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Audiobook13 hours
The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family
Written by Tom Shroder
Narrated by Barry Press
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About this audiobook
A veteran of the Washington Post and Miami Herald, Tom Shroder has made a career of investigative journalism and human-interest stories. His most fascinating reporting, however, comes from within his own family: Shroder's grandfather, MacKinlay Kantor, was the world-famous author of Andersonville, the seminal novel of the Civil War. As a child, Shroder was in awe of the larger-than-life character. Kantor's friends included Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandberg, Gregory Peck, and James Cagney. He wrote the novel Glory for Me, which became the multi-Oscar-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives. Kantor also suffered from alcoholism, an outsized ego, and an overbearing, abusive, and publicly embarrassing personality where his family was concerned; he blew through a small fortune in his lifetime, dying nearly destitute and alone. In The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived, Shroder revisits the past-Kantor's upbringing, his early life, and career trajectory-and writes not just the life story of one man but a meditation on fame, family secrets, and legacies, and what is remembered after we are gone.
Author
Tom Shroder
Tom Shroder was an editor and writer at The Washington Post from 1999 to 2009. Under his stewardship, The Washington Post Magazine won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in both 2008 and 2010. He is the author of the nonfiction bestseller Old Souls. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.
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