Author: Timothy Egan
Year published: 2023
Category: Adult nonfiction
Pages: 432 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (IN)
Summary: A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them.
The Roaring Twenties—the Jazz Age—has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.
Review: I have not read as much nonfiction as I would have liked this year (this has been a trend for the past couple of years for me) so when I saw a fellow blogger rave about this book, I got a copy. I am so glad that I did. This is narrative nonfiction at its best, written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.
I'll warn you up front that, while the events of this book take place in the 1920s with the rise of the KKK in the country, but specically Indiana, much of the rhetoric and action feels like 2025 USA. The hate, the vitriol, the racism, misogyny, and the well-placed people are all a bit too familiar.
DC Stephenson (the Grand Dragon of Indiana) was a horrifying human being in many ways, but particularly when it came to his treatment of women. Not only did he kidnap, drug, and rape them, but he bit. And I mean tore at their flesh. What a sicko. Luckily, one woman went to the authorities and brought him to justice. Indeed, she paved the way for hundreds of other women to come forward during his trial. Ah, if only todays' women were believed the way Stephenson's accusors were.
This is a well written narrative nonfiction that is gripping, horrifying, and fascinating all at the same time.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Cover Love--a cityscape
- Literary Escapes--Indiana
- Nonfiction
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