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  • The Stowaway

  • A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
  • Written by: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
  • Narrated by: Jacques Roy
  • Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Stowaway cover art

The Stowaway

Written by: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
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Publisher's Summary

The spectacular true story of a scrappy teenager from New York's Lower East Side who stowed away on the Roaring Twenties' most remarkable feat of science and daring: an expedition to Antarctica.

It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over, and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet's final frontier? This was the moon landing before the 1960s. Everyone wanted to join the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning's every stage.

The night before the expedition's flagship launched, Billy Gawronski - a skinny, first-generation New York City high schooler desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business - jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.

Could he get away with it?

From the grimy streets of New York's Lower East Side to the rowdy dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica's blinding white and deadly freeze, Laurie Gwen Shapiro's The Stowaway takes you on the unforgettable voyage of a gutsy young stowaway who became an international celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your-bootstraps age.

©1997 Philip Toshio Sudo. All rights reserved. (P)2018 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

What the critics say

"Shapiro has rescued from oblivion a wondrous tale of exploration. The Stowaway is a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation." (David Grann, best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon)
" The Stowaway proves that fact is stranger and funnier and more amazing than fiction. Laurie Gwen Shapiro artfully draws the reader into the tale of Billy Gawronski, a dreamer and adventurer. Through the wild story of his travels to Antarctica, we see history come vividly to life." (Susan Orlean, best-selling author of Rin Tin Tin)
"Laurie Gwen Shapiro wrote The Stowaway like a Jack London novel: with a sense of adventure, wonderful detail, a lineup of intriguing characters, and above all a great story. This is the best of nonfiction." (Mark Kurlansky, best-selling author of Paper)

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