A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--and a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression

By Ted Gup

Book Overview

"A wonderful reminder that economic hardship can bring suffering but can also foster compassion and community." - The Boston Globe In hard economic times like these, readers will find bestselling author Ted Gup's unique book uplifting as well as captivating. Inside a suitcase kept in his mother's attic, Gup discovered letters written to his grandfather in response to an ad placed in a Canton, Ohio, newspaper in 1933 that offered cash to seventy-five families facing a devastating Christmas. The author travels coast to coast to unveil the lives behind the letters, describing a range of hardships and recreating in his research the hopes and suffering of Depression-era Americans, even as he uncovers the secret life led by the grandfather he thought he knew.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014312000X
• ISBN13: 9780143120001
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Sobering

Gup calls himself an investigative reporter, and then proceeds to give credit for the game of Monopoly to Charles Darrow, when it has been firmly established that he simply developed the idea from Elizabeth Magie, who patented the premise for such a concept in The Landlord's Game. He is an excellent wordsmith, but his investigative skills are questionable, and his style is repetitive. The man at the center of his story is his own grandfather, who I found somewhat unlikable, although philanthropic. I found the fact that he chose to include men who squandered their former wealth on sumptuous living in his philanthropy very off-putting. Gup's constant use of the PC term African American" is annoying to the extreme.