At the end of the day, he sits down to a meal made for him by someone new. Someone he’s met, the way he met Helen, someone who laughs easily, who is open and kind and tough and honest. At night, when he wakes up from a dream he barely remembers, he turns over in his bed to find her there, and draws closer to the warmth of her, and goes back to sleep.
Or he steps outside, wanting the frozen night air on his face. He stands in the yard, the dogs stirring, wondering if there will be food. A chill runs down his spine, a shadow moves at the corner of his vision. He scans the trees at the back of his property, the empty trailhead. I freeze, make myself as still as the windless night. A face surfaces in his thoughts. But there’s nothing there. He goes back inside the house. The shadow in the trees waits a moment more. Then I step onto the trail, and begin to run.
Acknowledgments
The cool thing about publishing a book for the first time is that after years spent alone in a room, staring at a glowing screen, talking to yourself or your cats (who are fairly reticent with both criticism and advice), suddenly you have a whole army of people working to make your book the best possible version of itself. The first of those people is my agent, Michelle Brower: Thank you for your wisdom and notes and brainstorming sessions and—most of all—your belief in this book. Thank you, too, to the rest of the folks at Aevitas with whom I worked.
Thank you to my editor, Kate Nintzel, who was a dream to work with. And thank you to the rest of the team at William Morrow and HarperCollins.
I’m eternally grateful to the folks who read early versions of this novel and who gave me insightful advice and kept me from making dumb mistakes. Thank you to Ian Gill, Sara Huff, John Irving, Glenn Lester, Jeff Martin, Craig Nova, and Brooke Taylor. I was able to start this book thanks to the time and space I was afforded during my years working with John and his wife, Janet Turnbull Irving: Thanks to both of you for that experience (and to Craig, who suggested I apply for the job because—in his words—“You know how to drive in the snow”).
There were several resources I consulted to get the details of this book as right as I could, including: Iditarod Fact Book, 2nd edition, edited by Tricia Brown; “Out in the Great Alone” by Brian Phillips, ESPN/Grantland; the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website; Winterdance by Gary Paulsen; Yukon Alone by John Balzar; and the blogs from Dew Claw Kennel and SP Kennel.
I’ve had so many teachers throughout my life who saw that I enjoyed writing and encouraged me to keep it up; others who guided me as I worked to get better. Thank you to Bernita McMichael, Greg Mason, Matt Fitzgerald, Lloyd Kropp, Jo-Ann Mapson, Michael Parker, and Lee Zacharias. And to Vesta Mennemeyer, who was a different kind of teacher.
Thanks to Paw for advice on trapping and hunting.
And thanks, finally, to my parents, Kit and Jim Bradbury, who bought me all the books I wanted and gave me my first word processor; who didn’t think it was weird when they heard me through my closed bedroom door, reading aloud to myself (or if they did, they never said anything); who put up with phone calls that started with questions like “How long does it take to bleed to death?” Thanks for always supporting me.
About the Author
Born in Illinois, JAMEY BRADBURY has lived in Alaska for fifteen years, leaving only briefly to earn her MFA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Winner of an Estelle Campbell Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, she has published fiction in Black Warrior Review, Sou’wester, and Zone 3, and she has written for the Anchorage Daily News, TheBillfold.com, and storySouth. Jamey lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the wild inside. Copyright © 2018 by Jamey Bradbury. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover photograph© plainpicture / Minden Pictures / Jim Brandenburg
Title spread photograph courtesy of Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bradbury, Jamey, author.
Title: The wild inside : a novel / Jamey Bradbury.
Description: New York, NY : William Morrow, 2018. | Description based on
print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not
viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042752 (print) | LCCN 2017057180 (ebook) | ISBN
9780062742018 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062741998 (hardcover) | ISBN
9780062742001 (softcover) | ISBN 9780062791528 (large print)
Subjects: LCSH: Fathers and daughters—Fiction. | Wilderness areas—Fiction.
| Psychological fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Coming
of Age. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Bildungsromans.
Classification: LCC PS3602.R337 (ebook) | LCC PS3602.R337 W55 2018 (print) |
DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042752
Digital Edition MARCH 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-274201-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-274199-8
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