Lisa Scottoline: Daddy's Girl

The term "Underground Railroad" was supposedly coined by a slavecatcher, who, failing to find his prey, said, "There must be an underground railroad somewhere." The term is misleading because there was no actual railroad under the ground, with rails, train cars, and such. Instead, the Underground Railroad was a series of people willing to hide the fleeing slaves in their homes. Those who hid the slaves were called "station masters" and their homes were "stations" or "stops." The stations tended to be no more than eight to fifteen miles apart, the length of travel on foot in one terrifying night. There are no reliable estimates of how many slaves escaped to freedom, because records were not kept for fear of being used as evidence. Estimates have ranged from 30,000 to 100,000, and according to William Switala's Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, 13, (2001), a report given in 1864 to the Freedmans Inquiry Commission in Washington, D.C., estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 slaves reached the north.

Chester County, Pennsylvania, did play a very active role in the Underground Railroad. The "central route" or "Eastern Line" of the Underground Railroad began in Maryland and Delaware, ran north through Chester County, and traveled farther to Norristown and then Philadelphia. Chester County residents helped many former slaves escape northward because the county lay just over the Mason-Dixon Line and was home to a committed and courageous network of free African Americans and abolitionist Quakers. Quakers of the Progressive Meeting in Longwood and the Marlborough Friends Meeting in Pocopson hid the slaves in their homes, at great personal risk. Many of the homes still stand, and interestingly, surround what would later become Chester County Prison. Levi Ward, Eusebius and Sarah Barnard, William Barnard, Joseph and Ruth Dugdale, Mary and Moses Pennock, John and Hannah Cox, Isaac and Thomazine Meredith all lived in homes surrounding what is now the prison and hid slaves in their homes.

Historian Mary Dugan took me to some of the county's "stations" and showed me hiding places in outbuildings and private homes, for which I am very grateful. In fact, the names of the Quaker "station masters" in the novel are completely authentic, and so are the slaves' names and initials, taken from actual names I found in my research. I cannot begin to describe here how much I admire the bravery and heart of these former slaves, whom the law had treated so cruelly, as well as the people who helped them escape. They risked everything for justice.

For those of you who want to read more about the Underground Railroad, there are several books which informed this novel, and many of them contain original source material, which make for fascinating reading. Do take a look at: William Still, The Underground Railroad (1872) and R. C. Smedley, History of The Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania (1883). Both of these works bring history to life, and William Still's is a wide-ranging must-read. Mr. Still was an African American who was chairman of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society's Vigilance Committee and he interviewed fugitives whom he helped hide, creating a firsthand account of the life of slaves, including which farms and plantations they worked, who "owned" them, and how they escaped. More recently, you can read Fergus Bordewich, Bound for Canaan (2005); David Blight, ed., Passages To Freedom (2004); William Kashatus, Justice Over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad (2002); and William Switala, Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania (2001).

End of the spoiler, back to pure love.

Thanks to those of you who selected Daddy's Girl for your book club. I appreciate you letting me join, and I have posted discussion questions on a special webpage for book clubs at my website, www.scottoline.com. I think you'll find the questions fun and thought-provoking, and I hope that the historical backdrop to the novel will inform a lively and emotional debate. Raise a glass of wine for me, and enter the Third Annual Contest for book clubs. It's a random drawing and if you win, you get a visit from me and I take all of you to dinner. (And second prize is…)

Thanks to the following people, who gave generously to an array of worthy causes at silent auctions to have their name appear in the novel: Adele McIlhargey (benefiting Gwinnett County Library, Georgia), Bill Sasso (YMCA of Philadelphia), Jennifer Paradis (Key For the Cure), Elizabeth Warren (by Bruce Mann for the Equal Justice Foundation), Clare Cracy (by Marian Staley to benefit the Fox Chase Cancer Center), Agnes Grady Chesko (by Pat Chesko for The ARC of Chester County), Max Bischoff (by Paul Roots for the Miami Valley Literacy Council, Ohio), and Melanie Anderson (bought at the terrific Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland), and my old friends Sam and Carolyn Morris (French amp; Pickering Land Trust).

And this is in loving memory of David Brian Mundy, bought by my friend Debby Mundy, his wonderful sister, and also in memory of Professor Edward Sparer, a terrific professor at the law school, remembered by all of us and especially by my classmate Alan Sandals, to support the Equal Justice Foundation. And finally, in loving memory of Edward Duffy and Marilyn Krug, remembered by Janet Moore and Steve Werner in support of Family Services of Chester County.

Finally, thanks to everyone at HarperCollins, my one and only publisher for the past fourteen years and fourteen books. Thanks to Carolyn Marino, my extraordinary editor, who encourages my flights of fancy like teaching, even when they take away from my writing time. And big thanks to the great team at Harper: CEO and role model Jane Friedman, Brian Murray, Michael Morrison, Jonathan Burnham, Kathy Schneider, Josh Marwell, Christine Boyd, Liate Stehlik, Maureen O'Brien, and Wendy Lee, who work so hard on publishing my books and do such a terrific job. I know how lucky I am, guys.

Thanks to Molly Friedrich of The Friedrich Agency, who is quite simply the best literary agent in the world, as well as the equally talented (okay, so both are the best) Paul Cirone. Thanks to superagent Lou Pitt, who represents me so well in Hollywood. Love and thanks to Andy Marino, writer and musician. And love and a special thanks to Laura Leonard, who helps me in so many ways, from being a sounding board for book ideas to being a great girlfriend, which, as everybody knows, is the most valuable person in the world.

Thanks and love to my family, because they are my heart.

And love to my late father, who made me a Daddy's Girl, forever.