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Author: John Jakes
ISBN: 0451197011 | Format: Paperback - 544 pages | Condition: Very Good
Publisher: Signet | Publication date: 01 July, 1999
Categories: , Fiction - Historical
Book read?: no
Summary:
In the competent second volume of his Crown family chronicles, Jakes portrays America during the turbulent period from 1906 to 1917. Once again, the story centers on the family of German-American patriarch and Chicago beer baron Joe Crown, whose headstrong daughter Fritzi defies her father to pursue a dreadfully unsuccessful New York stage career. In desperation, she surrenders to the lure of performing in moving pictures, which takes her to "empty, rural, and uncivilized" Hollywood, where she falls in love and achieves a measure of fame as a comic actress. Meanwhile, her brother Carl gets tossed out of Princeton, goes to work for eccentric car manufacturer Henry Ford, becomes a race-car driver with Barney Oldfield, "Speed King of the World," and flies as an ace pilot during WWI. Their cousin Paul is a professional news cameraman driven to record the horrors of war. He does not chase an American dream so much as become a chronicler of the world's nightmares.
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