This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

New Yorker staff writer John Seabrook's new book is about a family business.

Not a mom-and-pop store, but a huge operation run by a ruthless patriarch. The patriarch is getting older. He's beginning to fail. But he can't

stand the idea of losing his hold on power, especially to the children who stand to take control

and inherit the business.

This might put you in mind of succession, HBO's drama,

that some critics have called one of the best TV programs of all time.

It's even drawn comparisons to King Lear.

But the story that John Seabrook tells is about another family,

a real one, the Seabrooks of Seabrook, New Jersey.

Their frozen food empire was a huge presence in the flat, fertile farmland of South Jersey.

Well, at Seabrook farms, we too grow vegetables right outside the door. Cook and freeze them on the

spot. You just boil them bag and all all, and enjoy that homegrown taste again.

And John has written about the Seabrook business, his family, and its intersection with American history, in his terrific new book, The Spinich King.

So, now, John, to start at the end of the story, you were a kid when a huge break happened

between your father and your grandfather, and your dad was summarily ousted from the family

business.

How much did you know about what was going on when you were growing up?

It actually occurred the year I was born, and so I kind of grew up in this kind of rubble of this

destroyed relationship, but I never really understood what caused the explosion. So my grandfather

founded Seabrook Farms, which was the frozen vegetable business, and it became a big industry. At its height, it froze a third of all of the

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