From the Back Story

. . . In the early nineties, when my children were little, we were once in a restaurant where we could see through a glass window into a frenetic kitchen. Apparently my three- and five-year-olds had heard about Charles and Diana or seen them on television, because one of them asked, in regard to a man and a woman furiously washing dishes behind the glass, “Are they the Prince and Princess of Wales?” This made me think how much I would enjoy being the fly on the wall if indeed the Prince and Princess of Wales were to find themselves in such a situation, working their way across America, living solely by their wits, unheralded, unrecognized, and suddenly impoverished. I knew that it would be fascinating, suspected that they would not wilt, and wanted to see it so badly that I wrote it. The distant target at which I kept my aim leveled throughout was my hope that a reader might be tempted to say,“this is the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read.” Although that may never happen, it has been certainly the most enjoyable book I have ever written . . .