It was 2012 when I first started thinking about the story that would become We Hope for Better Things. It was before a string of highly publicized deaths of African American men and boys at the hands of white police officers. It was before the murders of nine black worshipers in a Charleston church. It was before white nationalism was making national news—again.
As I researched, wrote, revised, and sought publication for We Hope for Better Things for the next seven years, I was constantly reminded of its unfortunate timeliness. This novel was not written as a response to those events. It was written in the midst of them, born out of my own struggle to comprehend the scope, understand the roots, and empathize with the victims of racism in America. It was an attempt to reckon with something that could not be reconciled.
I am well aware of the dangers of writing about such a subject. I am aware of the possibility that I have gotten something wrong. I am aware of the pitfalls of writing characters of color as a white woman. I have striven to faithfully and respectfully represent every character, whether white or black, male or female, protagonist or antagonist. I have done my best to avoid stereotypes and cultural appropriation. I have vetted the story with African American friends and been the grateful recipient of their critiques.
I am also aware that good intentions are not good enough. Like all human beings, I am fallible. And while I don’t mind if readers are uncomfortable with or offended by my work, I want it to be for the right reasons. If it was because I fell into an offensive stereotype, please accept my sincere apology. If it was because the story made you see something in yourself that you don’t like, please accept my invitation to explore that further, to confront it, and to repent of it.
In bringing the world of We Hope for Better Things to life, I am deeply indebted to several writers and researchers for their fine work, including Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns), Sidney Fine (Violence in the Model City), Herbert Shapiro (White Violence and Black Response), Marilyn Mayer Culpepper (Trials and Triumphs: The Women of the American Civil War), Hubert G. Locke (The Detroit Riot of 1967), Mark Binelli (Detroit City Is the Place to Be), Courtney B. Vance (Rebellion in Detroit podcast), and others.
Many thanks to those who read early drafts and offered their kind critique and advice, including Valerie Marvin, Debra Dawsey, Mary Bowen, Booker T. Mattison, Nancy Johnson, Twila Bennett, Orly Konig, Noel Harshman, and Dr. Meghan Burke. To my wonderful agent, Nephele Tempest, my enthusiastic editor, Kelsey Bowen, and the whole team at Revell Books, thank you for taking a chance on a new writer with a complicated story in a tough market. To Jessica English, thank you for your keen eyes and light hand when it came to copyediting this beast. To Michele Misiak and Karen Steele, thank you for your ideas, energy, and expertise in spreading the word. To Cheryl Van Andel, thank you for your patience as we wrangled over the cover. And to David Lewis, thank you for saying in one breath that you loved this book and that it made you uncomfortable. No one could give it higher praise than that.
Special thanks to my parents, Dale and Donna Foote, who not only shared invaluable firsthand accounts of growing up on both sides of the tracks in the Detroit area in the 1960s, but who have offered continuous encouragement in all of my endeavors for the past thirty-nine years.
My deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Zachary Bartels, my best friend and stalwart supporter. He has celebrated with me in my small triumphs and has comforted me in every disappointment along the way. I am truly blessed by a gracious God to have this man as my partner in life and love.
And to my son, Calvin, who was only four when I started working on this book and ten when it finally found its way to bookstores. Growing up an only child with parents who are both writers must be odd. So often Mom and Dad are mentally in other worlds, letting nonessentials (like laundry and grocery shopping) go as we perfect places and people that exist only in our minds. I am beyond delighted that your imaginative life is as vivid and engaging as ours, and that you value and enjoy reading as much as we do. You may not know it yet, but you are a storyteller too. And whatever you will be when you grow up, I hope that you will always maintain your imagination.
Because unless we can imagine a better way, we’ll never work to make it a reality.