This novel was written in Nassau, our adopted winter home. My Swiss passport, after forty-five years, was stamped NE PLUS SKIER—the dreadful fate that hits all skiers when their time has palpably come to do something else. In Nassau one can swim and sail and play tennis and golf, none of which attracts me any more: so this novel came quickly to fruition, from an idea I had long ago played with, the life of an American rake.
I am enormously indebted to Michael Seringhaus, who took a brief leave from his graduate studies in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale. We had become friends aboard my boat, on which he had undertaken a summer’s chores a couple of years earlier. His schedule permitted him to spend a month with us in Nassau furnishing ideas, corrections, and inspiration.
As is almost always so, the next step was to deposit my manuscript with Samuel S. Vaughan, who has invested literacy and spark and subtlety in more than thirty of my books. His patience and ingenuity keep me alive and, as will be acknowledged by readers of The Rake, my writings perdurable. I am ever so grateful to him.
Lois Wallace, my agent, gave the manuscript her usual sharp-eyed reading. Linda Bridges of National Review was helpful and wonderfully informed. Frances Bronson kept us all in order, and I thank her for her talent and patience and affection.
This is my first outing under the patronage of Cal Morgan, the talented executive editor of HarperCollins, who has provided many helpful suggestions.