I must also thank my friend （and vet!） Dr. Alice Anne Dodge, DVM, for letting me spend a day observing behind-the-scenes life in her clinic. My friends Vicky and Tony Estrera kindly let me borrow their last name. Artist Gayle Kabaker let me interview her about portraiture and life as a working painter, and I also found much inspiration in the work of Sargy Mann, an artist who kept painting even after entirely losing his sight. The work of face-blind artist Chuck Close was also fascinating to learn about, and I owe much to the BBC article “Prosopagnosia: The Artist in Search of Her Face.”
Science is not exactly my area of expertise. Huge thanks to Lauren Billings （half of the Christina Lauren writing duo）， who saw a post about my researching science-y stuff for this story and DM’ed me to say: “You know I have a Ph.D. in neurobiology, right?” Thanks also to Paula Angus and Elise Bateman for sharing resources about neurology and memory. I also learned much about the brain from neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight. Deep gratitude to Dr. Erin Furr Stimming, professor of neurology at UT Health Houston McGovern Medical School, for letting me interview her—and also referring me to Dr. Mark Dannenbaum of the Department of Neurosurgery of McGovern Medical School so I could ask some very unscientific questions （like “Is it kind of like ice fishing?”） about brain surgery. Both were so generous with their time and so delightful to talk to.
My most extensive research, of course, was on prosopagnosia. I knew very little about the condition when I started, and I had a lot to learn. For that, I owe much to neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’s writings about prosopagnosia, a condition that he himself had. I also listened to every episode of Jeff Waters’s podcast FaceBlind—some many times—and found it profoundly helpful.
I could not be more thankful to two people I reached out to cold after hearing them interviewed together on a podcast about face blindness. Dr. Joe DeGutis, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who also co-runs the Boston Attention and Learning Lab, made time to talk with me and patiently answered many questions. The charming and delightful science writer Sadie Dingfelder, who met Joe while learning about her own prosopagnosia in his lab, also talked with me at length about face blindness. Sadie’s Washington Post article “My Life with Face Blindness” was a massively helpful resource, and I’m so happy that when I described my idea for the plot of this book to her and asked, “Could that happen?” she replied with so much enthusiasm, “That could totally happen!” I’m also beyond grateful to her for taking time to read an early draft of this book.
No discussion of prosopagnosia would be complete without mentioning the very helpful website FaceBlind.org, run jointly by Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of London—where you can learn much more, and even participate in online research studies.
So many adoring thanks to the good people of St. Martin’s Press—in particular, my brilliant editor, Jen Enderlin; cover designer Olga Grlic; unstoppable publicist Katie Bassel; genius marketers Brant Janeway, Erica Martirano, and Kejana Ayala; and the lovely Christina Lopez. Huge thanks also to my fantastic agent, Helen Breitwieser of Cornerstone Literary, who has stuck with me from the very start.
Many hugs to my family. My astonishingly enthusiastic and supportive husband, Gordon, and my endlessly helpful and encouraging mom, Deborah Detering, are always tied for Most Helpful Superstars when it comes to getting my books written and out there. Thanks to my fun kids, Anna and Thomas, for just being such delightful humans. Much gratitude to my two sisters, Shelley Stein and Lizzie Fletcher, for their support, and to my dad, Bill Pannill, for memorizing “The Walrus and the Carpenter” with me when I was a kid.
And last—but never least: Thank you.
If you’re reading this, thank you! This is my tenth novel, and I’m willing to bet there’s no writer on earth more grateful than me for every tiny butterfly-wing flap of help, word spreading, and recommendation that readers—and bookstores and other writers—do. My career has been the definition of a long, slow burn and there’s nothing about it that I take for granted.
Writers can only write stories if there are people out there who want to read them—and I’m so grateful to you for being one of those people. And for helping find more of them. And for allowing me to spend my life obsessing over stories and practicing their soul-nourishing, page-turning, life-changing magic.