Acknowledgments

There are so many people who helped me bring this book into the world. First and foremost, I would like to thank my agent, Carrie Howland, who believed that this book was possible and pushed me to write the proposal for it. I would like to thank my editor Kathy Pories, Betsy Gleick, Elisabeth Scharlatt, Michael McKenzie, and the many others at Algonquin who have so enthusiastically supported the creation of this work.

I would not have been able to complete this manuscript without the support of many generous and unexpected grants. The National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University all provided me with the material support necessary to complete this novel. I am forever grateful and humbled to be the recipient of these fellowships. In particular, I must thank Meredith Moss Quinn at Radcliffe and Tracy K. Smith at Princeton for your support and belief in my work. Tracy also graciously connected me with a homeopath, Wanda Smith-Schick, who shared invaluable information with me.

While working on this book, I have had the good fortune of meeting so many artists and writers who inspired me, who had conversations with me, who shared with me how they saw the world and helped expand my understanding. I also had the good fortune of continuing my conversations with so many friends. This made writing less lonely and made me a better thinker. Thank you to Ja’Tovia Gary, Min Jin Lee, Lauren Groff, Mira Jacob, Bill Cheng, Tennessee Jones, Alexander Chee, Simone Leigh, Madeline Hunt-Ehrlich, Lana Wilson, Naomi Jackson, Nicholas Boggs, TanaÏs, Naima Coster, Kerry Carnahan, Evie Shockley, Andra Miller, André M. Carrington, Kinitra Brooks, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Cara Blue Adams, Mike Scalise, Margaret Garrett, Rebecca Sills, Ilana Zimmerman, Phillip Williams, Tanisha C. Ford, Molly Brown, Jessica Grose, Sheila Pundit, and Deb Reck.

I was very nervous to write about Haiti—a country I admired but that I am not from. I was scared of writing something untrue, and so I had to read and talk with as many people as I could to try not to do so. Thank you to the historians Brandon R Byrd, Kate Ramsey, Wynnie Lamour, Kendra Field and Malick Ghachem, who answered my questions and shared so many resources.

In particular, thank you to the historian Orly Clerge, who answered my questions about visiting Haiti and provided so many resources. Thank you to Edwidge Danticat and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, who did the same. Thank you to Patrick Sylvain, who provided expert Kreyol translations.

Thank you to Rob Field and the staff at Weeksville Heritage Center, who provided me with access to the oral history recording that inspired this novel. My time working at that historic site changed my life and I am forever grateful to those who work so hard to preserve that legacy.

Thank you to Nicole Davis.