I am grateful to the many people who helped in bringing Guests on Earth to publication. Mary Caldwell, medical ethicist and lifelong Asheville resident with early work experience at Highland Hospital, was invaluable in her careful reading and detailed advice; she also consulted with noted Asheville psychiatrist Dr. William Matthews. Linda Wagner-Martin, author of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, An American Woman’s Life, generously shared her research with me, including photocopies of Zelda Fitzgerald’s unpublished letters and writings in her own hand, archived material in the Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Opera singer Andrea Edith Moore gave me several crucial, critical readings of the novel and allowed me to trail around observing her in performance and in practice sessions with her accompanist, Deborah Hollis; both agreed to interviews. Frances and Ed Mayes offered their expertise in Italian. I am indebted to Shannon Ravenel, for her brilliant editing of this manuscript; to Jill McCorkle, for her helpful early reading; to Jim Duffy and Susan Raines, for their knowledge of New Orleans; to Diane Plauche, for naming the “Intermezzo” section; to Hillsborough piano teacher and accompanist Grace Jean Roberts, for musical advice and teaching techniques; to Barbara Bennett, for alerting me to the Samarcand Manor mattress-burning case; to Scott Hill of Durham, North Carolina, a piano student of Mrs. Carroll’s throughout her youth, for her reminiscences; to ballad singer Sheila Kay Adams, my friend, who kindly took me up to Madison County, North Carolina, many years ago when I was researching Appalachian mountain ballads for my novel The Devil’s Dream; to Mona Sinquefield, for her help with research and manuscript preparation though draft after draft; to Chris Stamey, for his careful copyediting; to my agent, Liz Darhansoff, for always “being there” in every way; and to my husband Hal Crowther, for weird facts, companionship, risotto, and encouragement during the long years of writing this book.
Much information is available through the University of North Carolina at Asheville’s D. Hiden Ramsey Library Special Collections/ University Archives as well as the Pack Memorial Library on Haywood Street, part of the Buncombe County Public Library system. Here I learned about early life in Asheville and the Highland Hospital’s history, and about the tragic 1948 fire.
Adonna Thompson at the Duke University Medical Center Archives in Durham, North Carolina, was especially helpful when I began this project, guiding me through their Highland Hospital Records 1934–1980. Though actual patient records are not available, letters, clippings, memorabilia, and the many various archived Highland Hospital publications over the years proved invaluable to me in gaining a sense of hospital life during the years covered in my novel, 1936 to 1948. Here I found catalogs, brochures, programs of events such as concerts, dances, and celebrations of all kinds, the Highland Highlights magazine, and the wonderful Highland Fling newspaper published by the patients.
“Evalina Toussaint,” a story excerpted from an early draft of this novel, was published in Smoky Mountain Living, vol. 10, no. 1, winter 2010.
I also have my own personal knowledge of the landscape of this novel. My father was a patient there in the fifties. And I am especially grateful to Highland Hospital for the helpful years my son, Josh, spent there in the 1980s, in both inpatient and outpatient situations. Though I had always loved Zelda Fitzgerald, it was then that I became fascinated by her art and her life within that institution, and the mystery of her tragic death. I always knew I would write this book.