A Long Walk Up the Waterslide (30 page)

Winslow in his 1972 high school yearbook photo.

Winslow juggling at his nephew Ben’s birthday party in Beyond Hope, Idaho, where he lived off and on in the mid-1970s. He ran cattle but also “had a very macho job driving a salad-dressing truck. There would have been no Thousand Island dressing in Libby, Montana, without men like me.” It was in a cabin in Beyond Hope that Winslow started writing
Cool Breeze on the Underground
.

Winslow fishing on Sandy Brook, near his old home in Riverton, Connecticut, in the early 1990s. He says he was “lousy at it, but was an enthusiastic trout fisherman back in the day.” Winslow also claims that he “set a record of failing to catch a single fish on four continents in a single calendar year.”

Winslow with his two dogs, Bud and Lou, on the deck of his house in Riverton, Connecticut, in the early 1990s. Riverton, a small, postcard New England town, has one general store—the Riverton General Store—that, Winslow says, “made the best sandwiches in the world.”

Winslow with his late friend Quentin Keynes and his son at Christmas around 2003. Keynes was a safari guide, filmmaker, rare-book collector, and the great-grandson of Charles Darwin. The London flat in
Cool Breeze on the Underground
was based on Keynes’s, where Winslow lived for several summers in the 1970s while Keynes was away in Africa. One of the characters in the book—Simon Keyes—was also based on Keynes.

Winslow at a book signing for
The Winter of Frankie Machine
in 2006.

Winslow and his son playing roller hockey.

Once a safari guide in Africa, Winslow, seen here in Kenya in about 2007, poses with his son, wife, Jean, and two Samburu trackers, both of whom he has known since they were young. He once gave the trackers two camels to start a herd and says that now “there are apparently dozens of camels in North Kenya with the name Winslow.” Winslow’s connection to Kenya runs deep. He proposed to Jean on an island off the coast of Kenya, and when their son was born, he received spears and shields.

Winslow on a rainy day in Berlin in September 2010.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1994 by Don Winslow

cover design by Milan Bozic

ISBN: 978-1-4532-0614-0

This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com