Laurence Leamer biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Laurence Leamer
Photo Credit: Author Grace

Laurence Leamer

Laurence Leamer Biography

Laurence Leamer is a best-selling author and journalist. Leamer is a former Ford Fellow in International Development at the University of Oregon and a former International Fellow at Columbia University. He is regarded as an expert on the Kennedy family and has appeared in numerous media outlets discussing American politics. Leamer has also written best-selling biographies of other American icons, including Johnny Carson, the Reagan family, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Price of Justice: A True Story of Corruption and Greed in Coal Country (2013) is his most recent work

Leamer was on the staff at Newsweek, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Playboy, and many other publications. He lives in Palm Beach and Washington, D.C.

Laurence Leamer's website

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Interview

Laurence Leamer answers questions about his books on the Kennedy family, discusses some of the surprising facts that he uncovered, and talks about the literature that has most influenced his own writing.

This is your second book chronicling the Kennedy family, the first being the bestselling The Kennedy Women. What do you think it is that draws you, and for that matter, the entire country, to the story of the Kennedy family?
I don't think what draws me to this subject is much different than what draws most people. It's one of the most dramatic, emotionally powerful stories in American life. It's a story of a great family at a time when we struggle over the meaning of family. It's not mere happenstance that The Godfather saga arrived at the same time as an immense, renewed fascination with the story of the Kennedys. Beyond that, I like to write books that I would read, and I would read The Kennedy Men. I want to learn something from a book, and I want to write a book that people will feel has taught them valuable things.

In all of your extensive research on the Kennedy family, were there any particular facts that you discovered that came as a complete surprise?
There are so many things, but there is one overwhelming fact when you look at the same themes going on generation after generation: marry carefully, very carefully. Blood matters immensely. For instance, when Robert Kennedy married Ethel ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Laurence Leamer at BookBrowse
The Lynching jacket The Price of Justice jacket The Kennedy Men jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Laurence Leamer but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Sarah Bradford

    Sarah Bradford

    Educated at St. Mary’s Convent, Shaftesbury Dorset and Oxford, Sarah Bradford is a historian and biographer who has travelled extensively, living in the West Indies, Portugal and Italy. She speaks four languages which ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Kennedy Men

    Try:
    America's Queen
    by Sarah Bradford

  • Robert A. Caro

    Robert A. Caro

    For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and Best ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Kennedy Men

    Try:
    Master of the Senate
    by Robert A. Caro

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