In this unauthorised biography, the most authoritative ever written about the controversial Supreme Court Justice, Andrew Peyton Thomas (no relation) explores Clarence Thomas’ remarkable rise from a childhood of poverty in segregated Georgia to the nation’s highest court. In his attempt to understand what drives the elusive and sometimes enigmatic Justice, the author located and conducted the first-ever interview with Clarence Thomas’ father, as well as interviews with his mother, sister, and other relatives and friends. He follows Thomas up from Jim Crow and traces the important decisions of his youth – why he chose not to become a Catholic priest, why he engaged in radical protests as a college student. We see Clarence Thomas in the full as a young lawyer in Missouri and then as a rising star in Washington. This book peels away all the cliches about its subject in giving us a vivid and balanced account of a remarkable American life.