grist for the mill

USATODAY.com - Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter sheds life of secrecy: "'I wasn't in turmoil,' she says, because she accepted as a political necessity her father's refusal to acknowledge her publicly. She says the memoir, which features lengthy conversations she had with Thurmond, is partly the interpretation of her co-author, William Stadiem.
Stadiem, the author of best sellers on Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, says it was difficult for her to open up. He says he would 'cross-examine' her after interviewing her children, college classmates, friends and hundreds of people in South Carolina. Stadiem says that after the Thurmond family acknowledged her in 2003, she became less candid because she didn't want to say anything to offend her half-siblings or stepmother. 'She wants very much to be accepted by her newly discovered white family,' he adds."