First of all, the Family of Love did exist, and much of their history as recounted in this book is true. Whether they ever made it to the New World, I cannot say, but I am grateful to Joseph W. Martin’s Religious Radicals in Tudor England (Hambledon Continuum, 1989) for increasing my small store of knowledge of them. The history of the foliate heads on churches is also true, and The Green Man in Britain by Fran and Geoff Doel (The History Press, 2010), The Green Man by Kathleen Basford (D.S. Brewer, 1998) and A Little Book of the Green Man by Mike Harding (Aurum Press, 1998) proved highly illuminating, and slightly disturbing.
The Oxford Street Shelter, the Portland Help Center, Skip Murphy’s Sober House, and Amistad are all real agencies that provide critically important services to the homeless and the mentally ill in the Portland area. Thanks very much to Karen Murphy and Peter Driscoll of Amistad. Sonia Garcia of Spurwink, and Joe Riley of Skip Murphy’s for permission to mention these organizations by name.
My thanks, as always, go to Sue Fletcher, Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood, Lucy Hale, Auriol Bishop and all at Hodder & Stoughton; Breda Purdue, Ruth Shern, Siobhan Tierney and all at Hachette Ireland; Emily Bestler, Judith Curr, Megan Reid, David Brown, Louise Burke and the staff at Atria/Emily Bestler Books and Pocket Books; and my agent Darley Anderson and his wonderful team. Clair Lamb and Madeira James do sterling work looking after websites and much, much more. Jennie Ridyard has now become my fellow author as well as my other half in life, but continues to show remarkable forbearance with me, as do our sons, Cameron and Alistair. To you, the reader, thank you for continuing to read these odd little books. Without you, there really wouldn’t be much point to all this.
And hello to Jason Isaacs.