As always, I have many people to thank for helping me to tell this story. Gretchen Jaeger helped me with details about vineyards; Nan Young told me about Denver in 1919; Diane and Pablo Rodriguez gave me a lesson in obstetrics in 1961; David Pires and Thom Anderson explained how someone in 1919 would get from San Francisco to Denver by train. The books
The Dead Beat
by Marilyn Johnson,
52 McG.’s
by Robert McG. Thomas,
The Great Influenza
by John M. Barry, and
A Crack in the Edge of the World
by Simon Winchester all inspired my imagination as well as providing necessary information. Kerrie Hoban, Lyndsay Ursillo, Hillary Noble, and Mary Hector who gave me the time in which to write, and Sharon Ingendahl who is a friend and a reader extraordinaire. Thanks too to Gail Hochman and Jill Bialosky, the best agent and editor a writer could have. And to Lorne, Sam, and Annabelle, who always give me the love and support a writer needs.
Copyright © 2013 by Ann Hood
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hood, Ann, 1956–
The obituary writer / Ann Hood. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-393-08142-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-393-08984-4 (ebook)
1. Housewives—Fiction. 2. Women journalists—Fiction.
3. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Regret—Fiction. 5. United States—
Social life and customs—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.O537O25 2013
813'.54—dc23
2012040074
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