Acknowledgements

I think it was John Irving, the winner of both the National Book Award for a novel and the Oscar for a screenplay, who said that writing a movie is like swimming in a bath and writing a novel is like swimming in the ocean.

I had read that comment long before I embarked on Pilgrim but even then I wasn’t prepared for just how big the ocean was and how much effort it would take to cross it. I could never have done it without a host of people on the support boats calling out encouragement and occasionally yelling ‘Shark! ’ if it looked like I was flagging. It would indeed be churlish of me not to acknowledge them and give them my heartfelt thanks.

First to Doug Mitchell, a truly great film producer and an even better friend for more years than I care to remember. He not only gave me wise counsel, but supported and believed in me when those things were sorely needed. To George Miller – a film director and an Academy Award winner himself – who once walked into an office where I was working and asked if I would be interested in working with him on a screenplay. That started a journey, an inquiry, into story-telling that has never stopped and will probably continue until – as we said in Road Warrior/Mad Max2 – ‘my life fades and the vision dims’.

I must thank the entire team at Secoma Group in Europe, especially Tony Field, Louise Knapp and Carolina Scavini – all highly accomplished in the business world – for their friendship, unstinting loyalty and great practical help. They have looked after so many things, and helped in so many unheralded ways, I know that I will never be able to adequately express it. I am aware that for a writer that is not a good thing to admit, but that is the truth of it.

To Franç ois Micheloud and Clé ment Bucher, friends of long-standing and business associates, who have guided me through the intricacies of life in Switzerland and have made our lives far more enjoyable and interesting for it. It was their suggestion that I accompany them on a visit to the concentration camp at Natzweiler-Struthof – a grim and terrible place where I stood alone for a long time looking at a photo of a woman with her children on their way to the gas chamber and the germ of an idea was born.

Bill Scott-Kerr is the publisher of Transworld, of which Bantam Press is an imprint. His unbridled enthusiasm, intelligent notes, incisive editing, brilliant marketing, unflinching support and profound knowledge of the arcane workings of the publishing world – a topic worthy of a Dan Brown novel, in my view – have surpassed anything I ever expected. Or probably deserved. I just hope that I get the opportunity to keep travelling down the road with him and the rest of the outstanding team at both Transworld and Random House.

The same sentiment applies to Steven Maat, my publisher in the Netherlands, who was the first person to buy the manuscript – at that stage, only one-third finished and from a debut novelist into the bargain. I have always thought that the Dutch were a courageous and intelligent people and now I know for sure! Thank you, Steven.

Jay Mandel in New York and Cathryn Summerhayes in London have represented the book – and fielded countless crazed emails from me – always in a gracious, very smart and suitably ruthless way. They are both literary agents at WME and they have done a truly outstanding job. Long may they prosper.

I must also thank Danny Greenberg in Los Angeles, who has been a friend as well as my motion-picture agent for more years than either of us would probably like to contemplate. The fate of the film rights for the novel rest with him and I know they couldn’t be in better or more accomplished hands.

Don Steele is in grave danger of giving lawyers a good name. An entertainment attorney at Hansen, Jacobson in Los Angeles, he is one of the truly good guys – and a fine lawyer to boot – in a town that has far too few of either. It is not surprising that he works at the firm where he does – Tom Hansen has great taste and intelligence and gathers like-minded people around him. Thanks to both of them.

I must offer a special mention to Brian and Sandra Maki for all the support and faith they have shown – both to me and to the project – over so many years. Brian, a voracious reader, waded through every draft of the novel and always came back with a host of useful suggestions and a wealth of grammatical corrections. We may not always agree on correct English usage but that doesn’t diminish for one moment his enormous contribution! Great thanks to both of them.

Jennifer Winchester helped in ways which only my family and I will ever fully appreciate. Patient and unflappable, she was always there and never lost her temper or got irritable – even when I seemed to be permanently doing both. Thank you to her and also, especially, to Marinka Bjelosovic, who has worked so hard on our behalf for the last eight years. I am sure, to her, it must seem like an awful lot longer.

To my children – Alexandra, Stephanie-Marie, Connor and Dylan – thank you so much for the boundless support and unquestioning belief. You make it all worthwhile. I have to make special mention of Dylan. Every morning he would come into my office, look at the pages I had done overnight and nod his head. ‘You’re doing well, Dad, ’ he would say each time. He was four years old, couldn’t yet read – and I have no doubt it will remain the most heart-warming review I ever receive.

Finally, to Kristen, my wife – my best friend, my sounding-board, my companion on every step of this journey – thank you. She listened to countless bad ideas, knew how to bury them gently, and always recognized the good ones when I was fortunate enough to have them. The mistakes in the book are all mine but whatever is good in it is due in enormous measure to her. I could never have done it without Kris’s unstinting help, counsel and encouragement. I Am Pilgrim is dedicated, with love, to her.