by Julie Klam
First published 2022
Julie Klam grew up hearing stories about the Morris sisters, her grandmother's cousins who seemed larger than life. Family legend claimed their parents moved from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles in the early 1900s so their father could direct movies. Their mother died giving birth in St. Louis, and their father abandoned them in an orphanage, never returning as promised. The sisters supposedly thrived in New York City, where one became a Wall Street trader who advised Franklin Roosevelt and another had an affair with J.P. Morgan. None married or had children. These tales of independent women captivated Klam for years. When she finally decided to research the Morris sisters, she discovered the family stories were fabrications. Her investigation reveals what actually happened to these women and forces her to reconsider everything she believed about them. The book chronicles Klam's detective work as she separates fact from fiction in her family history.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: detective-work, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Eastern Europe, Los Angeles, New York City, St. Louis
Period: Early 1900s
288 pages · Paperback · Riverhead Books