ONE DAY IN 2013, I had breakfast with Gina Centrello, who runs Random House. I told her that when I finished the new novel I’d just started, I had a nonfiction book in mind. I gave my half-baked pitch. She reacted positively—in fact, she suggested, given how timely it sounded, maybe I should pause the novel and write the nonfiction book first? So I did. I’m grateful for Gina’s many years of cheerful enthusiasm and support—and now for her uncanny prescience as well.
Andy Ward took a humongous, baggy draft and helped me turn it into the book it needed to be. He was a hedgehog and a fox, with one brilliant big idea and thousands of excellent small ones, all of them adding clarity and rigor. I expected a good editor, but I got an indispensable collaborator as well.
Once again I’ve depended on the talent and collegiality of my other abettors at Random House, especially Rachel Ake, Janet Biehl, Andrea DeWerd, Benjamin Dreyer, Greg Kubie, Allyson Lord, Steve Messina, Paolo Pepe, Tom Perry, Chayenne Skeete, Susan Turner, and Jessica Yung.
Even though I advise writers they don’t need to be friends with their agents, I fail to practice what I preach: Suzanne Gluck is my smart and delightful pal as well as my ideal professional facilitator.
Among the many other friends (and relatives) whose conversations sparked ideas or sent me down useful paths are Ari Andersen, Bruce Birenboim, Art Jensen, Melik Kaylan, Rob Kutner, Guy Martin, Seth Mnookin, Susanna Moore, Susan Morrison, Lawrence O’Donnell, David Samuels, Chris Schultz, Harry Shearer, Adrás Szántó, Emily Thorson, James Traub, and Kit White.
Thanks to the Siegels of Celebration—Jim, Marita, and Julie—for their hospitality and openness. Jenny Lawton was my essential partner at Celebration and Disney World (as was Matt Holzman at Disneyland).
I began writing Fantasyland in an ideal fantasyland—on the grounds of a fifteenth-century Italian castle among a dozen writers and artists and musicians. Thank you, Civitella Ranieri Foundation.
The generosity of professors Paul Bloom and Konika Banerjee at Yale and Joseph Uscinski at the University of Miami was a happy reminder of how much I admire and enjoy the reality-based academic community. Thanks also to Stefan Cornibert of the Pew Research Center for his help, and to Stephen Bruno (and the Hunter College MFA program) for his. I relied on my sister Kristi—Kristi Andersen, political science professor emeritus at Syracuse University—again and again, from beginning to end. My old friend Jack—the Reverend Jack Gilpin of the Episcopal Church—was a helpful reader of my chapters on Christianity.
I’m grateful to Kate and Lucy Andersen for allowing me to know for sure that something—love for one’s children—transcends reason and rationality. And to Anne Kreamer, my beloved daily collaborator and first reader, who enables it all.