ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to my editor, Peter Gethers, and my agent, Kathy Robbins, for their unflagging patience and encouragement during the last four years.

I would also like to thank Suzanne Goodson, Andrew Heyward, Nora Ephron, Nicholas Pileggi, Irwin Blye, Evangeline Morphos, Penelope Green, and Timothy J. Hill for helping to bridge fiction with fact, along with Benjamin Dreyer, Kathleen Fridella, Shilpa Nadhan, Carol Carson, and Coralie Hunter for their careful work on this book.

Closer to home, I am indebted to Cynthia LaBorde, Barbara Denner, Roberta Epstein, Caroline Harrison, and Evelyn Witchel for their invaluable help.

I am thankful, as always, for my mother, Barbara Witchel, and for her steadfast support of everything I do.

My stepsons, Nathaniel Rich and Simon Rich, are warmhearted, sharp-witted commiserators in the folly of book writing and I treasure their company and advice.

But most of all, I am indebted to my husband, Frank Rich: a brilliant writer, an incisive editor, and the most kindhearted, generous, funny person I know. He remains the true gift of my life.