Reading your book in hard cover the first time can be tricky. It seems familiar, but not really, like maybe you'd read it long ago or perhaps just skimmed it. The deeper you go -- and this book if nothing else is deep--the more into it you slide, until, that is, you find a a really flat sentence you somehow overlooked, or a paragraph that would work better if it had sharper first line, or . . . perish the thought. . . you realize you've misstated a critical fact. Some authors never read their once-published books for that very reason. I dare not do that. This story weaves so many themes and is at the same time so fact-driven that I need to absorb it thoroughly in preparation for taking it out into the world. Starkweather has almost a cult following, and I expect to be questioned closely by its adherents.
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