Lawford actually delivered the news to Sinatra that President Kennedy wouldn’t be staying with him by phone. His thoughts in this novel are taken from his interview with Kitty Kelley for His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra. The party at Bing’s house was taken from Kelley’s book, as well as Bill Adler’s Sinatra: The Man and the Myth (New York: New American Library, 1987) and Donald Spoto’s Marilyn Monroe: The Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).

Disneyland was described in “Your First Visit to Disneyland,” Long Beach Independent-Press-Telegram, July 15, 1955. A great map of the park in that era can be found at https://disneyavenue.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/disneyland-map-evolution-1955-2015/. Christopher Klein wrote about “Disneyland’s Disastrous Opening Day” at https://www.history.com/news/disneylands-disastrous-opening-day-60-years-ago. Other thoughts are from Kathy Merlock Jackson and Mark West, Disneyland and Culture: Essays on Parks and Their Influence. London: McFarland Books, 2011.

Details about Le Havre during World War II came from Andrew Knapp, “The Destruction and Liberation of Le Havre in Modern Memory,” War in History 14 (November 2007).

Details about the Hollywood sign came from https://hollywoodsign.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Hollywood-Sign-Brochure-FINAL_102918.pdf; Rob Owen, “Hooray for the Hollywood Sign Hike,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 2016; “Groups Rally to Preserve Historic ‘Hollywood’ Sign,” Van Nuys News, January 18, 1973.

“The Ugly, Violent Clearing of Chavez Ravine Before It Was Home to the Dodgers” can be read at https://laist.com/2018/10/17/dodger_stadium_chavez_ravine_battle.php.

The sad story of Marilyn Monroe is detailed by James Spada, “The Man Who Kept Marilyn’s Secrets,” Vanity Fair, May 1991, and James Patterson, The House of Kennedy. New York: Little, Brown, 2020. Lawford’s introduction of Monroe at the JFK birthday taken verbatim from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHt1_HXN8LI. Additional details about the Kennedy birthday party were gleaned from press accounts at the time in May 1962, including “Good Time Had by All at Million Dollar Party,” by Milt Freudenheim, Chicago Daily News Service; and “Kennedy Bridges a Gap,” by Mary McGrory, Washington Star.

But again, let me underline, this is a work of fiction. My editors are insisting that I tell you I completely invented the song “The Devil May Dance,” because they’re worried some of the eager Googlers among you might drive yourselves to the brink trying to find it. Don’t look for it; it’s not real. Neither is the “Cubana” song from the scene on Tom Sawyer’s Island, nor the snippet of the Sinatra song Lawford and Charlie hear on their way to Sinatra’s compound.