The Book of Lost Names(109)

These are just a few of the real-world elements that came together to inspire The Book of Lost Names. If you’re interested in learning more about France in the first half of the 1940s, I’d heartily recommend the aforementioned Kaminsky and Grose books. Caroline Moorehead has also written a fascinating book about Le Chambon-sur-Lignon called Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France. I relied on some of my old favorites—including Jews in France During World War II (Renée Poznanski), Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France (Agnès Humbert), and The Journal of Hélène Berr to round out some of my research, too. And, of course, I lived for a time in Paris and have traveled back to France countless times for research. The town of Aurignon is fictional, but it’s based on several similar towns in the area south of Vichy.

I hope you’ve discovered something new in The Book of Lost Names—and that you’re reminded that you don’t need money or weapons or a big platform to change the world. Sometimes, something as simple as a pen and a bit of imagination can alter the course of history.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey—and for being a person who finds something special in books. As Eva says in The Book of Lost Names, those “who realize that books are magic… will have the brightest lives.” I wish you the very brightest days ahead.





Acknowledgments



Oh my goodness, what a whirlwind of a year! All I do is write the words—my incredible agent, Holly Root; my magnificent editor, Abby Zidle; my amazing publicists Michelle Podberezniak (Gallery) and Kristin Dwyer (Leo PR); and my literary miracle worker Kathie Bennett (and her husband, Roy Bennett) are the ones who do the real magic. I’m forever indebted to all of you for your friendship and your hard work on my behalf. It’s a joy to be surrounded by people whom I genuinely adore so enormously. Though I don’t say it often enough, please know how much I appreciate all of you. I’m truly very lucky.

To my foreign rights agent, Heather Baror-Shapiro: You are such an absolute treat to work with, and I’m so grateful to you for all you have done. Thanks, especially, for your continued guidance this year—and the great new home at Welbeck. Dana Spector, you continue to be an astonishing rock star of film rights. I’m also very glad to work with marketing specialist Danielle Noe, who is as lovely as she is talented. And to Scott Moore and Andy Cohen: We are going to make a movie together one of these days—I know it! Thanks, too, to Susan McBeth and Robin Hoklotubbe, two women who run amazing events that bring authors and readers together.

To Jen Bergstrom: I couldn’t be prouder to be a Gallery Books author. It has been such an honor to be part of the Gallery family since 2012, and I am forever grateful for the way you’ve helped me grow as an author during that time. You run a wonderful ship, and I’m just happy to be aboard. Thank you so much for all your support and kindness. Thank you, also, to the rest of my Gallery team, including Jen Long, Sara Quaranta, Molly Gregory, Sally Marvin, Anabel Jimenez, Eliza Hanson, Lisa Litwack, Chelsea McGuckin, Nancy Tonik, Sara Waber, Ali Lacavaro, Wendy Sheanin and the rest of the incredible Simon & Schuster sales team, and, of course, Carolyn Reidy. And thanks as well to my awesome team at S&S Canada, including Catherine Whiteside, Greg Tilney, Felicia Quon, Shara Alexa, Kevin Hanson, and Nita Pronovost.

A special thank-you to a handful of people who helped out with the research for this book, including researcher and author Renée Poznanski, French translator Vincent, Polish translator Agrazneld, Russian translator Michael, German translator Jens, and of course my dear old friend Marcin Pachcinski, who swept in with Polish terms of endearment exactly when I needed them.

I mention in the dedication that this book is partially in honor of booksellers and librarians everywhere. I can’t say enough about how much I’ve been impacted by the magic of bookstores and libraries. Books can change lives, but it is the people who love them, who dedicate their lives to them, who make the real difference. If books can’t find their way to the readers who need them, who will be touched by them, who will be transformed by them, they lose their power. So thank you from the bottom of my heart to anyone who works in a bookstore or a library—and especially to those of you who have been courageous and adventurous enough to become bookstore owners, which must be as perilous at times as it is rewarding. Books are more than just words on a page; they are bridges to building communities and to developing more compassionate, more aware citizens. Those of you who love books enough to want to share them are truly changing the world.

I’d also like to acknowledge five very special writers: Linda Gerber, Alyson No?l, Allison van Diepen, Emily Wing Smith, and, especially, Wendy Toliver, the writer who brought all six of us together several years ago for the first of what would become an annual writing retreat. We write together only once a year, but that week always means a great deal to me, as does the friendship we’ve built over the years. I consider the five of you some of my closest friends. Being around you makes me a better writer and a better person. And to Jay Asher: Though you haven’t been to the retreat in a few years, you’re one of us, too! I can’t wait to read the next books from all my Swan Valley friends!

The best writers also tend to be supportive of other writers, and I’m glad to be part of a community of women and men who work to build each other up. A special thank-you to “Mary Alice and the Kristies”—fellow authors Mary Alice Monroe, Kristina McMorris, and Kristy Woodson Harvey—just for being awesome human beings and the best fake bandmates and steam room sisters I could ask for.