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A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York's Lower East Side who stowed away on the Roaring Twenties' most remarkable feat of science and daring: an expedition to Antarctica.
It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet's final frontier? This was the moon landing before the 1960s. Everyone wanted to join the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning's every stage.
The night before the expedition's flagship launched, Billy Gawronski - a skinny, first generation New York City high schooler desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business - jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the grimy streets of New York's Lower East Side to the rowdy dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica's blinding white and deadly freeze, Laurie Gwen Shapiro's The Stowaway takes you on the unforgettable voyage of a gutsy young stowaway who became an international celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps age.
"In the characters of Billy and his shipmates, Shapiro finds a 'microcosm of American barriers and dreams.'" - Publishers Weekly
"Shapiro has revived the history of a once-celebrated stowaway to Antarctica in this well-wrought true tale of a young man who captured the hearts of millions and found adventure at sea." - Booklist
"The narrative reads like a yarn from that era... [and] ultimately reveals as much about a country's changing values as it does about one boy's pluck." - Kirkus
"This fascinating and exciting story contrasts the optimism and sense of progress of the 1920s with the devastation of the 1930s. Readers... will find much to delight in here." - Library Journal
"Shapiro has rescued from oblivion a wondrous tale of exploration. The Stowaway is a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation." - David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon
"The Stowaway proves that fact is stranger and funnier and more amazing than fiction. Laurie Gwen Shapiro artfully draws the reader into the tale of Billy Gawronski, a dreamer and adventurer. Through the wild story of his travels to Antarctica, we see history come vividly to life." - Susan Orlean, bestselling author of Rin Tin Tin
"Laurie Gwen Shapiro wrote The Stowaway like a Jack London novel: with a sense of adventure, wonderful detail, a lineup of intriguing characters, and above all a great story. This is the best of nonfiction." - Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Paper
"What has the world come to when sled dogs and short wave radio mix, when wooden sailing barks compete with aeroplanes, when 'Eskimos' figuratively dance with flappers, and all of this is captured and disseminated by the first public relations hucksters? Laurie Gwen Shapiro's The Stowaway is magnificent." - Bob Drury & Tom Clavin, bestselling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is
"The Stowaway tells one of the most engaging, but forgotten, stories from the Age of Exploration. A fascinating and charming book - I highly recommend it!" - Douglas Preston, bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God
"Laurie Gwen Shapiro's The Stowaway is full of twists, turns, and moments of pure wonder - both joy to read and a surprisingly insightful tale of scientific exploration at its generous and courageous best." - Deborah Blum, bestselling author of The Poisoner's Handbook
"A gripping, gritty, mischievous tale from an age of exploration and wonder. The Stowaway makes real history read like a boy's adventure novel." - Kevin Baker, bestselling author of Paradise Alley
This information about The Stowaway was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Laurie Gwen Shapiro is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist whose writing has appeared in New York, Slate, Aeon, The Forward, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. The Stowaway is her first full-length work of nonfiction.
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