The Innovators is a rewarding chronicle of flesh-and-blood 20th century world citizens who became leaders in their professions, reputable and otherwise. Nash's probing interviews and profiles give in-depth psychological portraits of Alfred Hitchcock, Saul Bellow, Ben Hecht, Willie "the Actor" Sutton, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Yousuf Karsh, William Faulkner, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Rich in anecdote and background, these telling, often surprising, sometimes startling studies show a number of sides of their larger-than-life subjects seldom seen before—their humors, their fears, their anger, their pettiness, their nobility, their defeats—in short their lives. He presents the human side of the tastemakers, trendsetters, and even criminals; painting the portraits of people whose lives are as colorful and unconventional as their work.