my favorite midwesterners.

I enjoyed entertaining conversations and tasty snacks with my Austen book club: Hillary Sale, Maggie Penn, Becky Patel, Stephanie Park Zwicker, Jane Price, Susan Appleton, Susan Stiritz, and Kristin Maher.

I feel great fondness for the people who know more about certain subjects than I do, and who let me pick their brains, often in extensive detail: Ben Hatta, Jute Ramsay, Elizabeth Randolph, Liz Rohrbaugh, Mariagiovanna Baccara, Bruce Hall, Wyman Morriss, Cynthia Wichelman, Craig Zaidman, Stephanie Park Zwicker (again!), Maurizio Corbetta, John Stewart, Jarek Steele, Kris Kleindienst, and Tricia Sanders.

In terms of research, I also want to acknowledge my use of the website for Filoli, in Woodside, California, and of an October 2014 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about spiders by Susan Weich. Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue is in fact a real book by Nicholas M. Teich.

Finally, I hope it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: I am very grateful to Jane Austen, whose books have brought delight to many readers, including me.

CURTIS SITTENFELD is the bestselling author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, and Sisterland, which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her nonfiction has been published widely, including in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, Vanity Fair, and Glamour and broadcast on public radio’s This American Life. A native of Cincinnati, she currently lives with her family in St. Louis.

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