by Libba Bray
Author’s Note
Before the Devil Breaks You is a work of fiction, and, as such, the reckless author has taken certain liberties to keep the story moving. What liberties, you might ask, being a curious sort? For one, the interior of the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane (sic) of this book is a fictional amalgam constructed from various New York State Kirkbride-model asylums of the time. (The Kirkbride plan was quite popular then.) This allowed me to shape-shift the interior to suit my needs. However, the Manhattan State Hospital did have a bowling alley, which was possibly my favorite detail, and if I could’ve worked in a ghost bowling scene… well, let’s just say it wasn’t for lack of trying. There are liberties and then there are liberties.
Mental illness/health is a topic near and dear to my heart. In reading reports from mental health workers of the 1920s, it was clear that they wanted the best for the people in their care. Efforts were taken to use art and music as therapy (the detail about the visiting opera singer is true!), restraints were mostly forbidden, and the hospital made frequent appeals to the state for more trained staff and funding. This stands in stark contrast to the horrors of the institution written about in journalist Nellie Bly’s 1887 expose, Ten Days in a Mad-House, when the asylum had been located on Blackwell’s Island (since renamed Roosevelt Island) and abuse was rampant. Nellie’s reporting brought about sweeping reform. Truth can do that.
The boys’ refuge where Conor would have spent time was also notorious for being punitive, if not downright abusive. Prisoners from the local penitentiary were also frequently used as unpaid labor on the grounds. And there are still thousands of unknown dead buried on Ward’s and Hart’s Islands, the marginalized victimized even in death.
While some aspects of this story are fictionalized, many are rooted firmly in historical record and fact, and yes, there are facts, they are not “alternative,” and they come with receipts. The KKK was alive and flourishing in the 1920s. So were Jim Crow laws and immigration bans and quotas. The Supreme Court decision handed down in Buck v. Bell (May 1927) allowed states to sterilize inmates of public institutions without their consent due to “hereditary defects” that included epilepsy, “feeblemindedness,” “moral degeneracy,” and mental illness, but which was often employed against the uneducated, the poor, people of color, and overwhelmingly for women rather than (white) men. This was an outgrowth of the American eugenics movement—racist pseudoscience that went on to influence public policy, segregation, anti-miscegenation and anti-immigration laws, and, arguably, the American mind-set for decades to come.
Jake Marlowe’s Hopeful Harbor was partially influenced by the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, which was at its height in the 1920s. Very wealthy Americans such as the Harrimans, Carnegies, and Rockefellers supported the eugenics-based institution and its promulgation of bigotry and racism disguised as science. (Real science, on the other hand, is awesome and the reason we have NASA and the polio vaccine.) But by giving eugenics the imprimatur of both medical science and law, including a law passed by the highest court in the land, America further sanctioned racism.
As I write this, we are in an especially divisive era in American politics. There are questions about who holds power, who abuses it, who profits from it, and at what cost to our democracy. It is a time of questions about what makes us American, of shifting identities, inclusion and exclusion, protest, civil and human rights, the strength of our compassion versus the weakness of our fears, and the seductive lure of a mythic “great” past that never was versus the need for the consciousness and responsibility necessary if we are truly to live up to the rich promise of “We the People.”
We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity.
We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and our present. The future is unwritten.
This is a book about ghosts.
For we live in a haunted house.
Acknowledgments
I always think there should be an extra ten pages in these books to truly thank everyone who has been so helpful. But then you wouldn’t be able to lift it. There are loads of good people who have helped to make this book a reality over the past two years, but my memory is faulty, and this list is, I fear, woefully inadequate. If I have unwittingly forgotten anyone, apologies and dinner on me. (Hopefully, that’s interpreted as “I pick up the check” and not “Please throw your pasta at me.”) A fruit basket of thanks to the following:
Unflappable rock star editor Alvina Ling, who can tell you that a scene that you spent three weeks carefully constructing stops the story cold and needs to die a quick death—and makes you love her all the more for it. Bethany Strout, whose further editing was as thoughtful and incisive as she is. The awesome, indefatigable Nikki Garcia and Kheryn Callender, who kept the wheels turning and the lights on. Talented designer Karina Granda for the beautiful new covers. Superhero Copyeditor Christine Ma and Superhero Proofreader JoAnna Kremer, for their exacting, thorough work. I imagine them going through that sentence saying, “Libba, you don’t need both exacting and thorough.” You live with me always now, my friends. The hardworking editorial, marketing, publicity, art, production, sales, and school & library departments of LBYR and the great team of Megan Tingley, Lisa Moraleda, Victoria Stapleton, Jenny Choy, Heather Fain, Jen Graham, Ruiko Tokunaga, Jane Lee, and Allegra Green, to name but a few. I am so happy to be in your company and in your Company.
Research goddess Lisa Gold, who can find reams of information on the most obscure topics lickety-split. Suspect she might be a unicorn. Invaluable assistant Tricia Ready, arranger of research trips, finder of additional research, securer of permissions and a hundred other Necessary Things. Possible skilled secret agent. My favorite not-so-secret agent-agent, Barry Goldblatt, brave and honest and true, for everything, always and forever.
Beloved writer pals Justin Weinberger, David Levithan, Dan Poblocki, Justine Larbalestier, Danielle Paige, Erin Morgenstern, and Zoraida Cordova for the company and moral support. The brilliant Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Cindy Pon, for that late-night plot problem–solving convo at the North Texas Teen Book Festival. Your brains should be left to science! (After you’re finished with them, of course.) The Tuesday night writing group: Aaron Zimmerman, Emmy Laybourne, Nova Ren Suma, Kim Liggett, Michelle Hodkin, Emma Bailey, Bonnie Pipkin, Sarah Porter, Susanna Scrobsdorff, and Julia Morris.
Fierce love and thanks to the sisters of my heart: Laurie Allee, Eleanor Boschert-Ambrosio, Pam Carden, Brenda Cowan, Gayle Forman, Emily Jenkins, Kim Liggett, Susanna Schrobsdorff, and Nova Ren Suma for every damn thing and then some.
The awesome Preeti Chhibber and Bhairavi Nadgonde for the Hindi translation, Robert Schamhart and Gayle Forman for the Dutch, and everyone on Twitter who gamely tried to help me translate Latin. (Those four years in the Junior Classical League didn’t take, apparently.) The winning translation was, I believe, from the ever-helpful Lee Jackson, author of shivery Victorian mysteries you might enjoy.
If you ever find yourself in need of a golf cart history tour of Ward’s and Randall’s Islands, I highly recommend the lovely and delightful team of Eric Peterson and Anne Wilson of the Randall’s Island Park Alliance. Thank you, Eric and Anne, for your time, knowledge, patience, and excellent driving. Thanks, also, to Judith Berdy, president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, for allowing me to invade her home and paw through her many binders full of history. And thanks to psychoanalyst and professor Richard Sacks, MA, LP, and Cheryl Levine, LCSW, coordinator, Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, for so generously sharing their psychiatric knowledge. Continued appreciation for the staffs at the MTA Archives, the New York Public Library, the Museum of the City of New York, the New-York Historical Society, and the Museum of Chinese in America. Those notes never stop giving.
The Listening Library crew at Penguin Ra
ndom House for their amazing work: Dan Zitt, Katie Punia, Rebecca Waugh, and Rachel Walker, audiobook director David Rapchik, and the unbelievably talented audiobook narrator, January LaVoy. Shout-out to the wonderful crew at Gotham Group, especially my film agent, Eddie Gamarra. And to Tiger Beat (Daniel Ehrenhaft, Barnabas Miller, and Natalie Standiford) for the brain-melting rock ’n’ roll breaks. PDKO, y’all. Also: The wonderful staffs at Think Coffee, Building on Bond, Southside Coffee, and especially Roots Cafe.
Last but not least, thanks to my son, Josh Goldblatt, who has become quite a fine storyteller himself.
Anyone I may have forgotten, I humbly apologize and want you to know that it’s only the fault of my wonky brain and is no reflection on your ultra fabulousness. Come claim your dinner credit anytime.
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