First came the idea of what I wanted to write about because of what I wanted to show that Detroit gave America. I also wanted to write about the Mustang and it came out in early '64. To deal with civil rights, '63 seems like the right year. To write about Motown, it had to be in a specific period of time starting from '59 to '70, basically. That really took me to a specific chronology, as well. Those are the five things I wanted to deal with. I figured about five different threads from that: music, Motown, labor, civil rights and connected to labor, sort of the evolution of the working middle class. The first thought was that I wanted to write a book that showed what Detroit gave America, which is a lot. When did it occur to you that you could only really write the book by interweaving all of these different narratives?ĭavid Maraniss: Well, it worked in two stages. OnMilwaukee: At the beginning of the book, you explain that you sort of had an epiphany that you had to write the book when you saw the commercial on TV.
8 appearance at Milwaukee Public Library's Centennial Hall at 6:30 p.m. So what happened? We asked Maraniss about all that in advance of his Thursday, Oct. In this one, he looks at how the rise of Motown coincided with changes in the auto industry, the middle class and organized labor, and the dawn of the civil rights era.ĭetroit was full of promise in 1963, when the fascinating and gripping "Once in a Great City" takes place.
Maraniss, who has also written about the Vietnam War, Roberto Clemente and Lombardi – among others – says the book is part of an informal series of books exploring America in the 1960s. His new book, "Once in a Great City," explores a confluence of factors that intersected to create a unique moment in the history of the Motor City. The Wisconsin author of "When Pride Still Mattered," the most exhaustive biography of Packers legend Vince Lombardi, was, it turns out, born in Detroit.
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