Just as there are perplexing facts in Lucía’s life story, the cause of her death is also uncertain. On January 31, 1890, The Sun in New York City reported the date of Lucía’s death as two days earlier, January 29. In an article headlined with “The World’s Smallest Woman”, the newspaper reported what had happened to her:

A dispatch to The Sun yesterday from Truckee, Cal., announced the death, on a snow-bound train there, of the smallest specimen of humanity the world has ever possessed accurate record of. Lucía Zárate was accounted by high medical authority as a marvel. Several managers had grown wealthy in exhibiting her, and she had appeared in every civilized country on the face of the globe.

Additional contemporary reports confirm that the snow blockade lasted about fifteen days. Lucía was on a Central Pacific train during the blockade, and the food supply was scarce. It’s possible that Lucía consumed canned food brought to the passengers by rescuers, and subsequently fell ill with gastric fever.

However, because there were so many passengers onboard sick with the flu, and temperatures were extremely cold, it is probable, as other newspapers of the era reported, that Lucía perished on the train due to some combination of hypothermia and gastric fever, or from diphtheria.

What the records do confirm is that her body was embalmed by a Dr. Bond in California, that her parents were not allowed to cross into Mexico with her remains until they paid a bribe, and that she was finally laid to rest near her family’s home in Veracruz.

The journey that led me to Lucía Zárate started in 2013, when I returned to the Loire Valley to revisit places where I’d lived as a college student in France. While visiting the château at Blois, I saw a small oil painting of what at a distance looked like a whimsical cat, standing upright and dressed in an ivory and pink embroidered dress with a white lace collar. Except this was not a cat. She was Antonietta Gonzalez, a sixteenth-century girl who suffered from what is now known as hypertrichosis universalis, a condition in which the whole body is covered with hair. Once I returned to California, I read all I could find on Antonietta and her entire family. This led me to research other young women from the distant past who had been exhibited publicly for their unique physical traits. I discovered that their medical conditions had brought them fame—along with shame, disappointment, and tragedy.

Of the four young women I researched, the one who perplexed me the most was Lucía Zárate from Mexico (1864-1890), because the facts of her adventurous life were particularly convoluted. Based on my experiences living in Mexico and having sojourned in many of its remarkable cities for the last forty years, I started my research with Lucía’s birth records—and lo and behold—I was immediately captivated by the prospect of telling her story. In no time, I realized that I had undertaken the daunting project of putting together the one-thousand-piece puzzle of her short and remarkable life.

After my disappointment with the many questionable sources on Lucía, I decided to rely on the information scooped from hundreds of newspaper articles from Lucía’s era. With these bits and pieces of data, I was able to synthesize the known facts about Lucía’s life with specifics of her apparent personality traits. I then layered my knowledge of Mexico and its ancient myths with the Mexican vanilla trade of the era. To this comprehensive material I then fused pertinent details about the seedy sideshow phenomenon of the late 1800s, the rise of the big-top circuses, and finally the specifics of the Great Sierra Snow Blockade of 1890, which eventually took Lucía’s life. Despite this systematic approach to uncovering as many facts as possible about Lucía in order to create an accurate portrayal of her life, ultimately, this novel is a work of historical fiction.

Lucía Zárate continues to fascinate scientists in the field of genetics. As recently as 2013, scientists speculated that Lucía’s extreme short stature was very likely due to a disorder now known as Majewski Osteodysplastic Primordial Dwarfism Type II (MOPD II). Among some of the telltale features of MOPD II are a prominent nose, farsightedness, and a high, squeaky voice. Additionally, before I started to write this novel, I confirmed that there are no known documented accounts of pain associated with living with MOPD II. What intrigued me about Lucía’s disposition were the consistent reports of her outgoing, sociable personality and her normal intellect (she spoke three languages); scientists now report these as common traits of present-day MOPD II patients. The Guinness World Records still lists Lucía as the lightest woman ever, and she is also among the shortest women on record.

Following are updates on subjects covered in this novel:

The memory of Julia Pastrana finally regained its dignity when her remains were interred in Sinaloa, Mexico, in 2013, more than 150 years after her death.

Recent scientific findings point to Carolina Crachami as the oldest known case of MOPD (Microcephalic Osteodysplastic Primordial Dwarfism). As of February 2015, her skeletal remains were still exhibited at the Hunterian Museum in London.

Six months after Lucía Zárate’s death, a Barnum and Bailey circus train derailed and caused the death of two animal caretakers and thirty-eight circus animals. In November 1890, P.T. Barnum suffered a stroke and subsequently died on April 7, 1891.

Tony Pastor, owner of the theatre where Lucía made her debut, came to be known as the father of vaudeville.

In 2009, UNESCO recognized the ritual dance Danza de los Voladores de Paplanta, the Dance of the Flyers of Paplanta, as an intangible cultural heritage.

The vanilla trade worldwide continues its boom and bust cycles. The year 2016 saw a poor harvest.

Images and videos of the Jaquet-Droz automata and of the Jumeau dolls can be found on the Internet.

In 2009, UNESCO recognized the whistled language of the Canary Islands as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. At present, there is a revitalization of the Silbo Gomero whistling language.

My most sincere appreciation goes out to Paula Morris for her insightful editing, to Tina Trang for her painstaking research, and to Éva Vágréti for her illustration magic. I am very grateful to my patient and creative book designer Karrie Ross; my good friend and photographer Lisa Baker, who’s accompanied me on many book signings; my book publicist Kim from L.A.; Brigitte Aguilar for her administrative help; and the ingenious technical team of Sarah and Kevin Bunch. I am forever thankful to the International Latino Book Awards organization, Las Comadres de las Americas National Book Club; the Latina Book Club; and the Martinez Book Store for their tireless efforts to promote the works of Latino authors. A big hug goes out to my friends and fellow book club members from Orange County and to my group of international bibliophiles for their ongoing support. Thank you all!

As always, I extend all my love and gratitude to my children and my husband for their constant praise and encouragement of my writing life. Finally, after spending years on the Lucía Zárate project—and by extension on Carolina Crachami, Julia Pastrana, and Antonietta Gonzalez— I completed this novel in Tuscany, where I strolled around ancient vineyards and whistled a bittersweet tune in tribute to their memory.

September 29, 2016

Montalcino, Italy