Natural Born Heroes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I couldn’t choose between two different book ideas—one about Natural Movement, the other about a crazy wartime adventure on Crete—when conversations with my daughters about Rick Riordan’s magnificent Percy Jackson series suddenly made me realize the two concepts were the same thing: the art of the hero is the art of natural movement. So thank you, Sophie and Maya; without you, this book would have been weaker at least by half. While I was beginning research, I made one lucky decision: after I repeatedly wrote to Patrick Leigh Fermor and never heard back, I was going to show up at his door and barge in for an interview. Instead, I first visited his lifelong friends, the husband and wife historians Artemis Cooper and Antony Beevor. Paddy was dying of cancer, so disturbing him would have been an awful mistake, but Artemis and Antony were warm and welcoming and astonishingly generous with their personal insights and unrivaled expertise (not to mention wine and pasta). I’m not the only one who feels that way; every Paddy enthusiast I’ve ever met has been overwhelmed by their graciousness. Chief among my Paddy guides, of course, are Chris and Pete White; I still don’t know why the wonderful White Brothers allowed me to bumble along in their footsteps, but man, am I glad they did. Alun Davies and Christopher Paul were kind enough not only to share their stories about Paddy but treat me to drinks in Paddy’s favorite club in London and show me, in its place of pride over the fireplace, Paddy’s hand-drawn map of his Great Walk, complete with his signature flying-birds doodle. Alun was even kinder not to complain when I stuck him with the dinner bill because I’d forgotten to change money; four years later, I’m still cringing. Anything that’s amiss in this book is probably something my editor, Edward Kastenmeier, tried mightily to get me to change. Why someone as patient as Edward is saddled with someone as stubborn as me is a mystery I’m sure he’s pondered often. Luckily, he’s assisted by fellow editor Emily Giglierano, whose deft touch brightened many passages. Normally I try to avoid any outside voices when I’m putting work together, which is why I’m so grateful for the dead-on comments from the one person I gave an advance look: Deb Newmyer, my friend and the head of Outlaw Productions. If this book becomes the next Guns of Navarone, we’ll be thanking Deb. Last time around, I was busy ruining an early draft of Born to Run when Maria Panaritis sped to my home and helped get me back on course by stuffing me with those two Greek cure-alls: food and confidence. It worked. What a hero.