A good American family : the Red Scare and my father

Title:

Author:

Maraniss, David, author.

Personal Author:

Maraniss, David, author.

ISBN:

9781501178375

Edition:

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

Physical Description:

416 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Contents:

Part one: Watching one another. The imperfect S ; In from the cold ; Outside the gate ; Red menace ; Wheelman wood ; "Negro, not niggra" ; A new world coming ; A brief Spanish Inquisition ; The runner ; Named ; Ace and Mary ; Fear and loathing -- Part two: In a time of war. Something in the wind ; Legless ; Know your men ; Why I fight ; In the blood ; The power of America -- Part three: Trials and tribulations. The Virginian ; Foley Square ; Committee men ; A good American family ; March 12, 1952 ; The whole pattern of a life ; Witches or traitors -- Part four: Five years. American wanderers ; Epilogue: Second acts.

Abstract:

"A personal story of the author's father's involvement in HUAC that offers a rich portrait of McCarthy era America"-- Provided by publisher.

"In a riveting book with powerful resonance today, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the pervasive fear and paranoia that gripped America during the Red Scare of the 1950s through the chilling yet reaffirming story of his family's ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, David's 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 the end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father's story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital twentieth-century issues of race, fascism, communism, democracy, and First-Amendment freedoms. A grandmother spy who worked for the FBI; a committee chairman who once belonged to the Ku Klux Klan; an uncle who joined the International Brigade to fight against Franco in Spain; a black civil liberties lawyer who equated defending American communists with the fight for black equality; a famous playwright who paved the way for Elliott from Brooklyn to radical politics at the University of Michigan; a disabled veteran on HUAC who later came to regard that period as "days of shame"--these are among the compelling characters we encounter along Elliott's unforgettable journey. [This book] powerfully evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is an unsparing yet moving tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times."--Dust jacket.

Personal Subject:

Maraniss, David-Family.

Maraniss, Elliott, 1918-2004.

Corporate Subject:

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities.

Subject Term:

Anti-communist movements -- History -- 20th century.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Politics and government -- 1945-1953.

Genre:

Biographies.

Summary:

"A personal story of the author's father's involvement in HUAC that offers a rich portrait of McCarthy era America"--

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	320.97 M311	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR and The Washington Post .

In a riveting book with powerful resonance today, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the pervasive fear and paranoia that gripped America during the Red Scare of the 1950s through the chilling yet affirming story of his family's ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication.

Elliott Maraniss, David's 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 father's story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital twentieth-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. A Good American Family powerfully evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is an unsparing yet moving tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist places his father at the center of an absorbing history of American political and cultural life in the 1940s and '50s.Elliott Maraniss was a journalist and newspaper editor from the time he was a student stringer for the New York Times to his last executive position at Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. Famed Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee called him "a great editor." Maraniss (Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story, 2015, etc.), an associate editor at the Washington Post, praises his father as "inspirational, level-headed, and instinctive about a good story." His long career, though, was derailed and undermined by the Red Scare. In 1952, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee after an informant named him as a communist. Elliott attested to his patriotism: He had enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor and rose to become a captain, leading an all-black companythe military was segregatedand receiving an honorable discharge. Nevertheless, HUAC's accusations were not unfounded: Elliott, along with his wife and brother-in-law, had been members of the Communist Party, dissenters, the author writes, "who believed the nation had not lived up to its founding ideals in terms of race and equality." Frustrated, "they latched onto a false promise and for too long blinded themselves to the repressive totalitarian reality of communism in the Soviet Union." Drawing on considerable archival sources, family letters, and his father's articles, essays, and editorials, Maraniss creates a sensitive portrait of a man who was "young and brilliant and searching for meaning"; whose leftist political perspective was never at odds with his patriotism; and whose optimism never failed him as he confronted considerable professional obstacles. FBI investigations led to his being fired repeatedly. He uprooted his family to five different cities in the five years after his HUAC appearance until he landed a job in Madison and, with a changing political climate, finally was free of persecution.A cleareyed, highly personal view of a dark chapter in American history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.