Ninth House

Acknowledgments

In New York: Many thanks to everyone at Flatiron Books, particularly Noah Eaker, who took a gamble on this book early, Amy Einhorn, Lauren Bittrich, Patricia Cave, Marlena Bittner, Nancy Trypuc, Katherine Turro, Cristina Gilbert, Keith Hayes, Donna Noetzel, Lena Shekhter, Lauren Hougen, Kathy Lord, and Jennifer Gonzalez and her team. Thank you to New Leaf Literary—Pouya Shahbazian, Veronica Grijalva, Mia Roman, Hilary Pecheone, Meredith Barnes, Abigail Donoghue, Jordan Hill, Joe Volpe, Kelsey Lewis, Cassandra Baim, and Joanna Volpe, who championed me and this idea from the start.

In New Haven and at Yale: Professor Julia Adams of Hopper College, Angela McCray, Jenny Chavira if the Association of Yale Alumni, Judith Ann Schief in Manuscripts and Archives, Mark Branch of the Yale Alumni Magazine, David Heiser of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Michael Morand at the Beinecke, and Claire Zella. Thank you to Rabbi Shmully Hecht for granting me access to the Anderson Mansion and to Barbara Lamb, who shared her extensive knowledge of Connecticut and squired me through many cemeteries. I have taken the occasional liberty with New Haven history and geography. Most notably, Wolf’s Head built their first hall on Prospect Street in 1884. The new hall on High Street was built more than forty years later.

In California: David Peterson for the Latin assists, Rachael Martin, Robyn Bacon, Ziggy the Human Cannonball, Morgan Fahey, Michelle Chihara, Sarah Mesle, Josh Kamensky, Gretchen McNeil, Julia Collard, Nadine Semerau, Marie Lu, Anne Grasser, Sabaa Tahir, Robin LaFevers, Victoria Aveyard, and Jimmy Freeman. Thank you also to my mom, who first sang to me in Ladino, to Christine, Sam, Emily, Ryan, Eric who has somehow kept me laughing, and the manatee.

In the Hall: Steven Testa, Laini Lipsher, and my own wolf pack of ’97.

Everywhere else: Max Daniel at UCLA and Simone Salmon for their help with Sephardic ballads, Kelly Link, Daniel José Older, Holly Black, Robin Wasserman, Sarah Rees Brennan, Rainbow Rowell, Zoraida Córdova, Cassandra Clare, Ally Carter, Carrie Ryan, Marie Rutkoski, Alex Bracken, Susan Dennard, Gamynne Guillote, and Michael Castro.

Many books helped build the world of Ninth House: Yale in New Haven: Architecture and Urbanism by Vincent Scully; Patrick Pinnell’s Yale University: An Architectural Tour; Loomis Havemeyer’s Go to Your Room: A story of undergraduate Societies and Fraternities at Yale; Brooks Mather Kelley’s Yale: A History; Joseph A. Soares’s The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges; David Alan Richards’s Skulls and Keys: The Hidden History of Yale’s Secret Societies; Craig Steven Wilder’s Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities; Carriages and Clocks, Corsets and Locks: The Rise and Fall of an Industrial City by Preston Maynard and Marjorie B. Noyes; New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design by Elizabeth Mills Brown; Model City Blues: Urban Space and Organized Resistance in New Haven by Mandi Isaacs Jackson; and The Plan for New Haven by Frederick Law Olmsted and Cass Gilbert. I found the ballad “La Moza y El Huerco” in the article “Sephardic Songs of Mourning and Dirges” by Paloma Díaz-Mas. Thanks also to the Pan-Hispanic Ballad Project.