The Rosie Effect

Acknowledgements

The Rosie Project concluded with a long and probably incomplete list of acknowledgements, reflecting its five-year journey from concept to publication. I was learning to write at the same time, and many people helped me with general advice and encouragement as well as specific suggestions about the manuscript.

Thanks in good measure to the help I received from them, I approached The Rosie Effect with a clearer idea of what I was doing, and wrote the first draft with significant input from only two people. My wife, Anne Buist, to whom the book is dedicated, brought a writer’s understanding of story as well as her expertise as a professor of psychiatry to the table (usually it was a table with a bottle of wine open). She takes no responsibility for Gene’s views on attachment theory. My friend Rod, who, with his wife Lynette, was the inspiration for and dedicatee of The Rosie Project, was my other sounding board. Our conversations as we jogged beside Melbourne’s Yarra River inspired the soundproof crib, the Bluefin Tuna Incident and the Antenatal Uproar.

I was unusually fortunate in the editing process: in addition to Michael Heyward and Rebecca Starford at Text Publishing, several of my international publishers provided me with detailed notes: Cordelia Borchardt at S. Fischer Verlag; Maxine Hitchcock at Michael Joseph; Jennifer Lambert at HarperCollins Canada; Marysue Rucci at Simon & Schuster; and Giuseppe Strazzeri at Longanesi.

My first readers also provided valuable feedback: Jean and Greg Buist, Tania Chandler, Eamonn Cooke, Corine Jansonius, Peter McMillan, Rod Miller, Helen O’Connell, Dominique and Daniel Simsion, Sue Waddell, Geri Walsh and Heidi Winnen. Thanks also to Shari Lusskin, April Reeve and Meg Spinelli for their local knowledge of New York and American medical education, David Lange for his advice on refrigeration and Chris Waddell for his drumming stories. W. H. Chong designed the Australian cover.

The references to research in psychology and pregnancy incorporate the prejudices of fictional characters and should be taken with a grain of salt. In particular, Don’s interpretation of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Rosie’s use of various papers to support her dietary choices and the implicit reference to Feldman et al.’s work as a basis for the Lesbian Mothers Project do not necessarily represent their authors’ intentions.

Many publishers, booksellers and readers around the world have contributed to making The Rosie Project a success and are already doing the same for The Rosie Effect. In Australia, thanks are particularly due to Anne Beilby, Jane Novak, Kirsty Wilson and their teams at Text Publishing who have supported my writing and been creative in bringing it to a wide audience.