ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Thanks to: Amy Williams, agent and friend extraordinaire; Reagan Arthur, beloved editor-friend, Michael Pietsch, who lifted this book with his skill, and other much-admired colleagues at Little, Brown and Company.

Also: Georgi H. Kostov for his wonderful reading and for the freedom to go and learn. Eleanor Johnson for her loving a.s.sistance with research in Paris and Normandy; Dr. David Johnson for his belief in this project and for a rest in the Auvergne; Jessica Honigberg for showing me a painter's mind and hands; Dr. Victoria Johnson for a renewed love of France; my Dutch uncle, Paul Howard Johnson, for his unflagging support and encouragement over four decades; Laura E. Wolfson, sister writer, for her reading and our thirty years of excursions to museums; Nicholas Delbanco, cherished mentor, for his reading and for discussions of Monet and Sisley; Julian Popov, fellow novelist, for his critiques: [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Janet Shaw for her reading and for years of sheltering wings; Dr. Richard T. Arndt for his help with all things French: merci mille fois; Heather Ewing for her reading and her hospitality in Manhattan; Jeremiah Chamberlin for his fearless help with revisions and for cutting down on the driving; Karen Outen, Travis Holland, Natalie Bakopoulos, Mike Hinken, Paul Barron, Raymond McDaniel, Alex Miller, Josip Novakovich, Keith Taylor, Theodora Dimova, and Emil Andreev for readings/endless camaraderie in the craft; 572.

Peter Matthiessen, Eileen Pollack, Peter Ho Davies, and others for outstanding tutelage; Kate Dwyer, Myron Gauger, Lee Lancaster, John O'Brien, and Ilya Perdigo Kerrigan for fragments; Ivan Mozo and Larisa Curiel for hospitality in Mexico and advice on the Acapulco settings; Joel Honigberg for his thoughts on the Impressionists, which helped to spark this story; Antonia Hodgson, Chandler Gordon, Vania Tomova, Svetlozar Zhelev, and Milena Deleva for treasured friendship, publishing, translation, tales of art, and literary camaraderie; the Hopwood Program at the University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor Book Festival, the Apollonia Festival of Arts in Bulgaria, the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and the American University in Bulgaria for hosting public readings of pa.s.sages from this work; Rick Weaver for allowing me to observe his painting cla.s.s at the Art League in Alexandria; Dr. Toma Tomov for information about the psychiatric profession, Dr. Monica Starkman for the same and for her invaluable help with the editing of this book; Dr. John Merriman, Dr. Michele Hanoosh, and Dr. Katherine Ibbett for help with French history and sources; Anna K. Reimann, Elizabeth Sheldon, and Alice Daniel for all their moral support; Guy Livingston for twenty-five years of brotherhood in the arts; Charles E. Waddell for his excellent suggestion; Dr. Mary Anderson for wise counsel; Andrea Renzenbrink, Willow Arlen, Frances Dahl, Kristy Garvey, Emily Rolka, and Julio and Diana Szabo for outstanding help with my household at various periods during the writing of this book; Anthony Lord, Dr. Virginia McKinley, Mary Parker, Josephine Schaeffer, and Eleanor Waddell Stephens -- beloved introductions to France and the French language. Other family, friends, students, and inst.i.tutions I cannot even begin to list.

Finally, I am indebted to Joseph Conrad and his great portrait, Lord Jim; may the author's spirit enjoy and forgive the heartfelt homage I've paid in these pages.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Elizabeth Kostova graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.

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