Much of the insight I gained into the emotional story of the Duplessis orphans came from Pauline Gill’s magnificent book, Les Enfants de Duplessis (Quebec Loisirs Inc., 1991). The heartbreaking true story of Alice Quinton helped me to understand the physical, spiritual, and emotional toll these orphans endured throughout their lives, long after they were freed. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Alice Quinton for sharing her story with Pauline Gill, and for her candor, honesty, courage, and resilience.
My biggest debt of gratitude is to the one and only Billy Mernit, my mentor and first reader-slash-editor extraordinaire: without your vision and insight as to what the real story was—and challenging me to tell Elodie’s story—this book would still be in my drawer. Twenty years in the making, it took your gift for storytelling and editing to steer me in the right direction. Again. I’ve said it before, every writer should have a Billy.
Another enormous thank you to my resilient, relentless, beloved agent and friend, Bev Slopen, whom I met twenty years ago when I showed her the very first version of this manuscript. We’ve toiled on the “Seed Man” together, on and off, for two decades, and you never ever fired me! I am so blessed that you’ve stood by me all these years. Not many agents would. I think we are officially family now.
Thank you SO VERY MUCH to Jennifer Barth, my magnificent editor at HarperCollins. I feel so blessed to have your support and guidance, and it’s always a delight to work with you. Again, thank you for taking such good care of this book in particular—it means everything to me. You set it free with its new title and all your brilliant insights, and allowed it to soar above and beyond what I ever hoped it could be.
Thank you to the most wonderful marketing team ever, both at HarperCollins US and Canada: Mary Sasso, Katherine Beitner, Sabrina Groomes, Cory Beatty, Leo Macdonald, and Sandra Leef. The past year has been full of excitement, surprises and joy, truly. I can’t wait to see where this one brings us.
To my “live-in” editor and best friend, Miguel, let me copy and paste the last book’s acknowledgements (they still apply): thank you for picking up the kids and driving them all over the city and basically taking care of my entire life, so I can continue to be The Writer. I love you. Jessie and Luke, you didn’t contribute much to the process, but your snuggles helped. A lot.
Finally, thank you to my mother, Peggy, the inspiration for Maggie. All those interviews and long talks, everything you shared with me about your childhood in Montreal, all your feedback and read-throughs, have finally come to fruition. I only wish you were here to experience our book finally coming into the world. I’m just going to assume that you are, somewhere. I miss you.