Taylor, Nick 1945–

PERSONAL:

Born November 21, 1945, in Asheville, NC; son of John Puleston Wotton (a surveyor and drafter) and Clare Eleanor (a newspaper reporter) Taylor; married Charlotte Wise, 1969 (divorced, 1974); married Barbara Nevins (a television reporter), August 26, 1983. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Western Carolina University, B.A., 1967. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Episcopalian. Hobbies and other interests: Sailing, tennis, travel, reading, listening.

ADDRESSES:

Office—fax: 212-206-8543. Agent—Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates, 445 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022-2606.

CAREER:

Newspaper and television reporter in Shelby, NC, Charlotte, NC, Dayton, OH, and Atlanta, GA, between 1967 and 1976; campaign worker for Jimmy Carter and for Georgia politician John Lewis, 1976-80; writer, 1981—.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild, Authors League of America, PEN American Center.

WRITINGS:

Bass Wars: A Story of Fishing Fame and Fortune, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 1987.

Sins of the Father: The True Story of a Family Running from the Mob, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

A Necessary End, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Yaron Svoray) In Hitler's Shadow: An Israeli's Amazing Journey inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Sidney J. Winawer) Healing Lessons, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1998.

(With John Glenn) John Glenn: A Memoir, Bantam (New York, NY), 1999.

LASER: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-year Patent War, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2000.

American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put the Nation to Work, Bantam (New York, NY), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

"Listening is what a nonfiction writer does," Nick Taylor once told CA. The author of several nonfiction books, Taylor explained that a writer "has to listen well, not only for the information that's necessary to the book, but for what lies underneath it, the hope and ambition, sorrow and disappointment, pain and joy that make characters human and bring them alive." In composing Sins of the Father: The True Story of a Family Running from the Mob, Taylor called upon this ability to deliver the story of Salvatore Polisi, a drug dealer who entered a federal witness-protection program to avoid a prison sentence. Polisi, a career criminal, was described by A.M. Pyle in the Chicago Tribune as "a horrible little man" who nonetheless harbors a "passionate pride" for his athletic sons. It was Polisi's commitment to his family that compelled him to attempt an honest life—buying a go-kart course in upstate New York—but he eventually succumbed to the lucrative temptation of drug dealing. Polisi's entry into the witness-protection program is the major underpinning of Sins of the Father. Pyle commented in the Chicago Tribune that "it is Taylor's depiction of the effect of that decision that is the book's great strength. For Polisi's choice, beyond making him a marked man among his old criminal associates, placed his entire family in a ghastly limbo."

Taylor's own commitment to family is reflected in his writing. He once told CA that "the hardest listening I have done was when my parents were confined to nursing homes during the final months of their lives. It's a time recounted in A Necessary End, a memoir of my parents in their last years, of their deaths, and of my relationship with them during this time. This required patience and compassion, for which I was rewarded with far richer memories of my parents than I could have imagined. As I try to find in nonfiction an essence beyond reportage, the business of listening seems ever more essential."

Taylor later added: "There has never been a more important time to understand the history of our country. I wanted to write about the Works Progress Administration (WPA) because it was a big story and left an enduring legacy. But the more I learned, the more I realized that today's politics echo the 1930s—one side serving the interests of business, the other focusing on the needs of working people. The WPA is an example of the great things that can happen when ordinary people are given the means to face an extraordinary challenge. They rebuilt America during the dark days of the Depression and then, on the eve of World War II, helped rebuild the military machine that had fallen into tatters. The WPA, created out of desperation, became one of the country's finest moments."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1998, William Beatty, review of Healing Lessons, p. 1403; October 1, 1999, Gilbert Taylor, review of John Glenn: A Memoir, p. 306; June 1, 2000, Ted Hipple, review of John Glenn, p. 1921; November 1, 2000, Vanessa Bush, review of LASER: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-year Patent War, p. 508.

Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1989, A.M. Pyle, review of Sins of the Father: The True Story of a Family Running from the Mob; November 12, 2000, review of LASER.

Christian Century, October 6, 1993, Rochelle A. Stackhouse, review of Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church, p. 951.

Library Journal, June 15, 1998, Kristine Benishek, review of Healing Lessons, p. 101; November 15, 1999, Thomas J. Frieling, review of John Glenn, p. 77.

New York Times Book Review, July 5, 1998, Abraham Verghese, review of Healing Lessons, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, January 11, 1993, review of Ordinary Miracles, p. 45; January 31, 1994, review of A Necessary End, p. 72; August 15, 1994, review of In Hitler's Shadow: An Israeli's Amazing Journey inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement, p. 80; March 30, 1998, review of Healing Lessons, p. 58; October 25, 1999, review of John Glenn, p. 58; January 3, 2000, review of John Glenn, p. 40; October 30, 2000, review of LASER, p. 60.