We Are Okay

acknowledgments

A few months after my grandfather died, in a time when I cried at every thought
of him, my wife, Kristyn, said, I have a story idea for you. What if you write
about a girl who lives near Ocean Beach with her grandfather? The idea stayed
with me. On the one-year anniversary of his death, our daughter, Juliet, was
born. Then, in the early summer when she was an infant, I took a walk by myself
to our local café and suddenly the voices of Marin, Mabel, and Gramps all came
to me in snippets of dialogue and Marin’s broken longing. I think Kristyn had a
different kind of story in mind, because the love my grandfather and I shared
was uncomplicated, and with the exception of his penchant for cracking jokes
and playing cards, he had little in common with Gramps. But I wrote the novel
during a time of upheaval and disillusionment that was in stark contrast to the
aching and magical love of our new family, and this book is the culmination of
all of that. Kristyn, thank you for the seeds of this story, and for your fierce and
unwavering love. And to my kind and curious and wild Juliet, thank you for
making me the person who could write this novel.

I send heartfelt thanks to my writing group—Laura Davis, Teresa Miller,
and Carly Anne West—who assured me from the beginning that, despite my
fears, this book didn’t consist only of making food and washing bowls. Thank
you to Jules LaCour for his help with the Spanish and Adi Alsaid for sharing his
cultural knowledge. Thank you to Jessica Jacobs, my original critique partner,
for the invaluable final read, and to Amanda Krampf for the thousands of
conversations along the way.

To my Penguin family, by the time this novel comes out, it will be ten
glorious years that we’ve been together. Thank you to Julie Strauss-Gabel for,
among many other things, the gift of that long discussion over lunch in San
Francisco, during which you helped me (yet again) to unearth the heart of my
story and to believe it was enough. Here’s to many more books together. My
huge and everlasting gratitude to the Dutton team: Melissa Faulner, Rosanne

Lauer, Anna Booth, and Anne Heausler; the designers who gave this story such a
beautiful package: Samira Iravani and Theresa Evangelista; and my incredible
publicist Elyse Marshall. And thank you to all of you who, now that this book is
finished, are making sure it finds a place in bookstores and libraries and schools
and the Internet. You make magic.

Sara Crowe, I’m so fortunate to have you by my side. Thank you for all you
do.

Finally, to my family and friends, I’m grateful for each one of you.

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