A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father

Elliott Maraniss (1918–2004) had writing in his blood, says son and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Maraniss (Once in a Great City) in this absorbing account of Elliot's life and the lives of his family. Readers will be fascinated by their successes, failures, and tragedies. Elliott had been a member of the Communist Party for a short time, which led to his blacklisting by the House Committee on Un-American Affairs (HUAC) in 1952. Although HUAC didn't find Maraniss guilty, he was summarily fired from his job at the Detroit Times and spent the next five years working for five papers: two that fired him and three that went bankrupt, until he was hired by the Madison, WI-based Capital Times, where he rose to executive editor during his 25-year term. Most notable is the author's commentary on Elliot's lifelong commitment to racial justice, notably his service in World War II as a captain of an all African American company, and his hiring of African American attorney George Crockett to defend him at his HUAC trial.