Willard Garvey

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Maura McEnaney’s fascinating and wide-ranging biography of businessman and entrepreneur Willard Garvey is, in many ways, a history of 20th-century America itself. Having come of age during the Dust Bowl, Garvey rode the rails during the height of the Great Depression to work in the California orchards made famous by The Grapes of Wrath. He sailed the Queen Mary to fight in World War II, and was one of the first three American officers in Berlin after its fall, subsequently attending the Potsdam Conference. Upon returning to the United States, he found success in real estate and foreign investments and funded affordable housing projects from South America to Asia, all the while campaigning tirelessly for independent journalism and limited government at home. McEnaney presents an intimate, humanizing portrait of an individual who could very often seem larger than life and offers readers a story of American progress, devotion to family, and a drive for success.