Amagansett (33 page)

This book would never have been written were it not for two people: Stephanie Cabot, my agent and my friend, who urged me to take the idea further; and my wife, Caroline, who supported and encouraged me while I did so. Special thanks are also due to Nick Shevloff and Christina von Schilling, who first introduced me to the South Fork of Long Island and who have provided me with a home-away-from-home there ever since.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my editors, Julia Wisdom and Jennifer Hershey, for their unstinting enthusiasm and their expert guidance.

Among the many books I found useful in the writing of this work I would like to make particular mention of Peter Matthiessen’s
Men’s Lives,
John N. Cole’s
Striper,
Everett T. Rattray’s
The South Fork,
and
The Pond in the Pasture
by Capt. Edwin Sherrill, Jr. Other invaluable sources were the excellent online archives of the
East Hampton Star,
as well as The History Project Inc.—an extensive collection of taped interviews with local people, many of whom have now passed on. My thanks to Tony Prohaska and Martha Kalser for providing this extraordinary oral resource, which is housed in the East Hampton Library.

A great sadness to me during the writing of this book was the death of John N. Cole—a guiding light in my research, who, together with his wife, Jean, welcomed me into their home in Brunswick, Maine. I hope that in some small way John’s spirit lives on in these pages.

Others who gave generously of their time and expertise are Stuart Bennet Vorpahl and his wife, Mary; Peter Matthiessen;
Carleton Kelsey; Capt. Harvey L. Bennett; Capt. Edwin Sherrill, Jr; and local librarians, Diana Dayton and Dorothy King, who patiently steered me through the wealth of material contained in the Pennypacker Long Island Collection. I am also extremely grateful to Katie Allen and Paul Sisson for their hospitality; Nicola Levy; Simon Prosser; Philip Gwyn Jones; Tom Weldon; and Anne O’Brien.

Finally, my thanks go to Ileen Maisel, who gave me my first ever break as a writer.