ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’D LIKE TO THANK THE people of Maui for sharing their mana‘o with me, and making space for the strange woman with thick black glasses, who wore long-sleeved shirts (with collars) on the hottest days of summer. I don’t know what I was thinking either. Thanks for your patience with my ignorance. Mark Edward Minie offered a different kind of guidance, in scientific form, and pointed me in the direction of relevant articles (at least I knew where I was taking fictional liberties).

I feel extremely fortunate that my literary agent, Jill Marr, saw this piece when it was a short story and thought it would make a great novel—at the time I don’t know if I would have agreed, and yet now, here it is. Thanks, Jill. A huge thanks also to Kevin Cleary and John Beach for their unquenchable optimism and hard work on my behalf in the City of Angels.

I’m immensely grateful to Ed Schlesinger and the team at Gallery Books for helping me sort through the complicated strands to make the novel stronger (and presentable). Ed’s insight in particular always surfaces things I might have missed, adding dimensions that make the work richer.

Writing takes a lot of time, and this book would not have been possible without the support of my husband, who gives me the space to work, and believes in me more than I do. Often he holds the candle of my dream when I can’t. I also find inspiration in my son, who is well on his way to becoming a young man of substance. His journey gives me hope for the future.