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My name is Taffy Brodesser Achner, and I'm a staff writer for the New York Times magazine.
I grew up in Brooklyn, but I spent the first few years of my life on Long island, where my father was raised.
My father had this childhood friend named Jack Tysch, and as adults, they actually work together at the steel fabrication company owned by Jack's family.
Growing up, I knew Jack as this regular suburban businessman, extraordinarily punctual, a consummate family man.
He and his wife were incredible art collectors.
But in 1974, the year before I was born, Jack actually made headlines as the victim of an unimaginable crime.
He was kidnapped from his driveway in the suburbs of Long island, dragged off at gunpoint, and held in a closet for days, away from his wife and his young children.
After a week in captivity, he was ransomed back to his family for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He made it out healthy and safe, and by all outward appearances, he moved on.
I grew up very aware of Jack's story.
As a child, I would wonder what it was like to be rich enough to be kidnapped.
But as time went by and I developed empathy and compassion at all the right stages, I came to understand that someone I knew and cared about had been the victim of a completely violent crime.
And then recently, as I was working on my novel, Long Island Compromise, which just came out, a kidnapping kept finding its way into the plot.