Keen On

EPISODE 1927: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Abbot Kahler, author of WHERE YOU END, about writing unnerving literature for unnerving timesAbbott Kahler (formerly Karen Abbott) is the author of four New York Times bestselling works of narrative nonfiction. A search for an ancestor who went missing in 1905 led her to write Sin in the Second City, which tells the true story of two sisters who ran the world’s most famous brothel and the nationwide battle to shut them down. Her interest in Gypsy Rose Lee, the subject of American Rose, stems from stories her grandmother shared about the ecdysiast’s performances in the 1930s and 40s. Liar Temptress Soldier Spy was inspired by a six-year stint in Atlanta, where the ghosts of the Civil War still seem omnipresent. The HBO show Boardwalk Empire introduced her to bootlegger George Remus, the subject of The Ghosts of Eden Park and a character much more fascinating than Al Capone. Then Came the Devil, her next nonfiction book, is by far the most outrageous story she