The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New Yorkās Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is āa thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nationā (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 planetās 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 planningās every stage. And then, the night before the expeditionās flagship set off, Billy Gawronskiāa mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery businessājumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the soda shops of New Yorkās Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarcticaās blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro ānarrates this period piece with gustoā (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the ānovelisticā (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.