Pineapple Street(85)

Season’s wishes from the fruit streets,

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Edward Colt Stockton



Curtis snickered to himself. Now that he and Georgiana were officially dating, he’d been spending quite a bit of time with the Stocktons, and the camelback sofa had been discussed at many a brunch on Orange Street. Curtis flipped the card over, where Georgiana had scribbled him a personal note.

    Hey babe, Don’t think you’re getting out of the goodbye dinner, Mom has already ordered you a helmet. Xx





Acknowledgments


I wrote half this novel in my apartment on Pineapple Street at five in the morning while the neighborhood slept, or perched on the closed toilet lid as my kids played for hours in the bath, the cleanest little prunes in Brooklyn Heights. I wrote the other half at the dining room table of my in-laws’ house in Connecticut as my husband conducted Zoom school and learned kindergarten math all over again. I’m grateful to my family: Carol Williams and Ken Jackson, Dan Jackson, Roger and Fa Liddell, for taking us in, feeding us salty oat cookies, hunting hermit crabs, and reading bedtime stories.

This novel was partially inspired by Zo? Beery’s fantastic article in The New York Times, “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.” I also drew from Kate Cooper’s reviews of Melania the Younger and Melania in The Times Literary Supplement, Emilia Petrarca’s hilarious “Before We Make Out, Wanna Dismantle Capitalism?” in The Cut, and Abigail Disney’s “I Was Taught From a Young Age to Protect My Dynastic Wealth” in The Atlantic. Thanks to my early readers: Todd Doughty, a true pineapple; Lexy Bloom; Lauren Fox; Sierra Smith; and Ansell Fahrenheit. Thank you to Alli Mooney. To my Knopf family, Maris Dyer, Tiara Sharma, Jordan Pavlin, Reagan Arthur, Maya Mavjee, and Dan Novak, who would be played by Daniel Craig in the movie adaptation, I’m lucky to have you.

It has been a joy to work with Pamela Dorman, Venetia Butterfield, and Nicole Winstanley, who edited this book with care and humor and have shown me incredible friendship. Thank you to the team at Pamela Dorman Books and Viking: Marie Michels, Jeramie Orton, Lindsay Prevette, Kate Stark, Mary Stone, Kristina Fazzalaro, Rebecca Marsh, Irene Yoo, Jane Cavolina, Brian Tart, and Andrea Schulz. Thank you to Madeline McIntosh. I’m grateful to Tom Weldon, Claire Bush, Laura Brooke, Laura O’Connell, Ailah Ahmed, and the group at Hutchinson Heinemann. Thank you, Kristin Cochrane, Bonnie Maitland, Dan French, Emma Ingram, Meredith Pal, and the entire team at Penguin Canada. I’m grateful to Inés Vergara, Hedda Sanders, Alix Leveugle, Quezia Cleto, Cristina Marino, and Anna Falavena. Thank you, Jenny Meyer, Heidi Gall, Brooke Erlich, Erik Feig, and Emily Wissink. Thank you to DJ Kim, and the entire genius force at The Book Group. Brettne Bloom is an astonishment, and her friendship over twenty years is a gift that only grows.

Finally, thank you to Wavy and Sawyer, and to Torrey Liddell, for keeping a shoebox full of fresh batteries, for magically getting the printer to connect, for making life so much fun, and for letting me steal all his jokes.





About the Author

Jenny Jackson is a vice president and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. A graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course, she lives in Brooklyn Heights with her family. Pineapple Street is her first novel.