The Boiling Season (42 page)

Authors: Christopher Hebert

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Political

BOOK: The Boiling Season

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I owe a great many thanks to my indefatigable agent, Bill Clegg, to my brilliantly insightful editor, Terry Karten, and to some wonderful readers who helped make this book what it is: Augustus Rose, Genevieve Canceko Chan, Peter Ho Davies, Michael Knight, and most of all, Margaret Lazarus Dean, without whom there would be only paper and ink.

My family and friends provided love and support throughout the long writing process. For their encouragement, counsel, and assistance I especially want to thank Sharon Pomerantz, Patrick O'Keeffe, Raymond McDaniel, Lynne Raughley, Valerie Laken, Julie Barer, Shaun Dolan, and Sarah Odell.

I owe gratitude as well to the teachers and mentors who provided guidance and inspiration along the way: Eric Horsting, Jacqueline Spangler, Eileen Pollack, Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, and Charles Baxter. And, going all the way back to the beginning, Deborah Weiss.

About the Author

C
HRISTOPHER
H
EBERT
graduated from Antioch College, where he also worked at the
Antioch Review
. He has spent time in Guatemala, taught in Mexico, and worked as a research assistant to the author Susan Cheever. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and was awarded its prestigious Hopwood Award for Fiction. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his son and wife, the novelist Margaret Lazarus Dean.

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Credits

Cover illustration Â© Mark Owen/Arcangel Images

Cover design by Christine Van Bree

This is a work of fiction. Although inspired
in part by some actual events, the characters, places, and incidents presented
here are products of the author's imagination.

THE BOILING
SEASON
. Copyright Â© 2012 by Christopher Hebert. All rights reserved
under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the
required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to
access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be
reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored
in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form
or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter
invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

A number of facts and several lines of
dialogue appearing in chapter 11 are borrowed and/or adapted from the article “A
New Retreat for the RichâSurrounded by Tumbledown Shacks,” published in the
New York Times
, January 6, 1974.

Faustin Charles's poem “Sugar Cane” appears
with permission of Peepal Tree Press and is published in
Children of the Morning: Selected Poems
(Peepal Tree Press,
2008).

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition MARCH 2012 ISBN:
9780062088536

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data

Hebert, Christopher.

The boiling season : a novel /
Christopher Hebert.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-06-208851-2

1. Caribbean AreaâFiction. 2.
Political fiction. I. Title.

PS3608.E727B65 2012

813'.6âdc22

2011021510

12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1