At Putnam, I’d also like to thank Ashley Di Dio, Bill Peabody, Janice Barral, Katy Riegel, Monica Cordova, Madeline Hopkins, Katie McKee, Nicole Biton, Brennin Cummings, Cassie Sublette, and formerly of Putnam, Helen O’Hare. It still amazes me that so many incredibly talented people have devoted their time, labor, and expertise to my story. Thank you for making such a beautiful book.

It is possible for me to draw a line from every book I have ever read to this one. Maybe this is less true in later books, but this is my first, and everything is in here. However, I owe a particular debt to Christ in Concrete by Pietro di Donato, to Kevin Baker’s gorgeous New York fiction, to The Godfather by Mario Puzo, and of course, to The Sopranos—which is not a book, but whose richly realized characters helped me understand the importance of getting violence and love to coexist on the page. The paper “Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons” by Arcangelo Dimico, Alessia Isopi, and Ola Olsson provided direct inspiration for an important scene. Antonia would not have had the same translation of Metamorphoses as I do, but I am attached to my copy, translated by Charles Martin.

My remarkable network of family and friends served as emotional ballast, home base, personal chef, first reader. This wouldn’t exist without any of you:

Mom, you are my North Star. I am of and because of you.

Dad, thank you for teaching me to read, and to ROAR.

My brother, Adam, follows his heart; he always has; he gives me courage to do the same.

Nancy Veerhusen, Jana McAninch, Emma McAninch, and Violet Wernham expanded my understanding of family, and I am more loving, more empathetic, and smarter because of it; this book is better because of it.

I am immensely grateful to the Galison-Jones-Freymann clan. Mia and Sax, thank you for housing me the first fall I worked on this book in earnest. Thank you, along with Marion and Gerry, for sharing your family and its stories with me, and for telling me which is the best bagel place in New York. Carrie and Peter, thank you for letting me write in your Wellfleet house, which has solved every case of writer’s block I’ve ever brought to it. Thank you all for giving this California girl an East Coast home.