The Spinach King
The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
The Spinach King
Pre-order for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dion Graham
-
By:
-
John Seabrook
About this listen
The riveting saga of the Seabrook Family, by one of the New Yorker's most acclaimed storytellers.
The patriarch, C. F. Seabrook, was hailed as the "Henry Ford of Agriculture." His son Jack, a keen businessman, was poised to take over what Life called "the biggest vegetable factory on earth." But the carefully cultivated facade—glamorous outings by horse-drawn carriage, hidden wine cellars, and movie star girlfriends—hid dark secrets that led to the implosion of the family business.
At the heart of the narrative is a multi-generational succession battle. It's a tale of family secrets and Swiss bank accounts, of half-truths, of hatred and passion—and lots and lots of liquor. The Seabrooks' colorful legal and moral failings took place amid the trappings of extraordinary privilege. But the story of where that money came from is not so pretty.
A compelling tale of class and privilege, betrayal and revenge three decades in the making, The Spinach King explores the author's complicated family legacy and the dark corners of the American Dream.
©2025 John Seabrook (P)2025 Highbridge AudioPeople who viewed this also viewed...
-
When It All Burns
- Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
- By: Jordan Thomas
- Narrated by: Jordan Thomas
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Smart, Authentic and Needed
- By Watch Hill on 06-03-25
By: Jordan Thomas
-
Ballistic
- The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance
- By: Henry Abbott
- Narrated by: Andrew Joseph Perez
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Blending cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling, award-winning data journalist and competitive amateur athlete Henry Abbott reveals that we are on the cusp of a new era in sports medicine, built around the science of ballistic movements—leaping and landing—and the unique fingerprint of your body's physics. Abbott's inspiring narrative tells the story of sports scientist Dr. Marcus Elliott and the Peak Performance Project (P3), who use technology to study how athletes move and why they get hurt.
By: Henry Abbott
-
Harmattan Season
- A Novel
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn’t need much—least of all trouble—but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he’d rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds.
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
We Tell Ourselves Stories
- Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine
- By: Alissa Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Alissa Wilkinson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
In this cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would come to unravel over the course of her career. But out west, show business beckoned.
By: Alissa Wilkinson
-
Strangers in the Land
- Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
- By: Michael Luo
- Narrated by: Eric Yang
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as “strangers in the land.” Only in 1965 did America’s gates swing open to people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writer’s style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Do not pass this up
- By LeeAnna on 06-08-25
By: Michael Luo
-
The Haves and Have-Yachts
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4
The ultrarich hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. Here, Evan Osnos’s incisive reportage yields an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions driving this new Gilded Age, in which superyachts, luxury bunkers, elite tax dodges, and a torrent of political donations bespeak staggering disparities of wealth and power. With deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about the indulgences, incentives, and psychological distortions that define our economic age.
By: Evan Osnos
-
When It All Burns
- Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
- By: Jordan Thomas
- Narrated by: Jordan Thomas
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Smart, Authentic and Needed
- By Watch Hill on 06-03-25
By: Jordan Thomas
-
Ballistic
- The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance
- By: Henry Abbott
- Narrated by: Andrew Joseph Perez
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Blending cutting-edge science with gripping storytelling, award-winning data journalist and competitive amateur athlete Henry Abbott reveals that we are on the cusp of a new era in sports medicine, built around the science of ballistic movements—leaping and landing—and the unique fingerprint of your body's physics. Abbott's inspiring narrative tells the story of sports scientist Dr. Marcus Elliott and the Peak Performance Project (P3), who use technology to study how athletes move and why they get hurt.
By: Henry Abbott
-
Harmattan Season
- A Novel
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn’t need much—least of all trouble—but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he’d rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds.
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
We Tell Ourselves Stories
- Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine
- By: Alissa Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Alissa Wilkinson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
In this cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would come to unravel over the course of her career. But out west, show business beckoned.
By: Alissa Wilkinson
-
Strangers in the Land
- Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
- By: Michael Luo
- Narrated by: Eric Yang
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as “strangers in the land.” Only in 1965 did America’s gates swing open to people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writer’s style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Do not pass this up
- By LeeAnna on 06-08-25
By: Michael Luo
-
The Haves and Have-Yachts
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4
The ultrarich hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. Here, Evan Osnos’s incisive reportage yields an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions driving this new Gilded Age, in which superyachts, luxury bunkers, elite tax dodges, and a torrent of political donations bespeak staggering disparities of wealth and power. With deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about the indulgences, incentives, and psychological distortions that define our economic age.
By: Evan Osnos