Read Hold the Dark: A Novel Online

Authors: William Giraldi

Hold the Dark: A Novel (22 page)

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

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Liveright Publishing Corporation,
a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact
W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830

Book design by Daniel Lagin
Production manager: Julia Druskin

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)

Liveright Publishing Corporation

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

Other books

Rapture by Phillip W. Simpson
Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan
A Path Less Traveled by Cathy Bryant
The Impure Schoolgirl by Pussy-Willow Penn
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Black Cat by Hayley Ann Solomon


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024