without the remarkable team at Doubleday, including Todd
Doughty, Suzanne Herz, John Fontana, Maria Carella, Lorraine
Hyland, Maria Massey, Rose Courteau, and Margo Shickmanter.
My family has been the greatest blessing of all. John and Nina
Darnton, my in-laws, read the manuscript not once, but twice, and
gave me the courage to keep going. My sister, Alison, and my
brother, Edward, have been an unbreakable ballast. So have my
mother, Phyllis, who offered the kinds of perfect touches to the
manuscript that only she can, and my father, Victor, who has
always encouraged me; my only wish is that he were well enough
to read this book now that it is done.
Finally, there are those for whom my gratitude goes deeper than
words can express: my children, Zachary and Ella, who have filled
my house with the madness of pets and the beauty of music and
the joyfulness of life, and my wife, Kyra, who has been my best
reader, my greatest friend, and my eternal love.