First off, I must acknowledge that the Hudson of this book—while deeply rooted in my own experience growing up there—is not the Hudson of reality. No character in this book maps onto anyone in real life. No business mentioned in these pages is intended to mirror any actual establishment, even if they share the same name (except for the Pizza Pit, which really did make the best pizza on the planet, and which really has been gone for decades).
I do owe some huge debts of gratitude to real people in the real Hudson, however.
The Hudson Area Library is a magnificent community resource, and the staff was incredibly helpful in the course of researching this book—particularly when it came to accessing the archives in the History Room. Big gratitude to Brenda Shufelt, Emily Chameides, and Brigitte Gfeller. It is true that I’ve taken some dramatic liberties with my representation of how whaling happened in Hudson, but that’s not due to any deficiency in the archives—when the stories I’d heard as a kid conflicted with the actual history . . . I went with the stories I’d heard as a kid.
Amber Kline gave me invaluable insight into the incredible work of the Columbia County Department of Social Services.
The team of Kelley Drahushuk and Alan Coon have built a magnificent space for local artists at the Spotty Dog, one of my favorite bookstores on the planet. I’m profoundly grateful to them, as I am to all independent booksellers everywhere.
Giovanni di Mola was generous with his time, and helped me understand the perspectives of some of the first-wave artist arrivals who set the stage for Hudson’s transformation. The blogs of Sam Pratt and Carole Osterink were similarly helpful.
My mother, Deborah Miller, gave me free room and board when I needed to come up to Hudson to do research and reacquaint myself with the local ghosts. She also taught me how to be a writer.
I owe Seth Fishman so much that it’s hard not to sound repetitious about it, but one thing worth calling out here is that when I went to him and said, “Everybody says the smart career move is to stick to one genre, but I have a creepy supernatural thriller I really, really wanna write,” he said what he’s always said: “Write what you want to write and let me worry about everything else.”
Zachary Wagman made this book sparkle, knowing exactly how to slash and burn and streamline to bring the edgy thriller pacing to the forefront. Reading through the galleys for last-pass copyedits, I kept thinking, Damn, Zack, this thing is really humming!
The Ecco team of Sara Birmingham and Martin Wilson and Co. have always made me feel confident that my work will get the support it needs to reach the people it needs to reach.
The gentrification of Hudson is real—but so is the resistance. I salute the folks who’ve been fighting to keep low-income residents in their homes and preserve some of what has always made the city special—they’d never make any of the mistakes made by the 1,000 percent–fictional resistance in these pages.
Ronan Szepessy is an only child, and maybe if he had an awesome sibling like my sister, Sarah, he would have turned out better. But having her as a cheerleader and friend when I was a lonely, bullied, miserable teenager made a huge difference, and I owe her much more than I can ever give back.
Finally—and forever—I must acknowledge Juancy Rodriguez, my husband and my hero, without whom none of this would have happened.