Iron Lace [antikvár]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS'This book never would have been completed vdthout the help of some/special people. My thanks to the staffs of the New Orleans PublicIlibrary, T\ilane University Library, the University of New Orieans Libraryiand the Cuyahoga County Library in Bay Village, Ohio. Also thanks goj to the staff of the New Orleans Collection, who enjoy researching eventhe most esoteric questions about their beautiful city.fMany thanks to two New Orleanians, the reverends Melanie Morel[Sullivan and Albert D'Orlando, who over a period of years have shared|with me their riveting personal stories about race relations and the civil rights movement in Louisiana.i.if1 read so many wonderful books on New Orieans and South LouisianaIfthat it's difficult to choose only a few to acknowledge here. The worksj.of Lafcadio Hearn, Harnett Kane and Kate Chopin ftieled mypimagination. Works about the hurricane of 1893 by Dale Rogers andLoulan Pitre helped me ground my imagination in history, as didStoryvilk by Al Rose and Satchmo by Louis Armstrong. RighteousLives by Kim Rogers gave me a greater understanding of those pivotaljyears when courteous African-Americans refused to sit at the back ofthe bus for even one more dayThanks to my agent Maureen Moran, who believed in this book from the beginning. Thanks to Damaris Rowland and Amy Moore, whose enthusiasm helped renew my own at different points on this journey Thanks to my editor Leslie Wainger and MIRA's Dianne Moggy for their hard work and skillful guidance.Personal thanks go to Karen Stone and Erica Spindler for their encouragement when this book was just a flicker in my imagination. And to Alison Hart, Jasmine Cresswell and Jan Powell who helped keep me on track as I struggled to bring that flicker to life. Many thanks to Karen Harper for her enthusiasm and support.Most of aU, thanks to my children, Shane, Jessie, Galen and Brendan, who did without mothering every now and then during the writing of this book. And most particularly to my husband, Michael, whose enthusiasm for New Orleans rivals my own, and whose enthusiasm for me never flags, even through the most difficult of times.