The Contender: Andrew Cuomo, a Biography - Hardcover

Michael Shnayerson became a contributing editor at Vanity Fair in 1986 and has since written more than 75 stories for the magazine, most recently reporting on the environmental hazards in the U.S., and investigating the likelihood of hacking into voting machines. He began his career in 1976 as a reporter at the Santa Fe Reporter and moved to Time as a staff writer in 1978. In 1980 he became editor in chief of Avenue. He has been a consulting editor at Condé Nast Traveler since its inception in 1987. Shnayerson is the author of Irwin Shaw: A Biography (Putnam, 1989) and The Car That Could: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle (Random House, 1996), which was named one of the best business books of 1996 by BusinessWeek; and he is the co-author, with Mark J. Plotkin, of The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria (Little, Brown, 2002) and co-author of Harry Belafonte's memoir My Song (Knopf, 2011).

A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Political Book of the Season

"[A] deeply researched account...While Shnayerson doesn't deny the governor his considerable talents and accomplishments - from his efforts as a young man tackling homelessness to his key role in the 2011 passage of same-sex marriage - the story is shadowed by what the author portrays as an often ruthless drive for advancement, and a mania for control."―Albany Times-Union

"In the first few pages of "The Contender," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is portrayed as a "brilliant tactician" and a presidential hopeful, even if not in 2016. But the tone of the unauthorized biography quickly changes...the book explores Mr. Cuomo's complicated relationship with his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, as well as his early days managing his father's campaigns, and then running his office in Albany after his father became governor..."―The New York Times

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo is known for going to great lengths to control his image and the information released about him. Interviews with people familiar with the governor's deliberations and others who worked on the three projects shed light on a literary chess game that played out over three years."―The Wall Street Journal

"Shnayerson is able to add color to the existing body of Cuomo portraiture...about how the governor (and governor's son) got to be the political figure he is today. Cuomo, in Shnayerson's telling, was the young campaign operative who shimmied up telephone poles in Queens in the dead of night to take down his father Mario's opponent's campaign posters, and would do just about anything if it meant winning."―Capitol New York

"A graceful writer with a gift for memorable descriptions...a dogged, resourceful reporter...with THE CONTENDER, Shnayerson provides a helpful [...] reminder that some of the best and most consequential political stories occur far away from the glare of Washington."―The New York Times Book Review