Author’s Disclaimer

This book is a work of serial nonfiction, originally published online at katesbook.com. It has no editor, no real publisher, and no marketing department. It has me, the author. That is the only institution standing behind it. Reader expectations should be calibrated accordingly.

The structure is not what I want it to be. However, time is of the essence, and I am not willing to wait for a more polished version of this book.

I am writing it from inside a year I did not expect. My law partner, Charles Hosch, went missing while day-hiking on Blood Mountain in November. He has not been found. He would have edited every page of this, and he would have been merciless about it in the kindest possible way. His absence is felt in the structure of this book as much as in the rest of my life.

I have closed the firm we built together. I am a long-term cancer survivor, and I am aware—specifically and daily—that the thoughts you defer may not get written. So I am not deferring this one. The book is imperfect. So, perhaps, is the argument. But waiting to be sure is its own kind of failure, and I am not willing to fail that way.

Thank you for reading it anyway.

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Contact me: Corrections, disagreements, edits, and the questions only a careful reader thinks to ask are all welcome here: katesbook@proton.me. Every message is read. Replies, when they come, may take time.