Invites you to
An Evening with Susan Dominus, David Lawrence, Jr. and Marilyn Holifield
Thursday, May 15, 2025 @ 6:30pm
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue Coral Gables, FL 33134
Books & Books and the Books & Books Literary Foundation are proud to present an evening with Susan Dominus discussing The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success (Crown, $30). The book introduces us to the Holifields, including Marilyn Holifield (JD 72), a Miami-based Holland & Knight partner and long-standing board member for the Harvard Club of Miai. What explains those rare families that boast multiple children who achieve extraordinary success? An award-winning New York Times journalist weaves story with science to explore the circumstances that set those families apart.
Harvard Connections to The Family Dynamic: Inside the Mysteries of Sibling Success
When Susan Dominus, an award-winning staff writer at the New York TImes Magazine, set out to write The Family Dynamic: Inside the Mysteries of Sibling Success, she wanted to understand what happened inside the homes of families where numerous siblings went on to achieve remarkable feats.
Along the way, she gained an appreciation for just how much elite institutions played a pivotal role in giving young people, including some from disadvantaged backgrounds, the opportunity, education, credentials, connections and conviction to launch themselves into positions of influence and power.
Not surprisingly, Harvard plays a significant role in the lives of at least one of the siblings in many of the families she prominently features, whose ranks include:
*The Holifields Marilyn Holifield was one of three young people to desegregate her high school in Tallahassee and went on to become the first Black female law partner at a major law firm in Florida, as well as a civic leader and arts champion in Miami. Bishop Holifield, her brother, served for many years as the general counsel of Florida A&M University and was crucial in resurrecting the FAMU College of Law, which had been closed in 1966 and transferred to Florida State University in response to desegregation mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He co-founded the Harvard Black Law Students Association. Both attended Harvard Law School.
*The Wojcickis Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of Youtube, attended Harvard as an undergraduate.
*The Colfax siblings Three of the four homeschooled Colfax siblings attended Harvard, before going onto prominent careers in civil rights and in the federal government.
*The Wassersteins Bruce Wasserstein, one of the most influential figures in finance of his time, attended Harvard Law School.
*The Paulus Siblings Diane Paulus, the Tony-award winning innovative director, attended Harvard as an undergraduate.
*The Murguias Ramon Murguia, a prominent Latino philanthropist who is a trustee at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, attended Harvard Law School.
The Family Dynamic: Inside the Mysteries of Sibling Success is being published by Penguin Random House on May 6th.
Susan Dominus has worked for The New York Times since 2007, first as a Metro columnist and then as staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. In 2018, she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for its reporting on workplace sexual harassment. She won a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and a Mychal Judge Heart of New York Award from the New York Press Club. She has studied as a fellow at the National Institutes of Health and Yale Law School. Her article about menopause in The New York Times Magazine won a National Magazine Award in 2024. She teaches journalism at Yale University.
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