the summer, and I had a book in my head. Then it just took me twenty-something years to write it.
When I started writing the book (I started with Chapter Four), only my daughter Maddy’s request to know what happened next kept me writing beyond the first couple of pages.
Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann were the first people to publish “The Witch’s Headstone.” Professor Georgia Grilli talked about what this book was without having read it, and listening to her talk helped throw the themes into focus.
Kendra Stout was there when I saw the first ghoul gate, and was kind enough to walk through several graveyards with me. She was the first audience for the first chapters, and her love for Silas was awesome.
Artist and author Audrey Niffenegger is also a graveyard guide, and she showed me around the ivy-covered marvel that is Highgate Cemetery West. A lot of what she told me crept into Chapters Six and Seven.
Many friends read this book as it was being written, and all of them offered wise suggestions—Dan Johnson, Gary K. Wolfe, John Crowley, Moby, Farah Mendlesohn, and Joe Sanders, among others. They spotted things I needed to fix. Still, I missed John M. Ford (1957–2006), who was my best critic of all.
Isabel Ford, Elise Howard, Sarah Odedina, and Clarissa Hutton were the book’s editors on both sides of the Atlantic. They made me look good. Michael Conroy directed the audio-book version with aplomb. Mr. McKean and Mr. Riddell both drew wonderfully, and differently. Merrilee Heifetz is the best agent in the world, and Dorie Simmonds made it happen excellently in the UK.
I wrote this book in many places: among other places, Jonathan and Jane’s Florida house, a cottage in Cornwall, a hotel room in New Orleans; and I failed to write in Tori’s house in Ireland because I had flu there instead. But she helped and inspired me, nonetheless.
And as I finish these thanks, the only thing I’m certain of is that I have forgotten not just one very important person but dozens of them. Sorry. But thank you all anyway.
