Beijing: A Novel

Acknowledgments

viii I am grateful to the following people for their careful reading and sound advice: Harlyn Aizley, Christopher Bram, Kathleen Kushman , Vicky Frankel, Jim Mezzanotte, George Packer, Pamela Painter, Maxine Rodburg, Adam Schwartz, Christopher Tilghman, Jessica Treadway, and Kate Wheeler. Thanks to School Year Abroad and its director, Woodruff W. Halsey II, for the extraordinary opportunity to live and teach in Beijing during the autumn of 1996. While we taught together, John and Lynn McLoughlin graciously shared with me their knowledge and love of China. I thank them for their many kindnesses. Portions of this novel, in earlier versions, were published in various anthologies and literary magazines. I would like to thank the editors of those publications: Robert Drake and Terry Wolverton, Lawrence Schimel, Brian Bouldrey, and Patrick Merla. During the writing of Beijing, the Massachusetts Arts Council awardedmeasmallstipend,whichgavemetheconfidencetopresson. I also wish to thank Jodie Rhodes, my agent; Joëlle Cabot for her fine translation of the poem by Victor Segalen; and Nan Ye for invaluable help with my Chinese. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Raphael Kadushin at the University of Wisconsin Press and Michael Lowenthal for his continued encouragement and support. Last but certainly not least, I wish to thank the many gay men I met in China who shared their stories with me. Their names still cannot be mentioned here safely, but their openhearted spirit infuses and ennobles this book. It is to them that I dedicate Beijing. Acknowledgments ...