- - -
Here in the frozen room beneath the Empire Hotel, among vast stores of food provisions is a doctor named Alexander Merrie. He smokes a pipe as he sits hunched over his journal and writes an entry to a man who will never read it.
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1903—NEW YORK
I had to look back in my journals I’d kept during the Alex Crow expedition to be certain just how many years it has been since Mr. Warren and I brought Katkov’s beast out from the ice. How would I have ever guessed where I would be today?
There are times—many of them in my life—when it has been impossible to think about the future.
Lately I find myself wondering more and more about the stories that have been frozen—for how many years before Mr. Warren, Murdoch, and I first caught a glimpse of you?—in the timelessness of your captivity. And it was purely out of the need to allow the one thing that was a certainty be known—that you existed at all, man, devil, or beast—which drove us to bring you back as evidence of our reason, and our stewardship of this world. And so I’ve come more often to sit here among Mr. Seymour’s impossible stock of food, and look at you while I write. It brings me back, in my mind, to that spring on the Lena River Delta when I myself crawled from the ice.
Twenty-three years today! And sadly, fifteen of those years have passed since Mr. Warren was lost to us.
It’s a sort of a birthday, I should say—a birth from the ice, into ice, and now, only to wait to be born once again. And when that happens, what stories we all will have to tell!
- - -
Here is our pet, a crow named Alex, who should not be alive, taunting a neighbor’s cat through an obviously opened window.
- - -
Here is an immigrant kid, a second son named Ariel, who has lived, and lived, and lives again, in a place called Sunday.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Someone once said this to me: “Careful Is My Middle Name will NOT be the title of your memoir, Andrew.”
That someone is actually Julie Strauss-Gabel, the editor and publisher of The Alex Crow. I must thank Julie for an uncountable assortment of things—among them, for her intelligence, dedication to producing the best books possible, for being patient with me, for asking the best questions, for making me be a better writer, and for pulling me in when I became a little less than careful. Also, for giving me the title for the memoir I will one day write: Careful Is My Middle Name Is Not the Title of This Memoir.
If I did write a memoir, I’m pretty sure—given its title—it would not be very boring, but I would feel obligated to name names, which would not be very careful of me. And if my life were a movie, I would cast it as follows:
The no-bullshit golf partner—played by Amy Sarig King.
The reliable, understanding, and calm therapist—played by Michael Bourret.
The conspiratorial drinking buddy—played by Michael Grant.
The other boy in Christa Desir’s and Carrie Mesrobian’s “Boy Cabal”—played by Ted Goeglein.
The incredible survivors who introduced me to Ariel Burgess—played by my English-language learner students.
The people I love most in this world—played by Jocelyn, Chiara, and Trevin Smith.
You all give me so much, and I am incalculably thankful.
Oh . . . and the crow is played by Oprah, our hen, who just sits there and stares.
There’s something a little off with that bird.
THIS IS THE TRUTH. THIS IS HISTORY.
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD.
AND NOBODY KNOWS
ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
YOU KNOW
WHAT I MEAN.
Boston Globe-Horn Book winner
A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book
“Raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling”
—Rolling Stone
“A literary joy to behold . . . reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, in the best sense.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“An absurdist Middlesex . . . and is all the better for it. A-”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Nuanced, gross, funny and poignant, it’s wildly original.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Once you get lost in Grasshopper Jungle you won’t want to be found.”
—Geekdad.com
“Filled with gonzo black humor.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Andrew Smith, The Alex Crow
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