Hold the Dark: A Novel (22 page)
Read Hold the Dark: A Novel Online
Authors: William Giraldi
A late spring breeze came in through the entrance of their igloo and she woke with a knife in her hand, hovering above him as he slept. Their mother had given her a magazine a month earlier at their meeting place, and in it she’d read that dreams are useless. They mean nothing, hint at neither future nor past. They are the discard of the brain as the body slumbers. Why then, how did she see herself with the knife before she felt it in her hand, before she woke to find herself above him about to plunge a blade into his neck? Because, she knew, we call our wishes dreams, and she put down the knife to sleep again.
Acknowledgments
Feeling thanks to:
Bob Weil, torch in the night.
Steve Almond, rabbi, brother, friend.
John Stazinski, invaluable from inception.
Will Menaker, reader extraordinaire.
David Patterson, sapient 007.
The committed staff of W. W. Norton and Liveright, paragon in publishing.
Katie, Ethan, and Aiden, forgiving in this dark.
ALSO BY WILLIAM GIRALDI
Busy Monsters
About the Author
William Giraldi
is the author of the novel
Busy Monsters
and fiction editor for the journal
AGNI
at Boston University. He lives in Boston with his wife and sons
.
Copyright © 2014 by William Giraldi
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Giraldi, William.
Hold the dark : a novel / William Giraldi. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-87140-667-5 (hardcover)
1. Wilderness areas—Alaska—Fiction. 2. Wolves—Fiction. 3. Families—
Alaska—Fiction. 4. Revenge—Fiction. 5. Missing persons—Fiction.
6. Alaska—Fiction. 7. Suspense fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.I469H65 2014
813'.6—dc23
2014023730
ISBN 978-0-87140-494-7 (e-book)
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