Acknowledgments

I am grateful once again to Joanna Scott, James Longenbach, my careful and inspired readers; to Binnie Kirschenbaum, Carol Armstrong, Elizabeth Wyckoff; and for Andrew Weissmann’s short course in the Witness Protection Program. My greatest debt is to my cousin, John McCall, once a Jesuit, a great teacher always. Kevin Brownlow and Walter Bernstein have informed my movie world. Philip Pauly came up with the lovely illustration of poison ivy. Ansonia, Connecticut, is somewhat mythical, as is the Murphys’ town on the bay in Rhode Island—both projections on the silver screen. Mary Witkowski of the Bridgeport Public Library keeps me in touch with the history of my industrial roots. As I write on in my quartet of the Four Seasons, Paul Slovak, my editor, is a great support. My thanks, always, to Gloria Loomis. Mark Probst is my beloved muse, in foul weather and fair. And special thanks to the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.