“George Putnam was not a nice guy. Amelia Earhart, however, was a terrific person. The thing is, you don’t get women going to the moon, which is happening, we don’t get so many of the women aviators in this world, without George Putnam, a Machiavellian narcissist who did things like fake his own kidnapping, pretend that his publishing house was being blown up by fascists, would make phone calls in his own voice pretending to be someone that he wasn’t — I don’t know if that sounds familiar? But at the same time, Amelia Earhart knew exactly who he was when she married him, and that makes me really interested in Amelia Earhart.”Laurie Gwen Shapiro, the author of The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon, joins Harry Siegel and Amy Sohn in the latest episode of LIT NYC to discuss what they don’t tell you in the children’s books about the life and death of the world’s most famous female flier. Amelia Earhart and George Palmer Putnam Credit: Courtesy of Laurie Gwen Shapiro