The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [133]
“Goats,” I replied. “A mutual friend suggested they might be a good idea.”
Acknowledgments
After finishing Restitution, my first novel, I sat down with my editors—Peter Gethers and Claudia Herr—to discuss my ideas for a second. For a quick moment they locked eyes, and then Peter asked quietly: “You are aware that the second book is the hard one, aren’t you?”
His question brought to mind Holes, a book I’d read to my children years ago. Stanley, the teenaged protagonist, is sent to a youth labor camp, where every day he’s forced to dig a large hole in a dry lake bed. At the end of his first day, one of the characters tells him that the second hole is the hardest. At the end of his second day, the same character informs Stanley that the third hole is the hardest. And so on.
Garden of Betrayal wasn’t more difficult to write than Restitution, but it also wasn’t any easier. Which is worrisome, because my long-term plan had been to emulate Winston Churchill, who allegedly dictated his books from the bath, or to become like John Grisham, who—according to an interview I once read—composes each of his tautly constructed legal thrillers in an economical nine months, leaving him the rest of the year to vacation with his family. The truth is that I missed the deadline for Garden by a good six months and seem destined to the work habits of Dorothy Parker, who once remarked that she didn’t write five words but that she changed seven.
The good news this time around was that I had a terrific team in place to lean on. Peter and Claudia continued as my excellent editors at Knopf and were hugely influential in shaping the initial outline and in persuading me to tweak the final manuscript to reflect the cataclysmic financial events of the last two years. Kathy Robbins, my agent, along with David Halpern and Rachelle Bergstein, both of her office, once again provided invaluable advice and criticism throughout every phase of the project. And, as before, Jennie Yabroff was there to read every word, and she was both ruthless enough to let me know in no uncertain terms when those words weren’t good enough and encouraging enough to make me want to keep going. I’m enormously grateful to all of them.
I also particularly want to thank my erstwhile former colleague Steven Strongin, head of research at Goldman Sachs, who took time to explain his views on the energy markets when I was trying to work out the original outline. I’m grateful for the education and hope I put it to good use. Lest anyone think this book reflects his views, however, let me simply say that to the best of my knowledge, Steven has yet to install solar panels.
Else I benefited from the support of any number of friends, and particularly that of my family—Cynthia, Zoe, Nikki, and Matt. Cynthia, my wife, was particularly good about sympathizing when I muttered darkly about uncooperative characters and nice enough never to point out that my problems were definitely of my own making. And the kids have been enthusiastic about my midlife change of career—evidently being a writer has more cachet in teenage circles than being a banker. Go figure.
Finally, I want to thank everyone at Knopf for their superb work in packaging, promoting, and distributing both Restitution and Garden: in particular, Sonny Mehta, Chairman of Knopf; Anne Messitte, Publisher of Vintage Anchor; Jason Booher, who designed the jacket of this book; and Maria Massey, who acted as production editor. Knopf is a terrific place, and I’m lucky to have been picked up by them.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee Vance is the author of the novel Restitution. He was a trader at Goldman Sachs for more than twenty years before retiring as a partner in 2000 to write full-time. He lives in New York with his wife and three children.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2010 by Peter Tyler Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House