READERS WITH A KEEN SENSE of historical detail may occasionally find themselves confronted with what seems to be historical error. You may be right, so rest easy. The responsibility is mine, whether I was playing with things a bit to make a point or was simply mistaken.
There are, however, a couple of details which I can explicate at the moment. There was a National Football League game played at the Polo Grounds on the date in question. The visiting team was the Brooklyn Dodgers, a moderately hapless franchise which endured through fifteen seasons, from 1930 through 1944. The home team was, of course, the New York Giants. Not surprisingly, the Giants dominated the rivalry, winning twenty-two times, tying three, losing but four. Oddly enough, on the date in question, the real-life Brooklyn Dodgers prevailed, 21–7.
One might also inquire as to how, at 1:05 p.m. in New York, it could be 7:35 a.m. in Hawaii. The answer is simple. In those days, time zones were divided into half-hour slices once you got out there in the Pacific.
In the course of creating a group of characters bearing some resemblance to their counterparts inhabiting all of our lives, an author risks cutting too close to the bone. However, it is usually a bone or two of his own, which is doubtless for the best. In any case, should you find any specific resemblance to any specific individuals, then I’ve done a pretty fair job. But of course the resemblance is basically coincidental. And, finally, a word about the title. I had been considering the idea of telling Lewis Cassidy’s story for some time when I was following my normal custom one Sunday morning, listening to the world’s best disc jockey cum raconteur cum cabaret singer, Jonathan Schwartz. And following his normal custom, he wasn’t just playing a record: he was making a prefatory observation or two about it. The recording—Louis Armstrong’s, I believe—was It’s Been a Long, Long Time which, I suspect, most people think of as Kiss Me Once. He was making the point that, contrary to the bouncy rendition the song usually gets, it carried a very potent, powerful message that long-ago summer of 1945 when it was the country’s big hit. It was a song about the war and coming home from the war to a world that would never be the same again, to a life—as well as the loves in your life—that had changed forever. A whole lot had happened to everyone during those years. It had been a long, long time. And maybe the most you could really count on was a kiss and a prayer. That was what the story of Lew Cassidy was all about. Mr. Schwartz had given me the title. Herewith, my thanks.
—Thomas Maxwell
New York, May 1986