"Elliott Maraniss, David's father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America, and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact. In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and the end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father's story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital twentieth-century issues of race, fascism, communism, democracy, and First-Amendment freedoms. A grandmother spy who worked for the FBI; a committee chairman who once belonged to the Ku Klux Klan; an uncle who joined the International Brigade to fight against Franco in Spain; a black civil liberties lawyer who equated defending American communists with the fight for black equality; a famous playwright who paved the way for Elliott from Brooklyn to radical politics at the University of Michigan; a disabled veteran on HUAC who later came to regard that period as "days of shame"--these are among the compelling characters we encounter along Elliott's unforgettable journey. [This book] powerfully evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is an unsparing yet moving tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times." -- From the dust jacket.

Part one: Watching one another. The imperfect S ; In from the cold ; Outside the gate ; Red menace ; Wheelman wood ; "Negro, not niggra" ; A new world coming ; A brief Spanish Inquisition ; The runner ; Named ; Ace and Mary ; Fear and loathing -- Part two: In a time of war. Something in the wind ; Legless ; Know your men ; Why I fight ; In the blood ; The power of America -- Part three: Trials and tribulations. The Virginian ; Foley Square ; Committee men ; A good American family ; March 12, 1952 ; The whole pattern of a life ; Witches or traitors -- Part four: Five years. American wanderers ; Epilogue: Second acts.