The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New Yorkâs Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is âa thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nationâ (David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planetâs final frontier?
Everyone wanted in on the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planningâs every stage. And then, the night before the expeditionâs flagship set off, Billy Gawronskiâa mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery businessâjumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the soda shops of New Yorkâs Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarcticaâs blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro ânarrates this period piece with gustoâ (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the ânovelisticâ (The New Yorker) and unforgettable voyage of a plucky young stowaway who became a Roaring Twenties celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps era.