Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War by Deborah Cohen
“The first night John spent with Frances, she played footsie with three different men,” Deborah Cohen writes by way of introducing the marriage that animates her riveting new book, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial.
Cohen, a historian at Northwestern, narrates the lives and careers of five foreign correspondents—John and Frances Gunther, Dorothy Thompson, H. R. “Knick” Knickerbocker, and Vincent “Jimmy” Sheean—as they navigate perilous personal and political terrain around the start of World War II. The women are sharp, ambitious, and pragmatic. The men are often sloshed (though they are also excellent reporters).
