Having the chance to express my gratitude has been a frequent and sustaining daydream during the seven years that I spent researching and writing One Drop. While the list of those who have helped me—from small kindnesses to crucial conversations—has grown too long to recall, let alone recount, there are a number of people and institutions without whom I could not have seen my way to the finish.
From the start, there has been the miraculous Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the William Morris Agency, who conjured for me the time and freedom I needed to write the book that I wanted to write. I am also grateful to the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts for their financial support, to the MacDowell and Yaddo artist colonies for providing the opportunity for prolonged concentration, and to Donna Brodie and the members of the Writers Room in New York City for their fellowship.
I could not have completed my family history without the help of my newfound cousins. I am grateful to Sheila Prevost for reaching out that Christmas Eve so many years ago, for sharing the amazing research she had already completed, and for introducing me to her grandmother Rose and the rest of her family. Barbara Trevigne, Bernie Cousins, and Gloria Golden also all shared their information about the Broyard and Cousin genealogies. Thank you.
My fellow researchers have provided welcome companionship and crucial assistance during what can be a long and lonely process. I am particularly indebted to Catherine Donnow, founder of the online discussion group New Orleans Gens de Couleur Researchers and my fellow members of the Creole Heritage, Education, and Research Society (CHERS). I am also grateful to Ingrid Stanley and Pat Schexnayder, founders of the Louisiana Creole Research Association, Inc. (LA Creole), whose tireless efforts to preserve the Creole culture in the aftermath of Katrina’s devastation are an inspiration. I’m honored to donate a portion of the proceeds of this book to their cause.
In New Orleans, Richard and Kristina Ford introduced me to many people who were helpful to my project; chief among them was Curtis Wilke, who kindly offered me a place to stay time and again over the years. I am also grateful to Keith Weldon Medley for steering me through the labyrinth of New Orleans archives and to Beverly and Brandi Kilbourne for making me feel at home in my ancestral city.
At the New Orleans Public Library, Gregory Osborne, Wayne Everard, and Irene Wainwright expertly directed me through the Louisiana Division’s archival material. Sally K. Reeves, Ann Wakefield, and Eleanor Burke made available the New Orleans Notarial Archives collection of historical acts. Dr. Charles Nolan allowed me access to the Archdiocese of New Orleans sacramental records. In St. Tammany Parish, Tom Aicklen, coordinator of the Lacombe Heritage Center, and Peter M. Cousin Jr. helped to fill in the blanks about the Cousin family. I am grateful to the following scholars of Louisiana history and the free people of color of New Orleans for their guidance: Rebecca Scott, Caryn Cosse Bell, and Diana Williams, and especially Mary White and Mary Gehman, for their careful readings of my manuscript. Thanks also to Dawn Logsdon for her helpful feedback and to Lawrence Powell for his editorial suggestions and the inspiring example of his masterly blend of narrative and scholarship.
During its long gestation, One Drop benefited greatly from the intelligence and generosity of many readers: Edward Ball, Catherine Dana, Ruth Davis, Roya Hakakian, A. M. Homes, Dana Johnson, Candy Shweder, Nina Siegal, Martha Southgate, Denyse Thomasos, Lynne Tillman, and Evelyn Toynton. I am particularly grateful to James Hanahan, Charles Graeber, and Michael Vincent Miller for their thoughtful comments on the completed manuscript and to Laurie Abraham for her invaluable contribution in making the book the best that it could be. My thanks also to Vincent Livelli, whose vivid memories enrich these pages, to the ladies at The Moth—Lea Thau, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, and especially Joey Xanders—who asked to hear the story in the first place, and to Tessa Blake, Amy Brill, Nell Casey, Elizabeth Condon, Sarah Haberman, Virginia Heffernan, Coleman Hough, Giulia Melucci, and Danzy Senna, whose friendship and enthusiasm have buoyed me over the years.
To illustrate One Drop, family members Mark Broyard, Beverly Broyard, Joyce Howard, Dionne Butler, Tony Broyard, and Jeanne Dominick shared with me their precious family photos, and Charlie Griffin of Griffin Editions carefully reproduced them. Computer genius Mark Winkler retrieved lost files, supplied new equipment, and literally kept me in business, all for the price of a few home-cooked meals.
At Little, Brown, I am grateful to Michael Pietsch for wanting the project, to Reagan Arthur for guiding it so patiently to completion, to Oliver Haslegrave for attending cheerfully to the endless details required to turn my tower of pages into a bound thing, and to Mario Pulice and Allison Warner of the art department for their help in making that bound thing beautiful. The exacting Peggy Leith Anderson made sure my words made good grammatical sense and Marlena Bittner helped to usher them out into the world. Thank you also to the fabulous Melodie McDaniel, for shooting an author’s photograph in which I can truly recognize myself, and to the artist Lorna Simpson, who graciously took the time, during an eventful period in her professional life, to offer suggestions on the jacket design.
There are a handful of cherished friends who I suspect are as happy as I am that this book is finally done. My heartfelt thanks to Andrew Arkin for his fatherly presence, to Nina Collins for her wisdom and advice, to Laurie Girion for her big-sisterly ways, to Chinita Hard for her constancy and care, to Susan Epstein for showing me how to proceed again and again, to Lucinda Rosenfeld for her encouragement and commiseration, and to Joshua Wolf Shenk for inspiring me by his own example. I am also grateful to Mickey and Raye Israel for their support and affection.
I have no doubt that this story could have been told many different ways, and I’m honored that so many relatives entrusted me with their recollections so that I might offer this version. Thank you for welcoming me into your homes and for treating me as if I had always been one of the family. I am particularly grateful to my aunt Shirley Broyard Williams for her willingness to revisit a painful subject in exhaustive detail; to my brother, Todd Broyard, for remembering what I’d forgotten; and to my mother, Sandy Broyard, for demonstrating her love and faith countless times over. Finally, thanks to Nico Israel for his patience, for the precision of his insights, and especially for making with me a beautiful life to enjoy when I was finished: our daughter, Esme.