Every story starts with a picture you can't shake. For this one, it was a boy standing at the end of a wooden pier on the Northeast coast, hands in his pockets, watching a seaplane rock on the swell while a Coast Guard cutter slid out of the harbor.
I didn't know his name yet. I didn't know he'd end up in the Caribbean, or that he'd fall in love, or start a trading company. I just knew he wanted to fly, and that the wanting was bigger than he was.
Where Jack came from
Jack is built out of a lot of mornings like that one. The smell of creosote and salt. Rope worn smooth on the pilings. Geese coming in low over the water, wings wide, feet out, making a mess of the landing and not caring one bit.
He was going to fly one. Someday. That line was the whole book before there was a book.
From the notebook
I kept a logbook while writing, the way a pilot would. Some entries were plot. Most were just reminders of how things felt.
The doubts come later, of course. They always do. That's the part of the book I'm proudest of: a young man hearing every reason not to go, and going anyway.
R. Harold
