The Memory of All That

The Memory of All That (2011) by Katharine Weber. The author's grandmother, Kay Swift, had a 10-year love affair with composer George Gershwin in the 1920s and '30s, a fact which forms the core of this book. Also important to the story is Weber's relationship with her strange father, Sidney Kaufman, a movie backer and producer who, in Weber's words, lost a dime of his wife's fortune for every nickel he made in his career. Kaufman was a notorious womanizer who made propaganda and training films for the OSS during World War II, and who produced the first movie with smells, a flop that he named Aromarama. The Memory of All That is a colorful, evocative and occasionally funny look at an eccentric and highly influential American family. I liked it very much. Grade: B+