Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo [122]
The Internet proved an invaluable resource, from the many excellent Victorian scholarship Web sites to my online subscription to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. My understanding of the Jersey coast and shipwrecks was enhanced by an excellent Web site for New Jersey divers, www.njscuba.com.
For the opulence of the Gilded Age, especially the popularity of diamonds in New York City, I am in debt to the vivid history in Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation in Turn-of-the-Century New York, by M. H. Dunlop.
In my attempt to create the popular texture of the era—home, foods, fashions, railroads, automobiles, architecture,
Victrolas, newsreels, pulps—I relied on contemporary newspaper accounts and a number of books. To re-create automobile journeys, particularly John T. Nichols's, I used Scarborough's Official 1916 New York Automobile Association Tour Book for New York, New Jersey, Canada and the East.
Finally, my thanks to the librarians and archivists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida; the New York Public Library; the Free Library of Philadelphia; the Ocean County Library in Tom's River, New Jersey; the Asbury Park Library; the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library; the Spring Lake Historical Society; the University of Pennsylvania Library and archives; Temple University's Urban Archives; the Thomas Jefferson University Library and Archives; the Smithsonian Institution; the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science; the American Philosophic Society in Philadelphia; the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.; the Library of Congress; and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The U.S. Coast Guard provided the log of the U.S. revenue cutter Mohawk, which fought the short-lived “war on sharks,” as well as the records of Captain Carden and other officials of the Coast Guard.
Although there is a tendency to romanticize publishing houses and editors of the past, it is hard to imagine an editor in any time more devoted, intense, or talented than Charlie Conrad, executive editor of Broadway Books. This book could not have existed in its form of history, science, and narrative without his vision, passion, and literary gifts. I quickly learned I was not the only person kept up nights thinking about the best ways to tell this story, and for that, Charlie, I am most grateful. Becky Cole, assistant editor, pulled off the rare triple crown of being diamond-sharp, reassuring, and ever calm under pressure. Sharks don't float, but Becky did, ever protecting and perfecting this book. Special thanks to my agent, David Vigliano, whose genius is to see simultaneously into a market and a writer's soul. David somehow manages to follow me and lead me at the same time, always to the right place. Broadway Books was that place, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people who made me feel like a swimmer with a dozen lifeguards: managing editor Rebecca Holland, marketing director Catherine Pollock, publicity director Betsy Areddy, jacket designer Patti Ratchford, text designer Richard Oriolo—whose designs I cherish—as well as the incredible cavalry-to-the-rescue copy editor Johanna Tani and typesetter Tina Thompson. My late father, William Capuzzo, a salesman for several New York publishing houses, would have been thrilled, as I am, by the efforts of the Random House West sales force.
My most heartfelt thanks go to my daughter, Grace, ten, a poet