Alice Arlen and Michael J. Arlen's biography of Alicia Patterson tells the extraordinary story of an unconventional life. Patterson was a world traveler, a licensed transport pilot, a journalist and publisher of a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, though she lived only until the age of 56. With their research, the authors show how many of Patterson's decisions in her early life appear guided by a desire to be close to her father, Joe Patterson, heir of a Chicago newspaper empire and founder of the New York Daily News. The two were similar in temperament, both curious and willing to push boundaries, which made Alicia Patterson's home and school life difficult. By 10th grade, she had been expelled from numerous boarding schools after showing no qualms about breaking school rules. Attempts to settle her down included her father bringing her to New York and giving her a job running errands at one of his newspapers and her mother pushing for her to marry a childhood friend. Patterson would have three marriages in her life, the first two arranged by her parents.
While her initial desire to impress her father may have driven her to become a pilot and try journalism, her knack for achieving challenging goals continued throughout her adulthood. She followed her uncommon passions across the globe and challenged the many limitations put on her gender in the early and mid-20th century. More than that, the inroads she made in establishing investigative journalism forever changed the U.S. national news. The Arlens captivatingly portray a fascinating woman. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company