John Aloysius Farrell is the author of RICHARD NIXON: The Life, a biography of that most enigmatic 37th president of the United States.

His previous books are CLARENCE DARROW: Attorney for the Damned, a biography of America’s greatest defense attorney, and of TIP O'NEILL AND THE DEMOCRATIC CENTURY, the definitive account of House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. and his times.

Farrell is an American journalist and author. He is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, after a prize-winning career as a newspaperman, most notably at The Denver Post and The Boston Globe, where he worked as White House correspondent and served on the vaunted Spotlight team.

His biography of Clarence Darrow was awarded the Los Angeles Times book prize for the best biography of 2011, and won critical praise from reviewers and fellow writers.

Books by John A. Farrell

Richard Nixon: The Life

by John A. Farrell - Biography, History, Nonfiction, Politics

RICHARD NIXON opens with young Navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now-legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes quickly gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. It is a stunning overture to John A. Farrell's magisterial portrait of a man who embodied postwar American cynicism.

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned

by John A. Farrell - Biography, Nonfiction

John A. Farrell draws on previously unpublished correspondence and memoirs to offer a candid account of America’s legendary defense attorney, touching on Clarence Darrow’s divorce, affairs and disastrous finances; a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases; and explosive revelations of shady tactics he used in his own trial for bribery.