First and foremost, thanks must go to Hook’s “little Scotsman.” The good Captain may despise him; I bow to this remarkable writer. I grew up with Peter and his story; it was the first book I learned to read, though truthfully it had been read to me so often that I simply recited it word for word while turning the pages, so that what my mother took as a four-year-old’s precociousness was really just a trick of memorization. My first play (age seven) was the story of a boy named Jack—who flew. (I too flew at times, though I can do this now only on very special occasions.) Then, shortly after my thirtieth birthday, I saw an eye-opening production of What Every Woman Knows. Immediately I went to the local library and found a Collected Plays, which I devoured. Following this, I spent time on an artist-colony island where I read Andrew Birkin’s moving and fascinating J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys. I visited Scotland and the birthplace. I wrote a play about the man. I was in literary love.
Scholars, in my opinion, often misunderstand Barrie. He was not a boy who refused to grow up; he was a boy who grew up too quickly. There is a photo of Barrie playing Hook with the Llewelyn Davies boys: he identified not with Peter at all but with the sad, softhearted Captain.
My thanks extend to others: to my friend and one-time TV agent Brian Pike, who was so supportive both professionally and personally of the earliest draft. My good friend Tracy Strong read it next, the first person (after my wife) to understand what I was trying to accomplish. My friend Thomas Donahue followed, and my friends Richard Kollath and Ed McCann, and David Rintels and Vicki Riskin, and all appreciated the humor, and the narrative, and the crocodile. My British friend David Oakes read it hunting for Americanisms; hopefully they are as invisible as Tink. All of these good people gave me confidence in the work and belief in myself, something which all writers need, and which I seem (at times) to be particularly short of.
You would not be reading this book without the kindness of my friend George Birnbaum. Over dinner one night I complained to him that I could not find an agent to represent the book, let alone a publisher. He introduced me to his agent-friend Jeff Schmidt, who offered to read the book, and who fell in love with it in a way that all agents should fall in love with all books they agree to represent. Jeff promised me that he would find a publisher, and he did.
That publisher was Scribner, and the editor who bought it—the wonderful John Glynn—has guided me through the process of publication with the sure hand of a Pan teaching a Hook to fly.
All of these I thank. Each one is “first and foremost.”
But the first and foremost–est is my wife. Irene O’Garden is the best writer I know, and I aspire to some day be as good as she is. Poor Hook never found a partner, best friend, or lover; I am fortunate to have found all three in this amazing woman. Thank you, my Darling.
And thank you, readers. You too are “first and foremost.”