Free The Girl on the Glider by Brian Keene Page A

versions, with one exception. The previous editions used footnotes. Footnotes don’t work as well in digital format, so they have now been incorporated into the text. For example, in the previous edition, I might have mentioned “Jesus.” A footnote would then inform the reader that I was referring to author J. F. Gonzalez. In this digital edition, that information is provided in the actual text.
        I think it fair to say that this is my twist on the traditional ghost story-a meta-fictional mash-up of M. R. James and Hunter S. Thompson. Although I don’t usually care for my work after I’ve finished writing it, I’m proud of this one. I honestly think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. I fully expect that not all of my audience will agree with me. Indeed, after this new digital edition is available to the public, I anticipate some one-star reviews on Amazon.com, probably with lines like, “ I bought this becuz I wanted to reed about zombies pulling people’s heads off and instead it’s just Keene bitching about writing .” (sic)
        Well, I’m sorry you didn’t care for it, but in truth, I didn’t write it for you. You were not on my mind during its creation. I was thinking about someone else.
        As I said before, I honestly think this novella is one of the best things I’ve ever written. But it’s also the saddest.
        I wrote this as a last ditch effort to save my troubled marriage-a marriage that had been mostly good up until the pressures of writing for a living began to impact it. Those pressures, slow to build but oh-so-fucking-heavy, are detailed here. Since its initial publication, people have often asked me which parts of The Girl on the Glider were true and which parts were fiction. Honestly, ninety-nine point nine percent of this was true. All of the behind-the-scenes angst and drama and fuckery that was going on-I didn’t make that shit up. That’s exactly what it’s like to make your living as a mid-list horror novelist. There is no 401K. There is not health insurance. And publishers never pay you on time. The other stuff was true, too-everything from Coop fishing a dead body out of the river to the image I saw on my son’s baby monitor. A girl really did die at the top of my driveway, and she really did teach me an important lesson.
        Sadly, the lesson came too late. I said above that ninety-nine point nine percent of this story was true. The part I made up… the part that was fiction? Well, that was the happy ending. In real life, the story didn’t end so well.
        I finished writing this novella in December of 2009. Three weeks later, in January of 2010, my wife of eight years, a woman who I’d been with for sixteen years, asked me for a separation… and eventually a divorce. And she was right to do so. She was absolutely right to do so. The lessons that the girl on the glider taught me came too late. I didn’t realize that then, but I do now. At the time, I blamed everyone around us. But the blame lay elsewhere…
        It is January of 2013 as I write this. Several years have passed, and my ex-wife and I remain best friends. Indeed, I think we get along better now than we ever did during those past sixteen years. We’ve both grown a lot. So has our son. Our son is healthy and happy and has two parents who love him. I miss her every goddamn day. And I still don’t blame her. Not one bit. Nobody should have to live with the guy in this novella, the guy who is chained to such an unforgiving and unhealthy job, but can’t do anything else. A guy who is trapped by his muse, trapped by who he is, trapped by what he is… a guy who will never escape those things. A guy who is a writer.
        When things go bad in life, it’s easy to blame others. We blame our employers, our teachers, our spouses, our friends, our neighbors, our churches, our political leaders, our police, and our enemies. We blame God and Krishna and Buddha and Allah.