Last Call at the Hotel Imperial

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They were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone. As cub reporters in the 1920s, they traversed a war-ravaged world, sometimes on mules, sometimes in first-class sleeper cars. Amidst collapsing empires and faltering democracies, they pursued deposed leaders, international financiers, and gun-runners, often enjoying late-night drinks. The extraordinary story of John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson unfolds in these tumultuous years, where they secured exclusive interviews with figures like Hitler, Mussolini, Nehru, and Gandhi, shaping American perceptions of global events. Alongside their insights into power dynamics, they engaged in candid self-examination, discussing love, war, sex, and death. Immersed in global crises, they found it impossible to detach from the surrounding turmoil, leading them to challenge societal taboos. Their circle produced significant works, including Gunther's poignant memoir about his son's battle with cancer, "Death Be Not Proud," and Sheean's "Dorothy and Red," a frank chronicle of Thompson's tumultuous marriage to Sinclair Lewis.