Laurence Leamer

The author’s previous twelve books include his trilogy on the Kennedy family, The Kennedy Women, The Kennedy Men, and Sons of Camelot.  While there he worked in a factory in France and studied for a year at the Université de Besançon.  After graduation he joined the Peace Corps where he was stationed in a mountainous region in Nepal two days from a road. He was a Ford Fellow in International Development at the University of Oregon and an International Fellow at Columbia University.  He also was a Ford Research Fellow in Japan.

At the Columbia University School of Journalism, Leamer graduated second in his class and was named a Pulitzer International Fellow.  Upon graduation Leamer became an associate editor at Newsweek.  After leaving that position, he began writing magazine articles for many publications including Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, New York, Playboy, and the Washingtonian.  Leamer worked incognito in a West Virginia coal mine and covered the war in Bangladesh for Harper's.  That article won a citation from the Overseas Press Club for "Best Magazine Reporting."

Learner’s second book, Playing for Keeps in Washington, was named a notable book of the year by the New York Times.  Leamer moved to Peru where he lived two years writing a novel, Assignment, about the cocaine traffic.  Back in the United States he wrote Ascent: The Spiritual and Physical Quest of Willi Unsoeld, a book purchased by Robert Redford for a movie.  His book on the Reagans, Make-Believe: The Life of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, was his first major bestseller.  His bestseller, King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson, is the definitive portrait of the star and has been reissued in paperback.

Leamer is well regarded as an expert on the Kennedys, the Reagans and American politics.  This past year he has been interviewed for the NBC Nightly News, The New York Times, CNN, People, the New York Daily News, the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post, NPR, AP and other media.  He has been a consultant MSNBC and appears often on television. Read Less ^