SUNY Old Westbury, where Arthur attends college, was one of several universities set up around the world in the late 1960s that put the principles of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement into practice. These institutions were founded on the belief that education could and should be a force for social change. Professors Charshee McIntyre and Samuel von Winbush, who Arthur mentions, are real-life activists and academics who inspired students at Westbury in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You can see video interviews and photographs from the college’s early years at www.oldwestburyoralhistory.org.
For teenagers in the American suburbs, everything in popular music changed during the year in which How We Learned to Lie takes place. Though some of the music mentioned here was produced in the mid-1970s, the message didn’t really make it to us until the second half of 1979. The difference between the Little Wrecks playlist and this one partly reflects that revolution in music that felt so exciting at the time. You can hear what Joan and Daisy’s world sounds like on the How We Learned to Lie playlist at www.open.spotify.com/user/meredithseven.
Acknowledgments
I AM GRATEFUL to my daughter, Maia, for patiently listening to me talk about imaginary people all the time. To MaryLee, first for taking her little sister (me) to the Old Westbury campus with her in the early 1980s and second for sharing her memories and her yearbooks with me while I was writing this novel. Phil Lapsley not only shared his wonderful book, but also generously sent me unpublished research and pointed me toward the work of others. All mistakes and misapprehensions are my own.
Thanks to my friend Danny Reilly who spent an afternoon at Saltram House helping me build this world, and carefully read the full manuscript later. Shamira Meghani, Bryony Randall, Angela Sherlock, and Helen Thomas are amazing friends who listen to me, read my books, and always support me. The rest of my family—Harold, Joan, Jinny, JoAnne, Tom, Steve, Mark, Peggy, Lisa, Hannah, Matthew, Jason, Shane, and Clayton—read, spread the word, and show up to my readings en masse. I love them all so much.
Thanks to Danielle Zigner and Allison Hellegers for making these books happen. Working with my editor at Harper, Emilia Rhodes, is one of the great privileges of my writing life. I have learned so much from her. Thanks to Jennifer Klonsky, Alice Jerman, Stephanie Hoover, and everyone on the Harper team for taking a risk on me and supporting my books. To Anah Spiers and Maya Myers for their careful and generous readings of this novel, and for picking me up on things. This book is better because of them. To our designers for making covers that get put in the middle of pictures just because they’re so beautiful.
Finally, thanks to all the readers, librarians, bookstore staff, and bloggers, known and unknown, who read and shared their thoughts on Little Wrecks.
About the Author
Courtesy Meredith Miller
MEREDITH MILLER grew up in a large, unruly family on Long Island, New York. After some time living on the beach in Oregon and more time in New Orleans, she now lives in the UK. She has been a performance poet and has published numerous short stories and lots of literary criticism—mostly about gender, sexuality, and popular fiction. Little Wrecks was her first novel.
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Books by Meredith Miller
Little Wrecks
How We Learned to Lie
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
HOW WE LEARNED TO LIE. Copyright © 2018 by Meredith Miller. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art by Kelly Blair
Cover design by Michelle Taormina
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933334
Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-247430-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-247428-5 (trade bdg.)
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1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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