I would be remiss if I didn’t first thank the Library of Congress, its curators and the staff of the manuscript reading room for storing, indexing, and preserving my grandfather’s papers with such uniform professionalism. I also want to thank my cousins Lydia Whitney and Melissa Pop-Lazarova, my brother Michael, and my sister Susan, my coheirs to my grandfather’s literary estate, for blessing, encouraging, and actively assisting in this project. I need to add a special note of gratitude to my sister for having the foresight to insist on keeping and storing multiple bins filled with hundreds of letters, files, and photographs when I might have, in the name of decluttering, consigned them to oblivion. Not only did she go to the trouble of boxing and storing the material, but she also graciously hosted me when I finally recognized them for the treasures they were.
Exploring the entirety of a life that ended forty years ago is a daunting project. I was lucky to have a leg up thanks to the poetic 1988 memoir My Father’s Voice, written by my late uncle, Tim Kantor, also a gifted photographer whose portrait of my grandfather and a five-year-old me graces the frontispiece of this book. Paul Juhl’s meticulously researched volume MacKinlay Kantor’s Webster City, Iowa was also a great resource.
I also want to thank April Witt for not only taking my photo for the book jacket but reading an early draft of the book and offering great encouragement, as did my old friend David Klein, my beautiful, brainy (and long-suffering wife), Lisa Shroder, and my daughter, Jessica Shroder. And then there’s Gene Weingarten, who got me started on the whole shebang with a simple request: “Write me one paragraph on what you know about your grandfather.”
I owe a special debt of gratitude to the city and the people of Webster City, Iowa, for their loving efforts to keep my grandfather’s memory alive, and specifically to Paul Juhl, Nancy Kayser, and Angie Martin-Schwarze, who showed me I was a Midwesterner after all, and proud of it.
Finally, this book never would have happened if my publisher, David Rosenthal, hadn’t instantly seen the potential in a casual conversation over Mexican food, and it would not have been the book it is without the inspired advice and direction of my editor, Sarah Hochman. Last and certainly not least, I am forever indebted to my dear friend and agent, Gail Ross, without whose understanding, support, and superlative instincts my career would almost certainly be moribund.