The Shelter Cycle (24 page)

Thanks to Genevieve, Henry, and Christian Lee; to Ian Scott, who shared his electricity; to Cheri Walsh; to Dr. Cathleen Mann, for trust and texts; to the late Kathleen Stanley.

My book is indebted to the writings of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mark Prophet, and many other texts of the church. I also relied on the “Green Books” of the “I AM Activity,” by Godfre Ray King (Guy Ballard) and the survival guides of Tom Brown, Jr. Other important texts included
The Art of War
by Sun-Tzu and the Boy Scouts'
Fieldbook.

I am so fortunate to have lived above Paradise Valley during the shelter cycle, and luckier still to have worked for Virginia and Andy Anderson (who taught me the phrase “morphadite son of a bitch,” and so much more). Spending time with Ginny and being back on the ranch these last few years was reason enough to write this book. Thank you. And to the amazing Julie and Hannibal Anderson and their family, always.

Thanks to Chico Hot Springs, the best base camp a person could ever wish for. And to the Reed College Dean's Office and English Department, for key funding. All gratitude to Jason Parker for generous and dexterous website assistance. A debt to Trina Marmarelli, for last-minute cartography.

Jim Rutman, it is difficult to really know what is your deal and how you got this way, but I can only try to express how wisely you punished me, and to wonder at how vast your belief and patience are. I won't forget. Thanks also to Adelaide Livingston Wainwright at Sterling Lord, student and teacher.

Adrienne Brodeur, my editor, has encouraged me in friendship and in fiction for fifteen years. Visibly, invisibly. I am all gratitude and so fortunate.

Much appreciation for the patience, enthusiasm, and intelligence of all at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for helping bring this book into the world.

Cara Warner and Ariana Boffey tirelessly and enthusiastically transcribed thirty-plus hours of interviews for me. Necessary.

At different times, these smart and kind people read (often extremely long) drafts of this novel and told me what they thought: Kate Bredeson, Ben Lazier, Rachel Mercer, Tamara Metz, Amy Smith, Maya West. Thanks, friends. May you pass every test, as Saint Germain would say.

Here at home, my girls—everything. So grateful to Ida Akiko and Miki Frances, for slowing me down (and sometimes breaking me down), for showing me with their hearts what I was trying to do with my head.

And I would not be me if Ella Vining were not Ella Vining, every single day.

 

P
ETER
R
OCK
is the author of five previous novels, including
My Abandonment,
and a collection of stories,
The Unsettling.
He lives with his wife and daughters in Portland, Oregon, where he is a professor in the English department of Reed College.