The Nearly-Plausible Life of Albert Haut

Remembering the grandfather I never knew.

I’m almost positive my grandfather was not a spy, but beyond that the details are sketchy. I know he was a news photographer, a chronicler of thrilling times in American history—the late 1920s to 1940s in Chicago and Detroit were his heyday. Family legend holds that he once photographed Al Capone at the wrong moment and had his camera smashed by a henchman; the next day, the story goes, he received an apology note from Capone himself, along with a new camera. In another gangland-era tale, Grandpa Al pinned open the eyes of the freshly gunned-down bank robber John Dillinger to make him appear alive for a photograph.