Washington • In this moment of dueling political hysterias (“The fascists are at the gates!” “The socialists are within the gates!”), it is reassuring to remember that America has quickly recovered from some previous plunges into overheated anxiety. David Maraniss understands this.
He is a Washington Post editor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, a best-selling biographer (of Vince Lombardi, Roberto Clemente, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) and author of books on the 1960 Summer Olympics, late-1960s turmoil ("They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967") and contemporary Detroit. Now, in "A Good American Family," he has tackled his most difficult subject: his parents.