The Devil in Silver

MY WIFE GAVE birth to our first child, a son, in May 2011. We were overjoyed and exhausted. We’re both writers and each of us had books due to our publishers by the end of the summer. That gave us about three months to complete our manuscripts. We were scared shitless and figured it was impossible. But with a new kid we needed money more than ever. My wife and I made a deal. We’d give each other two hours out of the apartment every day, seven days a week until September arrived and we had to return to our teaching gigs. (We ain’t making a living on the writing alone!) We stuck to the schedule religiously and the pages piled up. Did we make the deadline?

Hell, no.

But we created decent routines. Leaving home for only two hours meant that I couldn’t travel far. I ended up working at the Twin Donut on Broadway and 180th Street. Nine tables, no elbow room. If it was packed I’d go down to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Broadway and 178th. Between my two offices sat the Port Authority, George Washington Bridge branch. When the coffee ran through me I used its wretched but reliable public bathroom. I wrote this novel in those donut shops out of necessity, not design. But this book wouldn’t be what it is if I’d written it anywhere else.

Each day I had the privilege to hear, see, (and sometimes smell), a cast of characters as broad and beguiling as anything out of Dickens or Days of Our Lives. I’m talking about the old women trying to hand out Spanish-language editions of The Watchtower inside the Port Authority, the fruit and vegetable sellers lining the sidewalks between 179th and 180th, the bus drivers on their coffee breaks, the mothers rationing donuts out to their already amped-up kids, the Chinese women selling bootleg DVDs out of their handbags, the addicts panhandling cars coming off the George Washington Bridge, the twitchy men lined up for far too long at the urinals inside the Port Authority bathroom, the old Dominican men who spoke in shouts so loud that my iPod could never drown them out, the cops and the high-school kids, the tourists and the meter maids, the dude in his fifties who just came through the Twin Donut carrying a handful of knit caps and chanting, “Good hats, good hats, five dollars.” All of them, and more, are in this book. A few even inspired some secondary characters at New Hyde Hospital. If I’d worked on The Devil in Silver someplace secluded and serene, I might’ve forgotten how bonkers and beautiful people can be. So thank you, Twin Donut, Dunkin’ Donuts, Port Authority, and all the folks I watched file through. You people nearly wore my reclusive ass out! Also, I love you.

The same can be said (the love I mean) of my wonder-editor, Chris Jackson. This is our third book together, and by now I really can’t imagine how I’d write a good book without him.

Thanks also to Julia Masnik for being so bright, warm, and really damn funny when I called in to my agent’s office.

Thanks to the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the MacDowell Colony for their support.

While I had personal experience visiting psychiatric units around New York City, this book demanded research to learn how the units run, and what kinds of systems keep them operable (if not always working). Dr. Monique Upton and Dr. Jennifer Mathur were kind enough to answer my many questions. Thanks also to Nina Bernstein, whose insightful reporting on the story of Xiu Ping Jiang inspired portions of Sue’s story. I’m in their debt. Any mistakes or simplifications about how the mental-health system runs are mine.

My wonderful wife and closest ally, Emily Raboteau, gave me great help with this book. She also gave me our son, Geronimo, who is a badass. Little man, I knew you were dope ever since you were semen!

Being a kid from Queens means I grew up with people of every color, nationality, and faith. Among those were plenty of working-class white guys. They were my friends. But when I saw guys like them in books, movies, or television, they were usually depicted as: 1) drunks, 2) abusers, or 3) drunk abusers. The guys I’d known deserved better than those portrayals. They were as capable of goodness as anyone else. I wanted Pepper, flaws and all, to be complex and surprising, like real human beings. I’m thankful for the friends who inspired him.

The name Kofi Acholi is not a Ugandan name. This was a purposeful choice. I have a large extended family on my Ugandan side and I didn’t want any of them thinking I based Kofi on them. So I used a name one would never find in real life simply to spare myself any hell at the next Ugandan picnic.

I’d like to send a heartfelt fuck you to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital’s psychiatric unit. No doubt they’ve long forgotten why I loathe them, but I will never forget.

Okay, I got that out of my system. But I don’t want to end on a poisonous note.