“Tom Shroder set out to understand the life of his once-famous grandfather, best-selling author MacKinlay Kantor. But what started as an attempt to rescue an illustrious ancestor from obscurity turns into a far more intimate and compelling journey into the meaning of fame, family, creativity and the things we carry from childhood to the grave. Shroder introduces us to many fascinating characters—from Kantor himself, to Ernest Hemingway, to Shroder’s larcenous great-grandfather. In the end, however, the character whom Shroder truly discovers is himself, a writer who comes to cherish just how much he owes the grandfather he never really knew.”
—Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend