Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards in the Gay Memoir/Biography category.
“An immensely resonant biography of one of the twentieth century’s unsung warriors. Klaus Mann was the first person to link racism and fascism with homophobia, thereby earning the hatred of both the left and right. His private history was equally astonishing, a family drama worthy of its own myth. He shared the sexual inclination of his father, Europe’s most famous writer, but what Thomas Mann could only express in brilliantly guarded prose, his son lived openly and with great heroism. Frederic Spotts’ indispensable book will make you rejoice, and also break your heart.”—Anthony Heilbut, author of Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature and The Fan Who Knew Too Much: The Secret Closets of American Culture
“Cursed Legacy is an accessible and compelling account of a figure once described as the spokesman for a younger generation. A German whose experiences transformed him into a European, Klaus Mann’s intellectual trajectory—as masterfully portrayed by Frederic Spotts—is at once fascinating and tragic. And all the time, in the background, there looms the brooding figure of the oppressive father, Thomas Mann.”—Paul Bishop, author of Carl Jung