DAVID McCULLOUGH---American Authors Challenge MARCH 2020

While wondering aloud what to say about David McCullough, my PhD offspring (you know her as lycomayflower) said “yeah...what can you say… everybody’s grandpa, who writes all the dad books.” So that about sums it up. But if you want some actual biographical data, here it is.

David McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, in 1933. He has said his childhood was wonderful, and that he was privileged to be able to study at Yale, where he earned a B.A. in English literature, studying with such greats as John O’Hara and Robert Penn Warren (see August) and occasionally lunching with Thornton Wilder. After graduation he held editing and writing positions with several magazines, including American Heritage and Sports Illustrated, before taking a daring leap into full-time writing. His books cover various aspects of American History, from its beginnings (1776, John Adams) through its high and low points (The Brooklyn Bridge, The Johnstown Flood) and range in form from narrative history to biography, always telling the “story of the people”. He became widely known and recognized as the host of The American Experience on PBS, and as one of the faces and voices of Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary series.

Insisting that his specialty is dead politicians, McCullough has usually steered clear of commenting on current events or the players involved. He did, however, feel moved to call out DJT in 2016, using the word “monstrous” to describe him twice in one sentence.

McCullough has written approximately a dozen books, including chunkster bio’s of John Adams and Harry Truman. The late New York Times critic, John Leonard, who never went easy on anyone, once said McCullough was “incapable of writing a page of bad prose”. I attended a lecture he gave several years ago, and had him sign my copy of the Adams biography. He was as entertaining to listen to as he is to read, and he used a fountain pen (or a collection of them) to sign book after book after book, with a twinkle and a smile. He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, two Pulitzers, two National Book awards, and numerous other awards and honors. The 16th Street Bridge in Pittsburgh was renamed the David McCullough Bridge in 2012.

>1 laytonwoman3rd:

>2 lycomayflower: LOL! How long did it take you to find that one?

Hooray for a writer I can read. I got The Johnstown Flood especially for this reading event.

Oh Yes! My RL book club is reading The Wright Brothers this month, and I also have The Johnstown Flood on my shelf. I'm going to try to read both. I also have the mammorth John Adams around here somewhere, but I think I'll save that for another time.

I've read 1776, Truman, Mornings on Horseback (early life of Teddy Roosevelt), The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, and The Great Bridge (about the Brooklyn Bridge). They were all wonderful, especially when McCullough explores the people involved.

JOHN ADAMS is my choice.

I have read Truman, Mornings on Horseback, The Greater Journey, most of John Adams and parts of The Pioneers (which I did not think was his best work). The Johnstown Flood will be my choice for the month.

One of my favorite authors! I got a chance to hear him speak at the National Book Festival a few years back. He was really interesting - I think the video’s on the Library of Congress website somewhere.

I loved The Greater Journey when I read it a few years back. I have The Great Bridge somewhere, so if I can turn it up, I'll read that mid-late March.

>6 m.belljackson: me too. I'm hoping to finish it.

I *may* read The Path Between the Seas this month, but I make no promises!

I've read 1776 and The Johnstown Flood and liked both. I have a few others on my shelf and Kindle...

I'm hoping to get The Wright Brothers by David McCullough from the library and read that this month. Serendipitously, a "book club in a bag" (10 copies of the book plus study guide) came through my hands at the library today. I think I'll wait for the ebook I requested!

Karen O.

I'm in the Outer Banks this week just a few miles from where the historic flight occurred, so I chose The Wright Brothers. I checked it out before I left home. If I finish a book currently in progress, I'll probably read it next.

>12 klobrien2: >13 thornton37814: The Wright Brothers was very good. Nice choice.

"Pulitzer Prizewinning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important and dramatic chapter in the American storythe settling of the Northwest Territory by dauntless pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would come to define our country."

^I just dipped into the audio of The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West today, while driving around. I am a fan of McCullough's historical non-fiction and this is his latest. It came out last May.

>15 msf59: I hope you enjoy The Pioneers, Mark.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda. I know it is nonfiction. It was an error. I corrected it. Have you read this one?

I have, Mark. It's interesting, but not one of his best efforts, I don't think.

>15 msf59: I read that one last spring.

I hope somebody is reading something of McCullough's and being at least temporarily transported out of the stressful present into the fascinating past. Living history isn't necessarily what we'd all choose, is it? If the idea of a "challenge" is too much right now, try thinking of it as an "opportunity", instead.

John Adams was illuminating in so many ways, from Adams' journeys overseas to his betrayals by Thomas Jefferson.

>20 laytonwoman3rd: I read The Wright Brothers before the madness really began here. It did, however, really prepare me for the visit to their Memorial while I was in the Outer Banks. I'm glad I was able to visit there before the madness began. God knew I needed that vacation so he made our spring break in winter -- and the last week before things began to get topsy-turvy.

Another great reason to read John Adams is for Ben Franklin's
vehement objections to the way The Executive Branch of The Constitution was proposed.

He was afraid that a tyrant could eventually become president.

If only the writers had listened!

The Pioneers by David McCullough 3.2 stars

I was not familiar with the opening of the Ohio Territory, which started in the late 1700s, so I learned quite a bit about that epic thrust westward. This is a weaker entry into McCullough's historical tableau. It rambles more than informs, so I wish he would have kept a narrower focus on just a couple of the characters, instead of a more sprawling approach. Of his later work, I much preferred The Wright Brothers.

>24 msf59: get a copy of Conrad Richter's The Trees. It has that narrow focus you mentioned.

>25 fuzzi: Richter's books are wonderful!

>26 thornton37814: I've read a bunch, and they were mostly very, very good.

Did you know there's a sequel to The Light in the Forest?

>27 fuzzi: I stumbled on it years ago so "yes."

I'm still working my way through The Johnstown Flood, which is less appealing under current circumstances than it deserves to be. Nothing wrong with McCullough's writing, but there's nothing escapist or uplifting about it either.

In other news, though, Francine Prose's thread is up, and she's cooking something that looks like risotto so you'll want to shuffle over soon.

A little late, but I finally got to The Johnstown Flood, McCullough's first book, published in 1968. McCullough used archival material, many newspaper accounts, court records and personal memoirs of townspeople to write this history of the disastrous May 1889 flood in western Pennsylvania.

But most interesting were the stories told to him first hand from living survivors, because McCullough worked on this project for many years before it was published. These stood out from the hundreds of names and stories in the book. So many people, in fact, that it became hard to keep them all straight. This is where McCullough's later books shine--when he can focus and zero in on a handful of characters to tell a story. And where this book got a bit muddled.

Stll, it gave me perspective to read about such a massive disaster--2200+ lives and several whole towns--completely wiped out in a matter of minutes. And to get a close-up look at the contrast between the struggling townspeople, railroad workers, and mill workers versus the railroad owners and wealthy Pittsburgh elite as a microcosm happening all across the country at the end of the 19th century.

David McCullough is one my favorite historians. He has found a way to balance of facts and story, just enough historical details to provide context for the stories of people, and in the case of The Greater Journey, the city of Paris itself.

It seems as though everyone who was anyone in the 1800s made the trek to Paris. There were artists and painters, of course, but also Elihu Washburne, President Grant's Minister to France during the turbulence of the Franco-Prussian War and the violence of the Commune. We watch events unfold through his eyes as both politician and family man.

McCullough paints loving portraits of these Americans and the city that inspired them.

I just realized I never posted my final thoughts on The Johnstown Flood here. So, here they are:

Even in this, his first published book, McCullough exhibits his trademark style of gathering a wealth of information from contemporary sources, subsequent reflections and current reassessments, and then weaving it all together into a gripping narrative. There was a lot of engineering talk in the first third of the book, which I found sluggish going. But McCullough is a master at engaging the reader; once I got past the tricky technical bits about the construction and maintenance (or lack of it) of the South Fork dam, he had me totally hooked. You know that cliche about not being able to look away from a train wreck...that's what reading this was like for me. I could wish the photos and maps included in the book had been more sharply reproduced. Even with McCullough's fairly comprehensive descriptions of what was being represented, it was difficult to make out details. Most of them are available on-line, though, where they show to much better effect. The Johnstown Flood is a piece of history that just begs for a treatment like this. If only we could learn from what happens when disaster strikes...

>32 laytonwoman3rd: Totally agree about not being able to look away from a train wreck...I couldn't stop reading the parts about Victor Heiser (who jumped from roof to roof) and the little Gertrude Quinn. I think these personal stories are often the best in McCullough's work. I'm still amazed that he found survivors to interview.

And I also agree that the pictures and maps left a lot to be desired.

I turned up my copy of The Great Bridge, so will read that in the next couple of months.

>34 Caroline_McElwee: I listened to that one on audio. A great example of McCullough's portrayal of important characters: the Roeblings.