About The Author

Sally had a foundational high school education and, by her own account, a limited vocabulary at that point in her life. I encouraged her to read challenging authors, to not settle for the comfortable or the familiar. After a period of quiet consideration, she came to me and asked if I would guide her. I handed her Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” My reasoning was that it would challenge her to build vocabulary and sharpen her thinking, and because she had always carried a deep, genuine interest in politics. That book was followed by Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” and from there she simply took off.

She moved through politics and American history with particular intensity, reading Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Kennedy, Bob Woodward, John Teeple, and many others. Her method was disciplined and entirely her own. She would write down every word she had not encountered before, along with its meaning, and post that list somewhere she could see it during her morning exercise routine. She would memorize each word and its definition before beginning the next list. This continued for years. By my estimate, she read through hundreds and perhaps over a thousand scholarly works covering American history, ancient history, politics, and character.

When the question of how to write arose, I recommended writer workshops at various universities. She reviewed the syllabuses carefully, concluded that they all used Ernest Hemingway as the primary example of style, and, though she had no great fondness for fiction, read enough of Hemingway to understand the model before she began to write in her own voice. She found that voice. It was warm, precise, curious, and entirely her own.

As for travel, when I first met Sally, her travels had consisted of Route 66 from Iowa to California and sailing trips to Hawaii. She had been hindered from birth by debilitating arthritis, rickets, and crossed eyes. She had her eyes surgically straightened before puberty, but she saw double for the rest of her life. She would say to me, “I am more fortunate than you are. You only see one of me, but I get to see two of you.” When I suggested, with more than a little trepidation, that we try some international travel together, her response was characteristic of everything she was. As she writes in the book: “I will be hot breath on the windows.” That response, that eagerness, that leaning forward into the unknown, is the genesis of this book. The best summary of who Sally was is contained in William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus.” She was, in every sense, the master of her fate and the captain of her soul.