Wyatt Earp wasn’t the only one who had trouble keeping Dodge City’s shifting factions and baroque feuds straight, so I simplified Dodge City history, politics, economy, and social organization.
Details of the 1871–72 curriculum at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery are accurate, as are assessments of John Henry Holliday’s professional skill. I thank Dara Rogers, D.D.S, for her modern insight into nineteenth-century dental procedures. In addition, the following generously shared their areas of expertise with me.
Piano and music theory: Bob Price.
Horse and racing lore: Kristi Cetrulo; Cornelia Chapman; Lynette Hulbert; Beverley McCurdy; Mary Rose Paradis, D.V.M.; Anne Swan; Sara Tidd.
Clinical aspects of untreated pulmonary tuberculosis and advancing respiratory disease: Nancy O’Leary, R.N.
The psychological aftermath of almost getting killed in combat: Captain Timothy Riemann, USMC.
James C. Earp’s wartime service in Company F, 17th Illinois Regiment: Nathan Moran.
Indian one-liners about mules: Ray Bucko, S.J.; Peter Klink, S.J.; and Ron Kills Warrior.
Jesuit missionary history in North America: Mark Thiel; Raymond Bucko, S.J.; and Dave Myers, S.J. Father Myers is also a lawyer who checked legalisms and Latin.
Other languages: May Burl (French); Dr. Ray DeMallie (Osage); Dr. Suzanne Bach (German); Annie Ho Lucak (Chinese). I used T. E. Shaw’s translation of The Odyssey (Oxford University Press, New York, 1956) and Robert Fagles’ of The Aeneid (Viking Press, New York, 2006), but felt free to recast the poetry to fit Doc and Kate’s interpretations.
For close reading and sensitive criticism of the story, I thank Gretchen Batton, Ellie D’Addio Behr, Ray Bucko, Kari Burkey, Rebecca Chaitin, Dick Cima, Mary Dewing, Miriam Goderich, Jennifer Hershey, Nancy O’Leary, Bob Price, Tim Riemann, Dara Rogers, Dan Russell, Vivian Singer, Kate Sweeney, Bonnie Thompson, and Jennifer Tucker.
Special thanks to Kari and Dave Burkey for a glorious experience at the KD Guest Ranch in Adamsville, Ohio. They taught me to ride with authority, and I had the time of my life learning how to pen calves!
If you have been moved by John Henry Holliday’s story, please consider making a donation in his memory to one of the organizations that change lives around the world by providing free surgical correction of cleft palates and cleft lips. My husband, Don, and I have chosen the Smile Train for our own donations.
M.D.R.
About the Author
MARY DORIA RUSSELL has studied nine languages, written five novels, and earned three degrees in anthropology. Her novels have won a number of national and international literary awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the American Library Association Readers’ Choice Award. The Sparrow was selected as one of Entertainment Weekly’s ten best books of the year, and A Thread of Grace was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The daughter of a sheriff, Dr. Russell spent her academic career teaching gross anatomy at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry in Cleveland, Ohio, where she still lives with her husband of forty years. She is at work on her next book.
www.MaryDoriaRussell.net