Rainey Royal (27 page)

To everyone at Soho Press, in particular Bronwen Hruska, Meredith Barnes, Rudy Martinez, Janine Agro, and the surgically brilliant Mark Doten. I’m so grateful to have landed here. And to Judith Freeman, for the introduction.

To Lisa Lenz. To Lisa Skolnik. To Jenny Krusoe. To Jonathan Weaver, M.D., for literary medical advice (any errors are mine). To Laurent Besson, and Adam Reed.

To my son, Ari Baquet. To my mother, Erica Landis.

Finally I am honored to acknowledge these artists: the late Jeffrey Cook of New Orleans, whose sculpture inspired Rainey’s shoe-and-bible sculpture in “I Know What Makes You Come Alive;” Duke Riley of New York, whose work inspired the tattoos of historic New York in “Trash;” and Stephanie Kerley Schwartz of Los Angeles, whose paper quilts and use of metal scraps inspired Rainey’s tapestries.