I AM DEFINITELY BLESSED TO LIVE IN SOUTH BOSTON, among some of the world’s most brilliant, loving, and tough people. Thank you to the overwhelming majority of good people in the town, who, through some of the worst forms of oppression by all sides of the political, social, and criminal spectrum, still believe in the village ideal.
A million and one thanks to my editor, Deanne Urmy, for being the champion archangel of All Souls, and for her brilliant and compassionate guidance through every painful and personally redemptive sentence. And to my whole team at Beacon: Helene Atwan, Amy Caldwell, Tom Hallock, and Pam MacColl. Special thanks also to Kathie Mainzer, for acting as my production coach and mentor, urging All Souls to life. Thank you to the many friends who have given advice on my manuscript through various stages and encouraged me to keep writing: Margaret Lazarus, who always challenged me to maintain and nurture the voice I’d found, and Renner Wunderlich, Maire Murphy, Judith Gaines, Brian MacQuarrie, Jimmy Tingle, Maureen Dezell, Jeff Lowenstein, Channing Thieme, Jill Cunniff, and Bob Cunniff.
Thanks to Barbara Hindley for being the connection that made All Souls possible, and to my agent John Taylor “Ike” Williams for making many more.
I am grateful also to all those who kept me connected to the world, and never let me fall into the pit of writer’s isolation. Your good thoughts, support, and company sustained me through what could have been a very lonely process: Reme Del Valle, my cousin Maureen Kelly, Clara and Bill Wainright, Rachael and Madeleine Steczynski, Libby McClaren, Sr. Ann Fox and Barry Hynes, Lew Dabney, the Boston Gun Buyback’s founding father, Molly Baldwin and the young people at ROCA Inc., Charlie Rose and Carol Downes, Leo Rull, Jerry Hurley, Paul and Mary Ulrich, Theresa Dooley (a South Boston mother whose presence in my life continues to inspire my work), Sandy King, Elizabeth Bartholomew, Lois Molinari, Pam and Billy Enos, Helen Kearns, Terri and Al Titcomb, Tina Chery, Cathy Tyler, Audrey Smith, Maryann Crayton, Cookie and Tipp Harris, Carol Ann Mehan, Katie Flaherty, the South Boston Vigil Group folks, the Charlestown After Murder Program, Brian Murphy, the Riordans from Castle Island in Kerry, the McShanes from Keady in Armagh, and to the residents of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
To all my family: Davey, Johnnie, Joe, Mary, Frankie, Kathy, Kevin, Patrick, Seamus and Steven, and Ma, who talked to me through all the relevant and painful stories, and who every day bears witness to the boundless strength of God’s human creation.
I am fortunate to know some incredible young people, my adopted sisters and brothers in Southie who listened to stories or eagerly read All Souls at every stage, and whose laughter and tears told me I was doing the right thing: Steven Kozlowski, Billy Coleman, Jimmy Connolly, Justin Downey, Katie Heiskell, Jen McAuliffe, Ronnie Sullivan, John Ulrich, Susan Ulrich, and Tara Van Osdol.
For me, the urgency of this book was emphasized by the town’s recent suicides, when hundreds of teenagers attempted suicide, and six young people who saw no other “way out” killed themselves, leaving a void in the lives of friends and neighbors: Kevin Geary, Tommy Mullen, Duane Liotti, Jonathan Curtis, Tommy Deckert, and Kevin Cunningham. You are sorely missed. Thank you to the young people of Southie who will honor their friends’ memories by choosing to live.