Acknowledgements
I wrote this book over the course of a number of years. Over that time, a lot about the landscape of Detroit changed. As a result, this novel is not a snapshot of any one fixed moment in time. Nor is it intended to be anything more than a work of the imagination.
Over the years it took for the novel to come together, a great many readers spent a great many hours reading a great many drafts. None more so (and more patiently) than Margaret Lazarus Dean and Bill Clegg. Their shares in the book number near to my own.
For guidance along the way, I also want to thank Charles Baxter, Genevieve Canceko Chan, Bryan Charles, Peter Ho Davies, Nicholas Delbanco, Scott Hutchins, Kristina Faust Kaminskas, Stefan Kiesbye, Michael Knight, Valerie Laken, Raymond McDaniel, Patrick O’Keeffe, Sharon Pomerantz, Gus Rose, and Fritz Swanson. Rachel Mannheimer steered the book insightfully through its final drafts.
John Kelleher was there with me during many of the misadventures that inspired this novel.
A travel grant from the University of Michigan provided vital research support for the portions of the book set in Mexico. I also received support in the form of a Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan for an earlier draft of the book. More recently, my position as Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries, generously made possible by Dr. Marilyn Kallet and Dean Steven Smith, helped to ensure the completion of the book.
My title takes its inspiration from the poem “The Angels of Detroit,” by Detroit native Philip Levine.
About the Author
Christopher Hebert is the author of the novel The Boiling Season, winner of the 2013 Friends of American Writers award. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such publications as FiveChapters, Cimarron Review, Narrative, Interview, and the Millions. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and is editor-at-large for the University of Michigan Press. Currently he lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is assistant professor of English at the University of Tennessee.