Acknowledgments

I will forever be indebted to Elisabeth Weed and Laura Dave for insisting that I write this book; for, essentially, forcing me to. We were nine months into the pandemic. Like everyone, I was listless and depleted. I hadn’t written a word since early lockdown. I was out taking one of my endless quarantine walks, with Laura in my ear, pitching her ideas that I didn’t really have my heart in, but knowing that something was better than nothing. When I stumbled onto the seed of the idea that would eventually be The Rewind, she said, “Stop right there, that’s the one. But don’t pitch it unless you mean it because it’s going to be hard to write, and someone’s going to make you to write it.” Alas, friends, I pitched it. And Elisabeth, my agent and dear friend of nearly fifteen years, made me write it. When I didn’t want to. When indeed, it was very, very hard. When I didn’t think I could break the story or make it make sense, and when I endlessly complained that I couldn’t do it. (Which was often. Elisabeth, I’m sorry.) She and Laura kept me going, page after page, chapter after chapter, and without them, this book would be nothing more than a spark of an idea that I made up on a long walk up my neighborhood hill because I was desperate to get out of the house during lockdown. How lucky am I to have such women in my corner? Too lucky to quantify.

My editor, Kerry Donovan, has been a dream partner from our very first phone call (also on a lockdown walk!). In fact, the entire team at Berkley has been exceptional beyond measure: supportive, enthusiastic, professional, just a total delight. I am so beyond fortunate to have found a new home in publishing this far along in my career and to have had them cheerlead and champion me from the minute the manuscript crossed their desks. Craig Burke, Christine Ball, Claire Zion, Danielle Keir, Dache’ Rogers, Jessica Mangicaro, Catherine Barra, Christine Legon, Megan Elmore, Lila Selle, Mary Baker, and plenty more. I am indebted to you all.

Berni Barta and Michelle Weiner at CAA have been behind Frankie and Ezra from the first pitch. I could not be more grateful to Bryan Unkeless and Alyssa Rodrigues at Clubhouse Pictures, as well as the entire Netflix team, including Nirokhi Raychaudhuri, for being so passionate about their vision of the film adaptation from the early days. Jenny Meyer stormed the foreign markets. Dana Murphy, Brettne Bloom, DJ Kim, Andrea Peskind Katz, Rochelle Weinstein, Ashley Spivey, Hitha Palepu, Elyssa Friedland, Michelle Gable, Julie Clark—thank you for your counsel and advice and friendship.

I’d be remiss not to give special and heartfelt thank-yous to everyone who got us through these past few pandemic years—the doctors, nurses, teachers, emergency personnel, essential workers, scientists, and everyday people who looked out for one another, who tried to do their best, who held the line and rolled up their sleeves and loved their neighbors. None of this was easy. It was hard to be a parent and a daughter and a grown-up and a writer and a human. If it was hard for you too, come sit at my table; I’m holding a seat for you.