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I’m one of those guys who always reads the Acknowledgements section in books, where the author thanks all the people who helped him or her in some small way. One of the lines you almost always see, especially in more academic tomes, is that the author asked other experts in the field to read the manuscript, thanks them, then says something like, “of course they should not be blamed for any errors that remain.” (Would that really happen without this disclaimer?)

Another frequent feature of acknowledgements—again, this seems to occur more often when the writer is an academic—is the apology to thos who have been inconvenienced by the writing of the book. I think the saddest one I ever read was from a handbook on interpreting a particular book of the Bible. The acknowledgments ended like this:

I have seen more than one author’s preface include apologies to children who frequently asked during the writing of the book, “When is Daddy going to be finished?” This book has taken so long from start to finish that my children have all grown up and moved away during that time. Maybe they asked about it in former days, but they gave up long ago if they did. My apology is aimed at others—at those editors, colleagues, family members, employers, students, and ultimately readers whose lives have been made at least somewhat uncomfortable by the book’s delay. At least it finally got done.

Wow. Leaving the reader depressed by the misery this book has caused is not exactly the best way to start said book!

But sometimes a writer breaks the mold and decides to have a bit of fun with the acknowledgements. Matt Labash, the enormously talented and entertaining long-form journalist for the Weekly Standard, has a new book out this week: Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys—a collection of his published profiles.*

I’m not, generally speaking, in the habit of acknowledging others’ contribution to my work. Not that I have anything against it in principle. It’s just that doing so takes away from valuable time in which I could be talking about myself. Still, in the interest of maintaining cordial relations with my family, friends, colleagues, supporters, and saboteurs, some thanks are owed:

I should start by thanking those whom I won’t be thanking by name down to space, time, and national security concerns. . . . You never know where the next idea will come from or how the current idea will be fertilized. But often as not, it comes by accident through interaction with you, the unsung heroes. I suppose I could recite everyone, but then you’d lose your special unsung-hero status and would be just like the sung-hero riffraff. Personally, I think you’re better than that.

He goes on later to thank the man who wrote the foreword:

There is only one man I ever considered to write the foreword to this book, but I figured Tom Wolfe was probably busy, so I asked my great friend Tucker Carlson to instead.

He also thanks his “trusty, gimlet-eyed editors”:

You develop an attachment to people who unsplit your infinitives and untangle your participles. I owe each of them in different ways for guarding my flank and making my pieces better. Still, whatever mistakes are in this book, go ahead and blame them. They’re the editors, the last line of defense. I’m just a lowly, undisciplined writer. They really should’ve been more careful.

[Fair warning to evangelical readers who may be interested in Labash’s book: some colorful language is used in the various pieces.]

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