Steve Kluger

Watch the talk:

Download the “Where I Grew Up” iBook

STEVE KLUGER shook hands with Lucille Ball when he was 12.  He’s since lived a few more decades, but nothing much registered after that.

Kluger is a novelist and playwright who grew up during the Sixties with only two heroes: Tom Seaver and Ethel Merman.  Few were able to grasp the concept.  A veteran of Casablanca and a graduate of The Graduate, he has written extensively on subjects as far-ranging as World War II, rock and roll, and the Titanic, and as close to the heart as baseball and the Boston Red Sox (which frequently have nothing to do with one another).  Doubtless due to the fact that he’s a card-carrying Baby Boomer whose entire existence was shaped by the lyrics to Abbey Road, Workingman’s Dead, and Annie Get Your Gun(his first spoken words, in fact, were actually stolen from The Pajama Game), he’s also forged a somewhat singular path as a civil rights advocate, campaigning for a “Save Fenway Park” initiative (which qualifies as a civil right if you’re a Red Sox fan), counseling gay teenagers, and—on behalf of Japanese American internment redress—lobbying the Department of the Interior to restore the baseball diamond at the Manzanar National Historic Site.  Meanwhile, he’s donated half of his spare time to organizations such as Lambda Legal, GLSEN, and Models of Pride, and gives the rest of it to his nephews and nieces: Emily, Noah, Bridgette, Audrey, Elisa, Paloma, Logan, Evan, and Robbie— the nine kids who own his heart.

He lives in Boston, Massachusetts—the only city in the world.