Authors: William F. Buckley
The Rake (20 page)
This novel was written in Nassau, our adopted winter home. My Swiss passport, after forty-five years, was stamped
NE PLUS SKIER
âthe dreadful fate that hits all skiers when their time has palpably come to do something else. In Nassau one can swim and sail and play tennis and golf, none of which attracts me any more: so this novel came quickly to fruition, from an idea I had long ago played with, the life of an American rake.
I am enormously indebted to Michael Seringhaus, who took a brief leave from his graduate studies in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale. We had become friends aboard my boat, on which he had undertaken a summer's chores a couple of years earlier. His schedule permitted him to spend a month with us in Nassau furnishing ideas, corrections, and inspiration.
As is almost always so, the next step was to deposit my manuscript with Samuel S. Vaughan, who has invested literacy and spark and subtlety in more than thirty of my books. His patience and ingenuity keep me alive and, as will be acknowledged by readers of
The Rake
, my writings perdurable. I am ever so grateful to him.
Lois Wallace, my agent, gave the manuscript her usual sharp-eyed reading. Linda Bridges of
National Review
was helpful and
wonderfully informed. Frances Bronson kept us all in order, and I thank her for her talent and patience and affection.
This is my first outing under the patronage of Cal Morgan, the talented executive editor of HarperCollins, who has provided many helpful suggestions.
âWFB
Stamford, Connecticut
January 2007
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.
is the legendary founder of the modern conservative movement. The author of many celebrated nonfiction books, including
God and Man at Yale,
he has also written a series of bestselling novels, among them the Blackford Oakes spy series and
Elvis in the Morning.
The founder of the
National Review
and for many years the host of
Firing Line,
Buckley lives in Connecticut.
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God and Man at Yale
McCarthy and His Enemies (with L. Brent Bozell)
Up from Liberalism
Rumbles Right and Left
The Unmaking of a Mayor
The Jeweler's Eye
The Governor Listeth
Cruising Speed
Inveighing We Will Go
Four Reforms
United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey
Execution Eve
Saving the Queen
Airborne
Stained Glass
A Hymnal: The Controversial Arts
Who's on First
Marco Polo,
If You Can
Atlantic High: A Celebration
Overdrive: A Personal Documentary
The Story of Henri Tod
See You Later Alligator
Right Reason
High Jinx
Mongoose, R.I.P.
Racing Through Paradise
On the Firing Line: The Public Life of Public Figures
Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country
Tucker's Last Stand
In Search of Anti-Semitism
Windfall: The End of the Affair
Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist
A Very Private Plot
Brothers No More
The Blackford Oakes Reader
Buckley: The Right Word
Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith
The Redhunter
Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches
Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton
Elvis in the Morning
Nuremberg: The Reckoning Getting It Right
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography
Last Call for Blackford Oakes
Cover design by Richard Ljoenes
Front Cover and spine photograph by Getty Images
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE RAKE
. Copyright © 2007 by William F. Buckley Jr. 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, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition July 2007 ISBN 9780061751806
Version 03142014
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