About the Author

Nicholas Lemann has published five books, most recently Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (2006). He has written extensively for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Slate and American Heritage and has worked in documentary television with Blackside, Inc., Frontline, the Discovery Channel, and the BBC. Timothy Egan is a national enterprise reporter for The New York Times. In 2001, he was part of a team of reporters awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's series exploring racial attitudes across contemporary America. He is the author of four books, including The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (2006), which won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2006. Francine Prose is the author of 13 books of fiction, including the novel Blue Angel (2001), a finalist for the National Book Award and The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists they Inspired (2003). A recipient of numerous grants and awards, including Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, she was a Director's Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.