Several real people make appearances in this novel: Anna Akhmatova arrived in my life, clicking various pieces of this story together, with the kind of fortuitous timing that makes you believe in fate. Poems of Akhmatova, selected and translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, gives a wonderful introduction to her work and life story. I was honored to name a character—one who bravely speaks out about injustice—after Sonia Lee Chun, as thanks for her family’s generous support of Immigrant Families Together. Margaret thinks of the legacy of Latasha Harlins and Akai Gurley; may we remember your names and your lives. Last but not least, after finishing the novel, I discovered that there is a Facebook group using the hashtag #ourmissinghearts, dedicated to raising awareness about missing persons. I’m grateful for the work they do in trying to bring peace to families hoping for answers.
Finally, it was all too easy to imagine PACT, the justifications for it, and the impacts it might have on society: there are far too many instances of free expression being stifled—and discrimination rationalized—under the guise of “protection” and “security.” Over the course of writing this novel, the news provided a slew of contemporary examples in both the U.S. and abroad, and in the time between my typing this note and your reading it, there will doubtless be more. It is hard to analyze your own era, but looking to history provided some helpful perspective. Writings on McCarthyism, including Naming Names, by Victor S. Navasky, and The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, by Ellen Schrecker and Phillip Deery, provided a chilling glimpse into how all-pervasive fear can become; Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime, by Geoffrey R. Stone, cataloged dozens of historical examples with eerie resonances to our current times; and books such as Ronald C. Rosbottom’s When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940–1944 helped me consider the blurry overlaps between resisting, tolerating, and colluding. More generally, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny was a powerful reminder about how quickly authoritarianism can rise （as well as what can be done about it）， and Václav Havel’s classic 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless” changed my thinking about the impact a single individual could have in dismantling a long-established system. I hope he’s right.
Acknowledgments
No one does anything alone, and I owe more thanks than I can say to the many, many people who have helped along the way.
I’m still not sure what I did to deserve my agent, Julie Barer, but I sure am grateful. My undying gratitude to you, Nicole Cunningham Nolan, and everyone at The Book Group. Full stop.
Thank you, as always, to my editor, Virginia Smith Younce, for your unflappable calm and unerring guidance （and for providing ice cream exactly when I most needed it） and to Caroline Sydney for keeping everything running smoothly. Once again, Juliana Kiyan, Matthew Boyd, Danielle Plafsky, Sarah Hutson, Ann Godoff, Scott Moyers, and the whole team at Penguin Press have shepherded this book into the world with such thoughtfulness and love; I can’t imagine better hands for my work to be in. Jane Cavolina, my copy editor, continues to have the patience of a saint and the eyes of a hawk.
In the UK, huge thanks to Caspian Dennis and Clare Smith for their ongoing championing of my work, as well as to Grace Vincent, Celeste Ward-Best, Hayley Camis, Kimberley Nyamhondera, and everyone at Little, Brown UK; and to Nicole Winstanley and Deborah Sun de la Cruz at Penguin Random House Canada. Thank you to Jenny Meyer and Heidi Gall for helping my books find such good homes abroad, and to all my overseas editors and translators for sharing my words with readers.
Thank you to Ayelet Amittay, Tasneem Husain, Sonya Larson, Anthony Marra, Whitney Scharer, and Anne Stameshkin for your invaluable reads and feedback along the way, and to my writing group, steady guiding lights and unflagging supports. Conversations with Jenn Fang and Dolen Perkins-Valdez shaped my thinking and made this book immeasurably stronger （and Jenn, thank you for Marie’s family tree）。
Thank you to Jenni Ferrari-Adler, Marissa Perry Stuparyk, Ariel Djanikian, and Anne Stameshkin （again） for that weekend in the woods, the sofa by the fire, and almost two decades of thoughtful conversation; to Catherine Nichols for making my brain fizzy over ramen lunches and for graciously loaning me the name Bird; and to Jermaine Brown for his advice on the legality of child re-placements and the chilling comment “With a sympathetic judiciary, anything is possible.” Huge thanks to Peter Ho Davies for his wisdom and mentorship, and immense gratitude for sharing that story about his father—I hope this revision of it resonates.