A Washington Post best nonfiction book pick of 2021 It is biography as an expression of love.
The New York TimesNew York Times bestselling author Julie Klam s funny and moving story of the
Morris sisters distant relations with mysterious pasts. Ever since she was young Julie Klam
has been fascinated by the Morris sisters cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore
early in the twentieth century the sisters parents decided to move the family from Eastern
Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way their pregnant
mother went into labor in St. Louis where the baby was born and where their mother died. The
father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in
California a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall
Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City none
of them married or had children and one even had an affair with J. P. Morgan. The stories of
these independent women intrigued Klam but as she delved into them to learn more she realized
that the tales were almost completely untrue. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the
revealing account of what Klam discovered about her family and herself as she dug into the
past. The deeper she went into the lives of the Morris sisters the slipperier their stories
became. And the more questions she had about what actually happened to them the more her
opinion of them evolved. Part memoir and part confessional and told with the wit and honesty
that are hallmarks of Klam s books The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the fascinating and
funny true story of one writer s journey into her family s past the truths she brings to light
and what she learns about herself along the way.