The Color of Water

by James McBride

Thanks to the folks in Suffolk, Virginia: Frank and Aubrey Sheffer, Helen Weintraub, the late Aubrey Rubenstein, Mrs. Frances Holland, Mary Howell-Read of the city clerk’s office, Curly Baker, and Eddie Thompson. A heartfelt embrace to Frances and Nick Falcone of Portsmouth, Virginia, for reentering our lives. Thanks to Dina Abramowicz of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in New York City and to all the brothers on the Corner at Vermont Liquors in Louisville, especially Mike Fowler, Big Richard Nelson, and the late Chicken Man. Thanks to tax accountant Milton Sherman, Janette Bolgiani, and Julian “Sharon” Jones. Thanks to Jim Naughton at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rhonda Goldfein, Holocaust survivors Halina Wind and George Preston and their son David Preston, who helped reveal the wonders of Judaism for me. Thanks to my friends at the Boston Globe: Dennis Lloyd, Al Larkin, Jack Driscoll, Ed Siegel, Cindy Smith, Steve Morse, and of course Ernie Santosuosso. Thanks to Mary Hadar, who was a guiding editor at The Washington Post, and bebop guitarist Jeff Frank, whose second career still awaits. Thanks to Jay Lovinger and Gay Daley, who read my manuscript and whose kindness has always been an inspiration to me and my family. Thanks to Bill Boyle, Mike Daley, Hank Klibanoff, Marguerite Del Giudice, Doran Twer, Gar Joseph, Gary Smith, and Sally Wilson; thanks to Isabel Spencer and Fred Hartman, who gave me my first journalism job, to Norman Isaacs, who taught me to be good e...