Roger Kahn is one of America's foremost sportswriters. After successful
seasons as a newspaperman and magazine writer, he burst onto the
national scene in 1972 with his memorable bestseller, The Boys of
Summer, a work that went beyond sports and captured the minds and hearts
of millions across the country. Now in his eighth decade, Kahn has again
written a book for the hearts and minds of his readers. Chronicling his
own life, Into My Own is Kahn's reflection on the eight people who
shaped him as a man, a father, and a writer. In this poignant
self-portrait, Kahn begins with his childhood in Brooklyn, reared on the
verses of Homer, Shakespeare, Housman, and Millay--a curriculum set by
his mother, and one that would influence his career with words. He
combined his intellectual upbringing with his inherent passion for
baseball, and began his sports writing career under the legendary
Stanley Woodward at the New York Herald Tribune. This lent Kahn the
opportunity to interview and develop friendships with Pee Wee Reese and
Jackie Robinson--men he knew and admired for reasons far beyond their
baseball abilities.
Kahn's writing is by no means limited to his sports coverage, and on the
political front he devotes chapters to Eugene McCarthy and Barry
Goldwater, whom he interviewed for the Saturday Evening Post--two
diverse men in a turbulent era who championed their distinct versions of
idealism. The Post had earlier sent Kahn to interview poet Robert Frost
at his home in Vermont, a rare opportunity for any journalist, and one
that resulted in the development of a marked friendship between two men
of words. Perhaps most touching is his account, straightforward but a
brim with love, of the life and death--at twenty-three--of his
scholar-athlete son, Roger Laurence Kahn. Into My Own is the touching
memoir of an unassuming man, whose great love of baseball and literature
led him into extraordinary experiences, opportunities, and friendships.
Even amidst great family tragedy and personal difficulty, Kahn has
prevailed--amongst poets, writers, politicians, and most of all,
ballplayers.
