Peacerunner
Page 30
Niall O’Dowd’s autobiography An Irish Voice contains many important recollections of events and great inside stories. George Mitchell’s Making Peace, his account of his role in the peace process all the way through the Good Friday Agreement, is a splendid first-person account of how it was on the inside. I should also mention Morrison’s lengthy interview conducted for the Atlantic Philanthropies Oral History Project by Amy Arlana Starecheski in 2007, as well the 1997 piece in the Hartford Courant by Andrew Marlatt called Bruce’s Truce, a more compact account of Morrison’s activities in the peace process. Morrison didn’t keep a diary or take notes, so the accounts of those hearing from him closer in time to the events covered in this book were exceptionally valuable and were often a springboard for new recollections and insights from him.
Several good friends and relatives read the manuscript in various stages of development and contributed fine ideas and great enthusiasm that was more helpful than they know. Phil Allen and Walter Wagoner were the best enthusiasts for this project an author could hope for, from the beginning and throughout. My mother-in-law, Nancy Hodermarsky—poet, English teacher, and lawyer—was a wonderful reader and suggester of never-ending enthusiasm. She also agreed to ask our friend Roger Kuhn if he’d help me connect with David Kuhn, the agent I hoped would like the book I was starting. My brother Tony Rhodin, a great writer and editor; my soon-to-be son-in-law, Brian Spring; and my friends Steve Futterman, also a great writer, Ben Pesner, and Deirdre Rosenberg were helpful and encouraging readers, as was Tim McMillin, who got this whole thing started by calling me to account for what I hadn’t written in the forty-five-year interval between our contacts.
My friend David Richards was a great fan of this project, and when he and Carol learned that there was a publishing deal at last, they gave my wife, Maria, and me champagne in the orchard in Stonington, Maine. It grieves me that Peacerunner wasn’t in its final form before David died of ALS in 2015, but I’m grateful that I got to read him excerpts that covered the whole story pretty thoroughly during his last summer.
It was pure pleasure working with BenBella editors Oriana Leckert, Leah Wilson, and Vy Tran. Eric Wechter, whom I never met, was a fine copyeditor. Friends and relatives from the worlds of writing and editing, generous and enormously helpful in the never-ending quest for the right shape of things—and for just the right word in just the right way—were Sarah Flynn, Tony Rhodin, Joe Haberstroh, Liz Moore, Kent Jones, Terry Hawkins, Ben Pesner, and Steve Futterman.
I couldn’t be happier with the look of this book outside and in. I loved working in a real partnership on design issues with Sarah Dombrowsky and Jessika Rieck at BenBella. I was able to hold up my end with the help of my friends and relatives from the worlds of art and design: Phil Allen, Cat Hnatov, Tom Strong, Sloan Wilson, and Lisa Hodermarsky were beyond true blue—over and over in the case of Phil and Cat.
As a publisher, BenBella has been wonderfully professional and supportive. Adrienne Lang and Alicia Kania—Glenn Yeffeth, too—always leave me feeling I’m in good hands. Friends and new acquaintances also helpful at various stages from the world of publishing were Tina Weiner, Steve Wasserman, John Ryden, and Roxanne Coady. As the writing comes to an end, I’m looking forward to working with BenBella’s Jennifer Canzoneri on the marketing that they do so well.
Kent Jones, Paul Donnelly, Ruth Ben-Arzi, Josh Pesner, and Maya Hormadaly lent me invaluable and cheerful help as I went forth on the long blurb quest that has yielded such splendid results.
And I am so grateful to those accomplished men and women who were willing to publicly endorse this fledgling effort by an unknown author.
And now to family. My father died long before this project was ever imagined. He was a fine writer and I am grateful for that influence. He loved Ireland and maybe that added fuel to the fire. My mother lived with me in the last years of her life but died before I had a good first draft. She wasn’t communicating so well at that time, but her concentration as I read her the first chapter of the book was extraordinary; when I finished she exclaimed, “That must have been frightening, having that gun aimed at his knee!” She didn’t miss a thing and I’m sorry I didn’t get to read the entire book to her.
My many siblings—our father had children in four different marriages—were inexhaustible in their enthusiasm, good wishes, and willingness to lend support of all kinds, as was my daughter-in-law, Nikki Rhodeen. So was my lifelong friend and long-ago blood brother, Phillip Morrow. And my cousins, nieces, and nephews, especially Ric Carey and Bill Gans. And so was Kassie Rhodeen.
Those to whom Peacerunner is dedicated—my wife, my sons and daughters, and my wife’s sons—are the ones who lived with the book and its author, some all the time, others now and then. Each and every one of them was a wonderful source of enthusiasm, support, and understanding, with an abiding willingness to listen to an awful lot about this book on many occasions over a long time—everything from readings at the table to struggles with word choices.
Everybody has some good luck: I’ve learned that the trick is to know when you’ve been lucky. One of the glories of my life is that when I met Maria Hodermarska at that July Fourth party on Deer Isle off the coast of Maine, I knew I had been lucky and acted fast. Her help and support have been everything a lucky author could ever wish for. Plus, she insisted that I go see Northern Ireland for myself and bought me a ticket. My love and gratitude are boundless.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
OCTOBER 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Penn Rhodeen has been a practicing lawyer in New Haven, Connecticut, since 1971, after graduating with honors from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He was a staff lawyer at the New Haven Legal Assistance Association for seven years and a member of the criminal law unit for about half of that time. His private practice has focused primarily on matters involving children and on medical malpractice cases. He served as department counsel for the New Haven Police Department and is a lecturer at the Yale Child Study Center. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he worked as a newspaper reporter and a school teacher. Since high school he has been involved in political campaigns ranging from local to presidential. He heard Martin Luther King speak of his dream during the March on Washington, watched the Kennedy funeral procession from the North Lawn of the White House, and went to Woodstock.
Penn lives in New Haven and in Brooklyn, New York. He has five adult children and is married to Maria Hodermarska, who teaches drama therapy at NYU. They get to spend part of each summer on Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine.
Peacerunner is his first book. He is already mapping out the next one.