The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty [Hardcover]

A Keen, sophisticated and appealing &. Seabrook brings the ease and command of New Yorker-style reportage to bear on his own family. Its a shocking but juicy story, one he tells by harnessing his gift for quietly observing details that lesser writers would miss and then deploying them with the energy of a man who has skin in the game &. Captivating reading. John Seabrook wryly details the rise and falland Oedipal strugglesof his familys farming empire& This is a tremendous tale. Who knew that a family empire built on frozen vegetables could produce a tale worthy of Faulkner&. as rich a tale about a troubled dynastyand father-son relationshipsas you will read this year. A great American tragedy & with shades of Shakespeares King Lear. The Spinach King makes for juicy (if at times gossipy) readingwho doesnt enjoy seeing a house of cards fall? What happens when a fearless investigative reporter turns his sights on his own family? In John Seabrooks case, the answer is magic. As sweeping in its scope as a great novel, An intergenerational saga with drama to rival John Seabrooks patrimony was an agricultural empire, or at least the story of it. Like all empires, it was built by brute force. John Seabrook pulls no punches in detailing his forebears unsavory deeds. Like The story of the family Seabrook is extraordinary. Raw ambition gets it rolling in the unprepossessing farmlands of New Jersey. It becomes a tour of the American 20th century via frozen vegetables  both world wars, the Depression, labor struggles, the Klan. John Seabrook, the scion who became a writer, finds the perfect measured tone, leavened by irony and belly laughs, for his weird saga. He digs up secrets, scandals, and production quotas, and ends by bringing it all uncomfortably close to home.