Gateway to the Moon_A Novel

by Mary Morris

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has been an incredible journey for me, both in time and space. It’s a story I began thinking about more than twenty-five years ago when we lived in Santa Fe and had a babysitter who believed he was a crypto-Jew. I don’t remember his name, but I remember his face and the myriad of questions he asked about Jews and Jewish rituals. He was convinced that this was his family’s narrative. For years this boy’s story was the germ of an idea. Then, a few years ago, when my incredible agent, Ellen Levine, told me to write a novel that was “about something,” she gave me pause. I recalled the story of this boy and the crypto-Jews of New Mexico. I dug up those journals and found notes for the material that has taken shape in this book.

  I am indebted to Ellen as always for her commitment and wisdom. And to my indefatigable editor, Nan Talese, who loved this book as soon as she read it. Her enthusiasm has meant the world to me. For years now I have been so fortunate to have Ellen and Nan to work with, and I am honored and proud to dedicate this book to them. For all their support and attention, I want to thank Dan Meyer, Carolyn Williams, and Martha Wydysh. I also want to thank my various readers—Caroline Leavitt, who read the first draft and gave me so much encouragement; Barbara Grossman; Marc Kaufman for his insightful edits; and, of course, my husband, Larry O’Connor.

  The phenomena of the crypto-Jews has been debated and it has its detractors. However I came to accept the research and academic work of Stanley M. Hordes, who wrote To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico. It was a valuable source for me. Richard Zimler’s The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon gave me a very good sense of Lisbon circa 1506. For the history of food and spices, Gary Paul Nabhan’s Cumin, Camels, and Caravans was indispensable and inspiring. Martin A. Cohen’s The Martyre: Luis de Carvajal, a Secret Jew in Sixteenth-Century Mexico helped me grasp the darkness of the Inquisition in Mexico. And Laurence Bergreen’s Columbus: The Four Voyages and Kirstin Downey’s Isabella: The Warrior Queen were excellent books of history, as were the journals from Columbus’s first two voyages.

  This novel has also been a journey for me through many parts of the world. I am grateful to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris for allowing me to spend an afternoon viewing Columbus’s original portolan map. The Map Room and librarians at the New York Public Library were very helpful with early maps of New Mexico, the United States, and the expeditions of the conquistadors. I want to thank Rebeca Cordero, the historian I met when I stumbled upon the tiny Centro de Interpretación Judería de Sevilla in Seville. She spent a day with me and told me endless stories about the role of Spain, and specifically Seville, in the Inquisition. Meeting Rebeca was a gift. I am grateful to my friend Sonia Serrano Pujalras for encouraging me to come to Lisbon and for giving me a place in which I could stay and work, to Allison Markin Powell who put me in touch with Lisbon Explorer tours, and to Paolo Scheffer who became my guide through Jewish Lisbon and its mind-crushing Inquisition history that left me in tears in a café. This book would not be what it is if Paolo hadn’t been my guide.

  In New Mexico I spent time at the New Mexico History Museum where through an odd twist of fate two exhibits were going on side by side: one on the crypto-Jews of New Mexico and the other on the history of lowriders. And I am grateful to Jesse Hamilton who first told me about the crypto-Jewish exhibit, to my cousin Ethel Zimberoff, and to Andrew Sandoval-Strausz in Albuquerque who gave me safe haven on a very stormy night. The late Ron Chavez, whose diner we stopped at, took us to see his ancestral home where his people had lived for hundreds of years. And I want to thank my cousin Mike Bell, who shared with me his experiences during the Korean War and who has always regaled me with his wonderful stories.

  I could not have done this travel without the Ellen Schloss Flamm and Family Endowed Fund for Faculty Research at Sarah Lawrence College that enabled me to do research in Spain, Portugal, and New Mexico. I am appreciative to the college and its advisory committee for their support. I also want to thank my research assistants, Nicole Saldarriaga and Dana Gillespie, who have helped make so many things possible. I am lucky to have them in my life.

  I want to thank Marcia James and the Kimberly Hotel in Manhattan for providing an incredible work space and a week of silence as I was completing this book. And the dear Margani family in Puglia who let us use their farmhouse two years in a row and enabled me to turn an old cow barn and a Ping-Pong table into a studio where I accomplished so much. I also was honored to have a residency at the Writer’s Room at the Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach and am appreciative of the quiet hours it gave me during the final stages of this work.

  And finally, thank you to my family. There are no words to express how grateful I am for all the love and support Kate and Chris provide. I cannot imagine any of it without you. And my husband, Larry, whose literary acumen, compassion, and patience have enabled this work to come to fruition. Without whom none of this would be.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MARY MORRIS is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels The Jazz Palace, A Mother’s Love, and House Arrest, and of nonfiction, including the travel memoir classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction. Morris was raised in Chicago and lives in Brooklyn, New York. For more information, go to www.marymorris.net.

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