What sorts of tinkering, you might ask? Well, there was an actual Hotsy Totsy Club run by the famous gangster Legs Diamond. It was located near the Theater District of New York City, not Harlem. But that name proved too irresistible to give up, and so I chose to keep it. There is no secret African graveyard in Upper Manhattan, or else it’s so secret even I don’t know about it; no Museum of the Creepy Crawlies; and no Bennington apartment building occupied by strange, old cat ladies and illuminated by dodgy lighting, except for the one that exists in the imagination.
But much of what you read is straight from the history books, with some of the most disturbing set pieces based on fact: The eugenics movement was quite real, as were those chilling light-up boards at state fairs. Ditto the Fitter Families for Future Firesides, the KKK, the Chinese Exclusion Act (and the Immigration Act of 1924), and the Pillar of Fire Church. Often, the monsters we create in our imagination are not nearly as frightening as the monstrous acts perpetrated by ordinary human beings in the aim of one cause or another.
I’ve tried to remain as faithful as I can to the time period and actual history while crafting a story that includes mystery, magic, monsters, and the unexplained—or as we call that around my house, just another Tuesday.
There are some dynamite resources out there if you’re interested in further research about the time period. A full bibliography can be found on the Diviners website: TheDivinersSeries.com. Happy creepy reading.
Acknowledgements
Many people were instrumental in getting The Diviners from the initial chaotic impulse of “I’ve got this crazy idea…” to the finished book, and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge their invaluable contributions here. Huge thanks are due to the whole gang at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Megan Tingley, Andrew Smith, Victoria Stapleton, Zoe Luderitz, Eileen Lawrence, Melanie Chang, Lisa Moraleda, Jessica Bromberg, Faye Bi, Stephanie O’Cain, Renée Gelman, Shawn Foster, Adrian Palacios, and Gail Doobinin.
My editor, the amazing Alvina Ling, works even harder than James Brown (especially now that he’s dead), and she guided this manuscript with a sure hand, brilliant insight, and an occasional karaoke interlude. Ditto to editorial assistant Bethany Strout, who has a terrific eye for detail and who sings a mean version of “Baby Got Back.”
My agent, Barry Goldblatt, is, as always, a total mensch, and I’d say that even if we weren’t married. But, lucky me, we are.
Copy editor JoAnna Kremer is most likely some sort of government agent created in a lab for the purpose of keeping manuscripts free from egregious mistakes. No doubt fact checker Elizabeth Segal came from the same lab. My eternal thanks, ladies.
I could have done none of this without the derring-do of my incredible assistant, the aptly named Tricia Ready, who helped with everything from research to scheduling, manuscript reading to Dr Pepper wrangling.
I am always gobsmacked by the generosity of experts who are willing to help hapless writers with research. To that end, I must thank the incomparable Lisa Gold, research goddess. I want to be selfish and keep her to myself, but she’s too awesome for that: www.lisagold.com.
New York City has many wonderful libraries and librarians; quite a few of those librarians came to my aid like superheroes, minus the ostentatious capes. Many thanks and a life-size Ryan Gosling cutout to librarian pals Karyn Silverman, Elisabeth Irwin High School, and Jennifer Hubert Swan, Little Red School House. More thanks and a fruit basket to Eric Robinson at the New-York Historical Society; Richard Wiegel and Mark Ekman at the Paley Center for Media; Virgil Talaid at the New York Transit Museum; Carey Stumm and Brett Dion at the New York Transit Museum Archives; and the staffs of the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Brooklyn Public Library.
Historians Tony Robins and Joyce Gold took me on walking “history lesson” tours of Harlem and Chinatown/the Lower East Side, respectively; I can’t thank them enough for their time. Dr. Stephen Robertson, University of Sydney, author of Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars and the blog Digital Harlem, was kind enough to answer my questions about numbers-running following his lecture at Columbia University. And musician Bill Zeffiro was a font of 1920s musical knowledge.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my Beta readers, Holly Black, Barry Lyga, Robin Wasserman, Nova Ren Suma, and Tricia Ready, for their invaluable insights on early drafts. Much love and thanks to my writing pals who kept me company on parts of this journey, listened to my whining, answered questions, and let me spin out various plot scenarios without once swallowing a cyanide caplet: Holly Black, Coe Booth, Cassandra Clare, Gayle Forman, Maureen Johnson, Jo Knowles, Kara LaReau, Emily Lockhart, Josh Lewis, Barry Lyga, Dan Poblocki, Sara Ryan, Nova Ren Suma, and Robin Wasserman.
Thanks as always to my son, Josh, for his good-natured patience and gentle eye-rolling: “She gets like that on deadline.” You’re a good egg, kid.
Last but not least, a shout-out to the wonderful baristas at Red Horse Café in Brooklyn—Chris, Derrick, Bianca, Aaron, Jen, Julia, Seth, Brent, Carolina—who kept me supplied with enough coffee for it to qualify as a misdemeanor.
If there’s anyone I’ve missed, please accept my sincerest apologies. Next time you see me, scowl ferociously until I buy you an ice-cream sundae in restitution.