Published in 2023
401 pages
13 hours and 56 minutes
Jennet Conant is the author, most recently, of Fierce Ambition. Her other books include the New York Times best-selling Tuxedo Park,109 East Palace, The Irregulars, The Great Secret, and the critically acclaimed Man of the Hour. She lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
What is this book about?
A spirited portrait of twentieth-century war correspondent Maggie Higgins and her tenacious fight to the top in a male-dominated profession.
Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman.
While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal—regularly featuring the photogenic “girl reporter” on its front pages—it was Maggie’s dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence—the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting. A star reporter, she became part of the Kennedy brothers’ Washington circle, though her personal alliances and politics provoked bitter feuds with male rivals, who vilified her until her untimely death.
Drawing on new and extensive research, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie’s rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.
