There was a precarious balance during those crucial months between composition and decomposition - what the world gained and what a great city lost. Even then, some part of Detroit was dying, and that is where the story begins. — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
I look for two things when I am about to launch into a book. First, there has to be a dramatic arc to the story itself that will carry me, and the reader, from beginning to end. Second, the story… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
It's hard to know exactly how people develop the characters they do. There could be people from humble beginnings that turn into jerks. Some… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
And then the industry itself was so cocky about what they were doing that they weren't seeing what was coming on the horizon with… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
You also had in Detroit that summer, an early variation of Ferguson. A black prostitute was shot in the back by police. And all… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
Originally, John Kennedy was going to come speak, and then Lyndon Johnson. Because it was October of '62, neither made it because of the… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
So, I mean, there's still vast swaths of the city that are suffering from a lack of jobs and poor housing and poor public… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
I want my books to last, to stand the test of time, and to do that I focus on the forces that shape the… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
And that John F. Kennedy uttered the first variation of "ask not what your country can do for you" in Detroit on Labor Day… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
Well, there is something beautiful about ruins. I mean, in one sense it's not that different from going to Rome and looking at the… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
It was so crucial to the Civil Rights Movement that on June 23, 1963, Martin Luther King came to town, walked down Woodward Avenue… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
Well, there were several things. One was that the industry itself built in Detroit was abandoning the city - taking factories elsewhere, the corporate… — David Maraniss Copy Share Image
