A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father

by David Maraniss

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Politics, Memoir, American History, Biography Memoir

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2019

About the author

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and the author of four critically acclaimed and bestselling books, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton, They Marched Into Sunlight War and Peace, Vietnam and America October 1967, and Clemente The Passion and Grace of Baseballs Last Hero. He is also the author of The Clinton Enigma and coauthor of The Prince of Tennessee: Al Gore Meets His Fate and "Tell Newt to Shut Up!"

David is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Pulitzer for national reporting in 1993 for his newspaper coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He has won several other notable awards for achievements in journalism, including the George Polk Award, the Dirksen Prize for Congressional Reporting, the ASNE Laventhol Prize for Deadline Writing, the Hancock Prize for Financial Writing, the Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Frankfort Book Prize, the Eagleton Book Prize, the Ambassador Book Prize, and Latino Book Prize.
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Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

In the years between my father's retirement and his recovery of grief over the early loss of my mother, he bought an electric typewriter and wrote his memoirs. Dad took his pages to the office supply store and printed and bound them to distribute among his family and friends. Dad was very proud to know people enjoyed reading about his childhood growing up during the Depression in a changing world, his father's time as a volunteer fireman and building a gas station, his adventures in scouting and camping along the Niagara River, meeting my mother, and running the family business after his father's death until our move to Detroit where he hoped to secure a job in the auto industry.

I shared these memories on my blog and on Facebook, attracting lots of readers from our hometown. But there was much missing between these stories. He wrote little about his marriage and us kids. And stories that he told me that were more personal, or that Mom had shared, were left out.

We show the world who we hope we are, hiding the deepest pain and loss and hurt. The conflicted feelings of guilt and embarrassment of bad choices, the pain we wrecked on others, we leave buried in our own hearts. We carry these things alone. Which of us has truly known our father, or mother, or sibling, or spouse?

"The more I read the letters, the more I thought to myself: Why did he write them like a journal...if not for me to find them and give him a voice again, to show the determination, romanticism, and patriotism of a man who once was called un-American?" from A Good American Family by David Maraniss

David Maraniss had written about other people's stories, from Vince Lombardi and Clemente to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He decided it was time to look into his own father's life. He had "desensitized" himself to what his father Elliott Maraniss had endured "during those years when he was in the crucible, living through what must have been the most tyring and transformative experience of his life."

In 1952, Elliot Maraniss was brought in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Detroit, Michigan.

He was a newspaperman, a graduate of the University of Michigan where he had worked on the Daily newspaper and found kindred spirits dedicated to progressive values. Elliott married into a family committed to the perceived virtues of communism. He enlisted to serve in WWII right after Pearl Harbor. But the government was tracking communists, and although an exemplary officer, he was deemed untrustworthy. Instead of seeing action, Elliot was relegated to the Quartermaster Corps, and because of his passion for racial justice and equality, put in charge of a segregated African American unit. He put all his energy into growing the men into a stellar unit. He held an American optimism that people can overcome the obstacles of "race and class, education and geography and bias."

In the 1930s, communism seemed to be society's best hope for equality and justice, attracting people of progressive ideas. The attraction waned as Stalin took over Russia. Maraniss shares the stories of men whose high ideals brought them to the Communist Party. Some of his U of M friends went to fight in the Spanish Civil War, which was against American law.

"There are aspects of his thinking during that period that I can't reconcile, and will never reconcile, as hard as I try to figure them out and as much of a trail as he left for me through his writings." from A Good American Family by David Maraniss


A Good American Family is the story of his father and his generation of progressive idealists during the Red Scare. Maraniss plumbed the records to understand his father and reconcile the man he knew with the man who stood in front of the House Un-American Committee--was he a revolutionary or on "the liberal side of the popular front?"

Maraniss draws on his father's letters and newspaper articles and obtained access to government files. He tells the stories of the men behind the hearings and the grandmother who was paid to infiltrated the Michigan Communist Party and gather names. The overarching narrative is the story of how the Red scare was born and grew in power. The House Committee hearing were not legal court procedures and those on the stand had no protections as in court.

What is a 'good American family'? Can we hold and voice personal convictions that some deem threatening and still be considered good citizens? The book is a personal history and a record of the abuse of unbridled power unleashed by fear.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father by David Maraniss is a book that one of my friends gave me. I wasn't familiar with it before hand, but she had good things to say about it. I'm glad I decided to give it a chance because it's a fascinating read. And chilling, very chilling. I think this is my first biography or memoir featuring the Red Scare or HUAC. If you're interested in the McCarthy era, this is definitely worth reading. It must have been difficult for young David to fully grasp what was happening to his father at the time.

[Bob H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the author's tribute to his father, Elliott Maraniss, whose life and times were epic, from the Depression-era college society of leftist students (some of his companions went on to serve in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish civil war), to the U.S. Army in WWII -- where he commanded an all-African American company) and on to a postwar career in newspapers, a career blighted by the anti-Communist witch hunts. Elliott Maraniss' travails before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and subsequent blacklisting, over his left-wing associations form the center of the book and its climax. The book does mix the HUAC story with flashback chapters on Elliott's previous and subsequent life, but it is perhaps more readable with this context and foreshadowing. It's a tautly-written, touching and dramatic story of a period and a man worth remembering. Highly recommend.

(Read in advanced-reading copy by Amazon Vine).

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

It is unusual that a noted biographer chooses to write a biography about his parents. It is impressive nevertheless.

I grew up in Michigan and also went to undergrad in Ann Arbor. Much of this story takes place in Ann Arbor and Detroit so even beyond the red scare which is the overarching theme, the story especially resonated with me.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author David Maraniss, a noted writer of biographies and other works of non-fiction, tells the story of his family when his father , Elliott, was called before the HUAC in the early 1950's. The reprucussions of being charged with being "un-American" lasted through out his father's life and is being felt by his children. Maraniss tells his family's story, taking no prisoners in his tough accounting of how both his father's family, the Maranisses and his mother's family, the Cummins, have been "good Americans", while fighting for rights for all Americans.

It must have been difficult for young David to understand what was happening when his father was charged with Communist sympathies. He had belonged to a leftest group in Detroit - the family lived in Ann Arbor - where the woman running the group was actually a government agent. Her testimony in court was devastating to many of the group's members, including Elliott Maraniss.

Before WW2, Elliott Maraniss had friends from the University of Michigan who left college and went to fight with the International Brigade in Spain. Several lost their lives. One of the men who went and fought was Bob Cummins, the brother of David's mother, Mary. Activism was important on both sides of David's family.

My complaint about David Maraniss's book is that it didn't seem to have a center. He flips back and forth between times and people and, frankly, I was often puzzled about where the book was going. I read a lot of histories and memoirs and am usually able to draw connections within a book. That was difficult with "A Good American Family".

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quitting this audiobook at the 63% mark, as I realize I'm just not processing all the detail Maraniss included in this book. Too many characters, too much moving back and forth in time, for this to be a productive listening experience for me. Early on, I did appreciate all the context he included about world events before the start of the Red Scare.

[Woodstock Pickett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author traces the history of his parents and his mother's extended family through the second half of the 20th century. But there is much here which rang true to me - in the light of our 21st century politics.

What is an American? What does it mean to label someone "UnAmerican?" Answering these questions means looking beyond attendance at a meeting; beyond friendships and employers; beyond surface features - it means looking deeper, listening, searching. Far too often those who captured the headlines in the 1950's did none of those things. They boiled patriotism down to one yes or no question. When those in the witness box could not or would not answer in simplistic yes or no fashion, those in the headlines branded them as unAmerican. Some of those witnesses and some of their attorneys went to prison. Others, like the author's father were left with no job, no home, wives and children to feed and nurture.

I haven't been able to make it through many of the recently published books about the present day White House. Call it compassion fatigue, or inertia, or simple self preservation. I don't have a word for it. But this book held my attention and I saw much in it which spoke to our present day.

I remembered my younger self in the 1960's - the Vietnam era and the Watergate upheaval of the early 1970's. I remembered how I felt then. What it was like to have my love of country challenged because I could not, or would not, toe some imaginary super patriot line. Because I could not, or would not refrain from disagreeing with the country's leadership. It was painful then, and it's painful now.

I admire the author's father - who never swerved from living out his patriotic dedication which varied so sharply from those who commanded the headlines. To quote the author, speaking of his parents: "[They] were not perfect, but they created a good American family. They emerged from hard times bonded by love and open to the world"

If only people like that were running things now.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rulers of the United States have been invoking the Communist "bogeyman" for a long time now (they became synonymous with bomb-throwing anarchists of the 19th century). However, the amount hysteria conjured up in the general populace seemed to have been unusually high in the late 1940s/50s.

The author of this piece writes very movingly of his own father, and others in his extended family throughout college, and later experiences in WWII where his father seems to have acquitted himself honorably, but was held back from certain assignments for his "leftist views." He was placed in charge of black regiment tasked with salvaging and repairing supplies. It was a a job he actually enjoyed.

Quoting from letters, the son believed that his father's belief in Communism was not all that well thought out, and had probably evolved by the time he had enlisted in the army. Stalinism's atrocities were not well known then. Thus, Communism seemed to have more affinity with the underdog versus Fascists and vulture capitalists. His views were more in line with someone like Pete Seeger, or Walt Whitman.

In the 1930s, Both Muraniss' father and uncle were based at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which was a hotbed of pro-union activism [because of the auto industry the HUAC committee focused their efforts on that city]. And it had a top-notch writing and journalism department [playwright Arthur Miller went there at roughly the same time as Muraniss' uncle and father, and all wrote for the the Michigan Daily, the university newspaper]

It was Muraniss' Uncle Bob, who joined two other classmates -- one of whom did not make it back -- in the Lincoln Brigades. Though a fight against Franco may have seemed righteous, it was technically illegal, and would haunt the survivors for decades, as would the "pro-Russia" stance of the student newspaper.

One thing I did not realize is that the senators conducting the investigations for HUAC were mostly extreme right-wing southerners, with tenuous Klan affiliations. McCarthy was merely a latecomer (though he was the most high-profile of the inquisitors, his overreach brought about his downfall). Judge Wood, who conducted most of the hearings was present at the lynching of Leo Frank, a cause celebre, in 1915 because Frank was a white guy. [The official story Wood told was that he happened upon the scene late and stopped the angry mob from tearing Frank's body to pieces].

Things eventually turned out well for the Muraniss' family and other high profile people who got caught up in the dragnet (another black attorney ended up Mayor of Detroit). All in all, the FBI spent about ten years following Muraniss' father, informing his employers of his past associations, and checking up on every place he went, despite the fact that he had not been to a meeting of the CPUSA since 1947. However, by the 1960s he found a journalism job in Madison, Wisconsin where nobody cared about his past, and did not consider him a terrorist.

However, were it not for the harassment, he might have gone on to a place like the New York Times. At least nobody back then called the polio vaccine "a communist plot."

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author David Maraniss' father was dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee for writing for a communist newspaper. David was an infant at the time but has spent much of his adult life researching the case. What he found was that his father, other family members and their friends were members of communist organizations in their youth, but they were also more patriotic Americans than those who sat in judgement of them. They fought, and some died, against fascism in Spain and WWII. They paid their taxes and were upstanding citizens in their communities. They loved baseball, hot dogs and drove American automobiles. Yet they were blacklisted and haunted for years for refusing to snitch on other people they knew in those youthful, communist organizations.

This is a sad and tragic tale of a dark period in American political history. Some came out of it okay in later years but it was the ruination of many others, for no real good reason. Recommended as a fresh take on an old topic. The stories of joining the Abraham Lincoln brigade to fight Franco seem especially relevant at this time when Russia is invading Ukraine.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very good! There's a section in the middle that's strictly about the politicians instead of the Maraniss/Cummins families that I thought dragged, though I understood why it was there. The McCarthy era has always interested me, and the personalization of it here really drove home how people could get caught up in it. The way the author tries to understand his father's choices--because he was a communist, he wasn't falsely named--was really powerful. Would recommend, along with Maraniss's other work.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good American Family is biographer David Maraniss’ look at a subject very close to his heart: his father, and the Red Scare and resulting blacklisting that embroiled the family in 1952 because of Elliott Maraniss’ past as a Communist Party of America member. Perhaps because of the lack of distance that the author’s intimacy with his father inevitably leads to, Elliott Maraniss never emerged for me as a fully developed character—his motivations and inner life remained a bit murky throughout. This wasn’t as problematic as it would seem, however, because Elliott’s story is woven into the rich tapestry of American life in the first half of the 20th century—Jim Crow laws, lynchings and civil rights struggles in the South; World War I and the Great Depression; the Spanish Civil War and the idealistic Americans who slipped into Spain to fight Franco; isolationism and then World War II; and finally the Cold War—and threaded through with the stories of many fascinating Americans. (I particularly enjoyed the parts involving Arthur Miller, who was a fellow graduate of Elliott’s NYC high school and went on to become his colleague at the University of Michigan Daily News during the heady political days of the 1930s.) These stories were the lifeblood of the book, giving me background and insight into events I had only a cursory understanding of before (such as American involvement in the Spanish Civil War) and making A Good American Family well worth the read.

Thanks you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.

[Elizabeth S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting book written by a talented author in the dullest way possible.

It’s clearly a fascinating story, and given the author’s capabilities and personal connection, I was intrigued after this was selected for my book club.

Unfortunately, the best parts of the book are hidden under the weight of extensive, somewhat out of place dry retellings of various time periods and anecdotes.

Having read so many works of nonfiction that could’ve been horridly boring but read like excellent novels, I was wowed by how this seemingly neat research was recounted in the most formulaic, overwhelmingly mundane way.

I would give it three or more strong stars for the content, but the execution was so astonishingly bogged down that I sadly didn’t come away with as good of an opinion as I had hoped.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

INTERESTING PEOPLE, TIMES, PLACES AND EVENTS.

“Are you now or have you ever been . . . ? The assumption was that a party member was indisputably unpatriotically un-American.” (p. 6).

Something about the writing of David Maraniss’s family memoir, A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father made it somewhat difficult for me to read. That said, the close-in perspective of the fear and paranoia wrought by the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] (the name, itself, sounds so un-American) hearings of the late 40s, early 50s makes it a very worthy read. The very interesting background, anecdotes, people, places and events peppered throughout this story are frosting on the cake.

Recommendation: Highly recommended for anyone interested in the McCarthy Era; or who appreciates how quickly and easily things can go so very far south in the political arena.

“The committee is so poisoned with bigotry and malice that it is hard indeed to believe that it is indeed a committee of the Congress of the United States. It more resembles a session of the Spanish Inquisition or the witch-hunting trials in Salem in the late Seventeenth Century.” (p. 290).

Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. 471 pages

[John Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

The USA, the land of the free. How free are we? The author tells us about his father's experiences with the HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee) in Detroit and how he was fired and forced to move all over because of the committee's actions. The McCarthy Era is only one of many times that the American Dream was sorely tested and civil liberties were taken away. Despite his father's devotion to his country and service in WWII, he was closely watched by the FBI, informed on and called in front of the committee. This book makes it very clear how easy it is to lose our basic rights. Other examples are the WWII Japanese internment camps, the treatment of blacks, LGBT people and immigrants throughout our history and many examples running rampant in today's America. Though the McCarthy Era and the Red Scare may be over, we must be aware and not naive about the ongoing struggle to protect the freedom of all.

[Floyd Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eye-opening book about an American family that was affected by the Red Scare of the 1940's and 1950's. David Maraniss's father was accused of being a communist by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The book traces the effects of this on the Maraniss family and sets the larger context of the Red Scare. Growing up in the 1950s, I had some sense of what was going on but had no concept of the personal toll this took on patriotic American families. It is not beyond belief to think this could happen again, particularly in light of our current political situation. I recommend this book to all caring Americans.

[Joe Hoover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Centered around the hearings in Room 740 of the House Un-American Activities Committee,
author David Maraniss tells the story of when his father Elliott, was called before the HUAC in the early 1950s and the immediate and lasting effects it had on his family. Maraniss says “Think of this story as a wheel" as the book weaves in and out of different time periods and characters in the story exploring the backgrounds of the accusers and of the accused. Exposing those in power who get to define what attributes are "American" and what attributes are "Un-American" all the while overlooking their own ethical lapses and lack of humanity.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you write about an incident in your father's past that he never talked about? If you're a journalist like David Maraniss, you track down original source documents - letters home from WWII, hearing transcripts and FBI files. A compelling insight into the impact being blacklisted had not only on the accused, but their families.

Just like Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials to expose the fallacies of the HUAC Committee hearings, today we use the McCarthy era to expose the fallacies of the attacks on "the other".

Perhaps we'll learn.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elliott Maraniss, David Maraniss’s father, was a member of the Communist Party of America and thus found himself caught up in the Red Scare of the 1950s. This book is memoir of his father and a tribute to him, and chronicles his ordeal at the hands of HUAC. It doesn’t pretend to be an unbiased or objective account of these years, or indeed, of his father and his motivations. It’s a personal account and as such I found it an interesting and compelling one.

[Rod Zemke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel the same way as Jane Miller did her excellent review of this book. There are some problems with the book, but would still recommend, especially to individuals who do not have a good working knowledge of the history of this period in American history.

[Jennifer Warnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting and well-written...i want to read his biographies of Barak Obama and Bill Clinton now..

[Nick Penzenstadler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had the pleasure of hearing Maraniss speak about his new book at a meeting in Madison. He admits his parents had an early “blindness to the horrors of the Soviet Union,” but this book is about much more. And a lot of personal soul. He has an impressive command of history and attention to detail to show what was happening at same day or even moment across the globe. Loved that it had intertwining stories and famous people crossing paths from Ike to McCarthy and Arthur Miller.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

slow

[Sevelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a bit of a Chinese puzzle box. You open one chapter, it’s about WW II, another is about the Spanish civil war, then you’re reading about the author’s extended family, then his father’s time at Michigan, HUAC trials, Arthur Miller plays, even a detour into the meaning and symbolism of the word apple. It’s really a number of narratives, maybe 3, each of which could stand on its own. So the organizational approach might not appeal. I kept wanting to read a different version of it.

Pay close attention to the subtitle: “The Red Scare and My Father.” The author was very young through much of what is described ( age 1 1/2 as recorded in the FBI’s file on his father). So his own role in the family’s saga really doesn’t get attention until around p. 259. So most of it is written at a slight distance, from a historian’s PoV.

There are a number of ironies laid out here. Consider the plight of communist sympathizers who advocated for racial equality (“the policy of a nation ... towards a given people”). They were hounded and ruined while many HUAC stalwarts — great Americans all — had deep, active roots in the Klan. And while we go on so about our freedom, note that the elder Maraniss was shadowed and tracked relentlessly by FBI foot soldiers, who never missed an opportunity to scribble notes calling into question his loyalty. It can happen to you, courtesy of the State. Then there’s the Fifth Amendment. Is it really a kind of failure, since people who cite it are immediately judged to be guilty? What kind of right is a Fifth Amendment right if it almost guarantees time spent in jail — or worse? Freedom is complicated.

When is a human compelled to act? And what price must families pay when a family member, especially a parent, acts on his or her beliefs? Five years, five cities, 4 kids, 8 homes—incalculable psychic distress (p. 344) borne by the author’s family.

After reading this, watch the Judd Hirsch film, “Running on Empty.” The son’s girlfriend asks him, “Why do you have to carry the burden of someone else’s life?” Recommended.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5

A Good American Family is Pulitzer Prize winner David Marianiss's biography of his father, a journalist caught up in the Red Scare of the early 1950s and blacklisted after an appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The first 2/3 of the book is in essence a political biography of his father, Elliot Maraniss, who was in fact an intellectual and economic communist and member of the Communist Party of the US during his student days at the University of Michigan, mostly as a result of his Depression-era upbringing and a passion for civil rights issues, particularly with regard to black Americans (which the Communists generally supported). This Communist, however, was a loyal soldier for the US in World War II, heading up an all-black unit in the Quartermaster Corps, the 4482nd. (His liberal politics and civil rights sympathies were part of the reason for his assignment.) The general aim of this material seems to be to establish Elliott as a loyal American -- certainly no threat.

The final third of the book includes a brief history of the Red Scare, with particular emphasis on the 1952 hearing set in Detroit where Elliott testified and the impact of his testimony on Elliott and his family. Fired from his job and blacklisted in the newspaper industry for 5 years, Maraniss hopped from place to place, holding some journalist jobs for short periods of time and venturing into sales and other fields populated by sympathetic friends to support his wife and 4 children. THey all cae through it -- but clearly it was not an easy trip.

Maraniss succeeds in painting an effective picture of the witch hunt that was the HUAC --even outside of the more notorious McCarty hearings, but he throws in a lot of extraneous material along the way. There's a 28 page chapter on his uncle's involvement in the Spanish Civil War early on that nearly drove me out of the book. He could (and I think should) have used the space to focus more on the Red Scare itself, which gets surprisingly scant treatment to be the major subject of the book. More information on the Hollywood Ten and the McCarthy hearings would have provided helpful context. Still, the personal story here is compelling, and the book well worth reading.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. And, bonus, I learned a few things. Author's father (and many family and friends) attended U of M in the 30's. Things were liberal, if not outright radical. Author's Uncle illegally went to Spain to fight fascist Franco. Author's father, Elliot, was a radical liberal for his times, and, of course, was interested in communism, socialism, unionism, and civil rights. Elliot saw all these things as contributing to a just America. Unfortunately, he didn't quite see soon enough where Lenin and Stalin went off the rails into totalitarian violence. Elliot remained a active communist until he volunteered for WWII. This is a great story of how the HUAC investigations into everyday people ruined (almost) lives. It also, in a kind of six degrees of separation manner, brought in a lot of other characters and events that I was happy to learn more about. Elliot Maraniss was subpoenaed to the same hearing that Coleman Young was subpoenaed to appear. I heard a recording of Young's questioning before - he was brilliant on that day - and it probably made his eventual political career. Coleman was a complicated person, and like most politicians kind of disappointed me in the end -- but I really like young Coleman. The book also gave me a great lesson regarding George Crockett Jr - who was retiring as a Recorders' Court Judge in Wayne County about the time I was starting to practice. I'd always heard that he was "famous" civil rights activist, and someone to be admired -- but, honestly, did not know why. Now I do. Arthur Miller (and Marilyn Monroe) make appearances. Ernest Hemingway appears for a page or so in the Spanish Civil war chapters. Even Frank Lloyd Wright makes an appearance once the family is settled in Wisconsin. The most admirable thing about Elliot, and his wife Mary, are that even though the government unjustly harassed them for years, they never became cynical, and never lost their commitment to justice and fairness, which they believed were the backbone of the America they loved.

[Gaucho36 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was nothing if not thought provoking, especially in the context of our current President’s attacks on anyone who disagrees with him. This book chronicles the family history of the author but especially his mother and father. As an aside I had read two other Maraniss books - Rome 1960 - and a Vince Lombardi biography....both superb books.

I was at first a bit let down. The review I had read had made me think this would be about someone being accused out of the blue of Un-American activities and paying the price for it. In fact, the author’s father and mother were deeply involved in radical politics and elements of the Communist party for almost two decades. His father was under constant government surveillance while he served in the army. In an era where there was genuine fear of Soviet incursion, these were people you would be keeping an eye on.

On the other hand, they broke no laws. He served the US Army well. The Constitution protects his right to political and religious freedom. Is the Constitution something absolute or something that can be viewed in context? After 9/11, was it ok to give extra scrutiny to those we felt might be terrorists? At first I thought perhaps yes, but came to the conclusion that when the winds are blowing and passions are running high it is exactly the moment when you MUST defend the Constitution literally. It is exactly the moment when democracy can fall into the abyss. It is exactly the moment when a President can “hereby order” US companies to do something or to snub an ally for refusing to sell a piece of their country. You get my point.

As I said, nothing if not thought provoking. At times way too detailed on arcane aspects but glad I read it overall.

[Shellie Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually quit this book at 228 pages. It is well written, just not terribly interesting to the reader. The author was supposed to be writing about the red scare and his family and the book jumped all over the place, which I get authors do sometimes, but he writes from letters and newspaper articles which really are not all that interesting.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many parallels to my family background, including the fact that the author's father was in the same high school class, eidtors on the same high school newspaper (along with another classmate , Arthur Miller and probably in the same Commie cell as my father.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat disappointing book, not as good as others this author has written. The premise was interesting and I definitely learned more about the McCarthy era but there were too many tangents and focus on backgrounds which detracted from the basic story.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be more of a memoir and less of a history lesson. I wanted to hear more about his father and mother, their beliefs, their interests, their lives and the lives of the children. It was pretty dry and would appeal more to a history buff.