ALLY KRANTZ CALLED, because Seattle Morning called her, and she said this was a conference call with a publicist from a good publisher—a publisher who might want to be my publisher once they got a look at my John William book—and this publicist said that I would be crazy not to do it, that it’s not a good idea to turn down television.
A limo got arranged, but since it arrived at 5 a.m., my neighbors didn’t see me get into it. Then there was the makeup, and someone mussing my remaining hair to and fro before giving up on trying to make it look good. Then there was the greenroom, with its muffins and grapes; me; other guests; and a television, surrounded by tropical plants, airing Seattle Morning. Quadruplets, the healing power of dogs, Seattle dentists in Jamaica, a home make-over, and “the four-hundred-forty-million-dollar man!”
At the right time, I was escorted onto the set. Under bright lights, a young woman ran a microphone wire up my shirt. Here were my hosts, whose names I didn’t remember. They were attractive in a way I thought of as scary. We hobnobbed painfully. I was asked what it felt like to be fabulously wealthy, but when I started to answer, someone said, “Save it.” Then we agreed that the dentists in Jamaica were doing a good thing and that their story was amazing. Thirty seconds. We groomed. One of my hosts said that if I was nervous it didn’t matter, because I’d still get to keep the money either way—wink. The other said, at the last second, under her breath, in a seductive whisper, “Here we go.”
All this sudden wealth. It must feel so strange.
You were a schoolteacher.
So how has your life changed?
What next? Staying at the Ritz?
Tell us about the hermit. What kind of person was he?
Not your average Lakeside student!
You must have been surprised.
What a generous friend.
Best of luck to you, Neil Countryman. We wish you happiness.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHOR wishes to thank Robin Guterson, Mike Hobbs, John Wolfe, Bob Fikso, Mike Drake, Ralph Cheadle, Joe Powell, Robin Desser, Anne and Georges Borchardt, Lisa Sanders and the Lakeside School, Judy Lightfoot, Joel Hardin, Danny Wickstrom, and Terry Zaroff-Evans for their assistance during the preparation and writing of this book.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Copper Canyon Press: “A hermit’s heart is heavy” from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain by Han Shan, translated by Red Pine, copyright © 2000 by Bill Porter. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Doubleday: Haiku from From the Country of Eight Islands by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, copyright © 1981 by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
Henry Holt: Excerpt from “The Master Speed” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, copyright © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 1936 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1964 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Houghton Mifflin Company: Excerpt from “Lastness” from The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell, copyright © 1971, renewed 1989 by Galway Kinnell. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Palgrave Macmillan: Excerpt from “Stony Grey Soil” from A Soul for Sale by Patrick Kavanagh (Macmillan, 1947). Reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.: Haiku from Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings by Matsuo Bashō, translated by Sam Hamill, copyright © 1998 by Sam Hamill. Reprinted by permission of Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, Mass., www.shambhala.com.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID GUTERSON is the author of the novels Snow Falling on Cedars, East of the Mountains, and Our Lady of the Forest, as well as a story collection, The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind. A PEN/Faulkner Award winner, he is a cofounder of Field’s End, an organization for writers in Washington State.
ALSO BY DAVID GUTERSON
Our Lady of the Forest
East of the Mountains
Snow Falling on Cedars
Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense
The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2008 by David Guterson
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Permission to reprint previously published material may be found following the Acknowledgments.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Guterson, David.
The other / David Guterson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-26941-6
1. Male friendship—Fiction. 2. Recluses—Fiction. 3. Washington (State)—Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.U846o75 2008
813'.54—dc22 2007041098
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business organizations, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author’s use of names of actual persons, places, and characters is incidental to the plot, and is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.
v1.0
David Guterson, The Other
(Series: # )
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