Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [401]
A veritable army of librarians, friends, and kind strangers helped me with research, and I wish I could eulogize certain individuals at length. However, this book is long enough as it is. Suffice to say, I am very grateful to the selfless people listed below: Lillian Wentworth (Thayer Academy); Jennie Rathbun (Houghton Library, Harvard); Eric Esau (Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth); Candace Wait and Elaina Richardson (Yaddo); Stephen Crook (Berg Collection, New York Public Library); Melanie A. Yolles and Raynelda Calderon (Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library); Susan C. Pyzynksi (Brandeis); Susan Riggs (Swem Library, William and Mary); Jill Gage (Newberry Library); Kathy Kienholz (American Academy of Arts and Letters); Bernard R. Crystal and Jane Gorjevsky (Butler Library, Columbia); Roberta Arminio (Ossining Historical Society); Linda Beeler (Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy); Barbara Stamos (Quincy Historical Society); Kristen Weiss (Peabody Essex Museum); Marge Motes and Nancy L. Thurlow (Historical Society of Old Newbury); Taran Schindler (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale); David Kessler (Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley); Nicolette Schneider and George Abbott (Syracuse University Library); Beth Alvarez (Hornbake Library, University of Maryland); Jessica Westphal, Daniel Meyer, and Sandra Roscoe (University of Chicago Library); Alice Lotvin Birney and Betty Auman (Library of Congress); Gina P. White (Dacus Library, Winthrop University); Tara Wenger and Tracy Fleischman (Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas); Kris McCusker and Deborah Hollis (University of Colorado Library); Christine Nelson and John Bidwell (Morgan Library); Marianne Hansen (Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr); Phyllis Andrews and Richard Peek (Rhees Library, University of Rochester); Marty Barringer (Georgetown University Library); Sean Noel and Ryan Hendrickson (Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University); Mary S. Presnell and Rebecca C. Cape (Lilly Library, Indiana University); Ron Vanderhye (Copley Library, University of San Diego); Rebecca Melvin (Morris Library, University of Delaware); Ian Graham (Bowdoin Library); Patrick J. Stevens (Kroch Library, Cornell); Amy C. Schindler (Grenander Department of Special Collections, University of Albany); Stephanie Heckaman (Culver Academy); Monique Ostiguy (National Library of Canada); Ellen Welch (University of Virginia); Bethany Holroyd (Union League Club); Sara Seten Berghausen (Duke Library); Carol Leadenham, Elena Danielson, and Robert M. Bulatoff (Hoover Institution, Stanford); Wendy Chmielewski (Swarthmore Library); Elizabeth Rogers and Jared Lewis (University of Utah Library); John B. Straw (Ball State University); Eliza Dame (Thayer Academy); Anita Israel (Longfellow National Historic Site); Judy Englander (Daphne Productions); Terry Karten (HarperCollins); Dwight Garner; Eleanor Munro; Carol Sklenicka.
One of the golden milestones of my life was meeting David McCormick, my agent, at a time when I was still floundering around wondering what to do next. David reassured me with a kind of Jeevesian calm, and ultimately restored me to the middle class. Deb Garrison, my editor, combines an all but infallible sense of literary judgment with a loving heart—in other words, a paragon of her profession and humanity at large. And were it not for the kindness of our mutual friend, Sara Mosle, I wouldn't have met either David or Deb—in which case, well, the mind simply reels. Warm thanks, too, to Deb's excellent assistant, Caroline Zancan, and to my incredibly meticulous copy editor, Terry Zaroff-Evans. At this point I seem to hear the orchestra playing me off the stage, but let me not fail to mention a sweet, supportive family: Kay, Heidi, Chris, Eliza, Emma, Bob, Debra, Jim, Joyce, and of course my wonderful mother, Marlies, whose faith in me has always been disproportionate to the known facts. As for my wife, Mary, and our beautiful