Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author and âone of our most talented biographers and historiansâ (The New York Times) David Maraniss delivers a âthoughtful, poignant, and historically valuable story of the Red Scare of the 1950sâ (The Wall Street Journal) through the chilling yet affirming story of his familyâs ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication.
Elliott Maraniss, Davidâs father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact.
In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his fatherâs story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital 20th-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. âRemarkably balanced, forthright, and unwavering in its search for the truthâ (The New York Times), A Good American Family evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is âclear-eyed and empatheticâ (Publishers Weekly, starred review) tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.