It was Sue Pollock who took me by the hand, saying, “First we have to find you the most wonderful agent.”
And Sue brought me straight to Rosalie Siegel who, like all magical people are wont to do, changed the course of my life. Rosalie is Jeanne d’Arc in a Chanel suit. She is a sage. Tenaciously, devotedly, and with that rare finesse of hers, she shepherded me and my story. Now I can’t imagine any story of mine without her.
From across six thousand miles of land and sea, Amy Gash reined me in. No less than a brilliant editor, she saved me from an excess of “floating, hovering, lunging, festooning, raising up, and dancing.” She helped me to lay down some old trappings, to stand up taller as a writer. Anyone who still thinks that editing is all about punctuation and grammar should know the depth of her work. Amy loved this story and cared, unstintingly, how I told it. And everywhere in this text that three adjectives remain still lined up in a row is a result of my stubbornness, a sign of the skirmish or two among our battles that Amy let me win.
This book was made by every Venetian who showed me the way or told me a secret, every one of you who sipped Prosecco with me, taught me a word, fed me, hugged me, rescued me. And cried with me. You are a race apart, a tribe more blessed than cursed and that I lived among you for those thousand days is a divine keepsake, one that burnishes even the thinnest blaze of the sun and keeps me warm.
Finally, it’s not that I don’t remember you, you about whom I did not write among these pages. It’s not even that I don’t remember you kindly or not so kindly, as the case may be. But this is such a small book and my life is such a long story that this is all I can say for now.