Rowing Toward Eden

by Ted Morgan

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter engagingly recollects his youth as a French aristocrat, his years as a cub reporter and then as a foreign correspondent, with unfailingly astute and entertaining reflections

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 1981

About the author

Born Saint-Charles Armand Gabriel de Gramont*, he used the name Sanche de Gramont as his byline (and also on his books) during the early part of his career. He worked as a journalist for many years, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for local reporting written under pressure of a deadline. He first came to the United States in 1937, and became a naturalized citizen in February 1977, at which time he had his name legally changed to Ted Morgan. He was a National Book Award finalist in 1982 for Maugham: A Biography.


*His father was a military pilot who died in an accident in 1943, at which point he inherited the title "Comte de Gramont". He was properly styled "Saint-Charles Armand Gabriel, Comte de Gramont" until he renounced his title upon becoming a U.S. citizen in 1977.

Reviews

[Laurent Reinhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ted Morgan, born Sanche de Gramont, has led an eclectic life on both sides of the Atlantic and written on a wide variety of subjects. This collection, published when he was 49, "takes the reader to a number of places, among them France and Italy, Algeria and Morocco, and parts of black Africa. The eventual destination is America, which holds out the promise of Eden." (p viii). I enjoyed every single chapter, but especially related to "Rowing toward Eden," about his family's move from New York to Mammoth Lakes, California, and "Twenty-Fifth Reunion," about members of his graduating class at Yale. This book deserves far more recognition than it has received.

"Californians were the champions of the unexamined life. Consequently, conversation at Mammoth skirted the middle register. There was a jump from trivia to Great Issues of Western Civilization. . . After the third drink, someone would make the leap to great issues: Will man stumble into nuclear extinction or suffocate on his own garbage?" p228