For all the women in my family, for all the lives they’ve lived
Acknowledgments
My agent, Sarah Burnes, advocates for me fearlessly and understands my writing implicitly. My editor, Sara Weiss, helped me navigate the complicated and very unnerving second-book blues without blinking. They are my partners in getting this story out of my head and onto the page.
My dear friend Jesse Thorn loves old things and Antiques Roadshow, so I explained to him that I was writing a story about an old thing, but I hadn’t decided what old thing it should be. I told him what kind of a thing I wanted, and he was the one who said the critical words: “Duck decoys.” It’s fair to say there is no book without that conversation—or at the very least, there is not this book. （He suggested carved eagles as well, and that also sounds like a good book.）
My friend Erik Adams developed the full plot of Halls of Power with me onstage at an event for Evvie Drake Starts Over in 2019.
My sister Susan is my role model in general, but is also a beautiful soul who, like me, has had a life with multiple chapters. I’m so glad we have each other.
One of the best things about publishing a second book is getting to thank the people you didn’t get to thank, or didn’t know to thank, when you wrote the first book. So I’m delighted that I can now have a moment to thank the spectacular Emily Isayeff, who is everything a publicist and facilitator and booster and friend should be. It’s because of Emily that I understand why people thank publicists in acceptance speeches.
I have been so fortunate to work with so many good people at Ballantine: Kara Welsh, Jennifer Hershey, Kim Hovey, Debbie Aroff, Sophie Vershbow, and everyone who copyedits and produces and sells books. I could not have asked for better, I really couldn’t. And to those who have published or will publish anything I have written in countries around the world, and particularly those who translate and often go unacknowledged: I am in your debt.
I would not have made it through the worst of the pandemic and the writing of this story without some of the friends I got to know better during that time, including Molly Backes （and Alfie） and Kat Kinsman. And for everything I read and watched and listened to and loved, especially in the early going: Get Your Pets! Staying in with Emily and Kumail! The Big Lasagna!
To everybody at NPR who helped keep me talking, especially my podcast team: thank you.
In a lot of ways, this is a book about all the ways that people lift you up and take care of you. To my dear pals—Alan, Glen, Alex, Mike, Marc, Margaret, Gene, Barrie, Audie, Julia, on and on—you just can’t know how much I appreciate everything. And to Stephen and Katie, for my home away from home even when I couldn’t physically be in it: love to you both.
And I am so thankful for my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my nephews…I am happy to know we will appear in each other’s pictures always.