This book would never have happened had not my daughter, Sybil Carolan, taken me to Sweden. Thank you, Sybil, for indulging my wish to see the house of Karin and Carl Larsson, which is where Sofie & Cecilia began. Thanks are also due to my daughter, Hannah Carolan, and to Andrea Townson for answering my questions about strokes. Marta Braun explained the intricacies of experimental photography to me, and Tony Urquhart was enlightening on the differences between painting with watercolours and with oil.
In Sweden, thanks to Alberto Manguel, I benefitted from Anders Bjornsson’s and Hans Henrik Brummer’s wide and deep knowledge of Larsson, Zorn and their circle. My friend Margareta Eklof saved me from many mistakes about Swedish society. One of Sweden’s premier translators, she also revealed a gift for creating place names: Askebo, Siljevik and Tallmon are her inventions.
At Knopf Canada, thank you to Deirdre Molina, Rick Meier, Anne Collins and Sharon Klein for their enthusiasm and intelligence, and to Kelly Hill for yet another brilliant cover and book design. Thanks, as well, to Angelika Glover, whose admirable notes and queries made this a better book.
My deepest gratitude goes to my agent, Samantha Haywood, and my publisher and editor, Lynn Henry. Samantha believed in this book as soon as she heard about it, years before she read it. She was its first, extremely astute editor and remains its tireless, canny champion. It’s hard to pin down Lynn Henry’s greatest gift as an editor—is it her keen eye for the smallest details as well as the big picture, or is it her insistence that all decisions are mine while she suggests changes that only a fool would resist, or is it her eloquent, encouraging emails? I don’t know, but thank you, Lynn.