IN 1922, GEORGE A. HORMEL—founder of the multibillion-dollar company Hormel Foods—demanded the resignation of Gretchen Cherington’s grandfather, Alpha LaRue Eberhart, after a decade-long embezzlement scandal that nearly brought the company to its knees. Was Eberhart, as rumors suggested, complicit? In scale both intimate and grand, Cherington deftly weaves the histories of Hormel, Eberhart, and embezzler Ransome J. Thomson, the company’s star comptroller, within the sweeping landscape of our country’s early industries, along with keen observations about business leaders gleaned from her thirtyfi ve-year career advising top company executives. The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy chronicles Cherington’s journey from blind faith in family lore to a nuanced consideration of the three men’s great strengths and fl aws— and offers a multilayered, thoughtful exploration of the ways we all must contend with our reverence for heroes, the mythology of powerful men, and the legacy of a complicated past.

Tuni’s father began sexually abusing her when she was just four years old. Her mother, though aware of the abuse, was a silent witness—one either incapable or unwilling to intervene—and the abuse continued until Tuni was eleven. Three years later, when Tuni was fourteen, she was raped by an adult actor who was part of her cast in a professional theater production. These traumas would go on to shape much of her life. Underwater Daughter follows how Tuni grappled with her relationship with her parents, the aftermath of her rape, an eating disorder, drug and alcohol excesses, and shame as she came of age and began to build a life. In order to not lose her inner innocence, in order to protect herself, in order to believe in love, she began early on to create imaginary worlds into which she could escape—to use dreams to transport her away from her fears. By early adulthood, she was well practiced at slapping lipstick (pink, frosty, kiss-me, gloss-over, perfect lipstick) over whatever darkness might be bubbling beneath. Hired by a dance company right out of high school, she found success as a dancer in Chicago and New York, but in her personal and emotional life, she continued to struggle. Ultimately, it took her decades of dancing, hiding, faking, fucking, costuming, implanting, dissociating, marrying, divorcing, and purging—all while staying silent about her past trauma—before a bike accident at age fifty-five forced her to stop and truly take stock of her life. As she did, she came to a resting place, finally, in regard to her father; developed the loving relationship she’d always wanted with her mother; and came to understand that, in the end, love is all anyone wants—or needs.

Palo Alto, California, is home to stratospheric real estate prices and equally high expectations, a place where everyone has to be good at something and where success is often defined by the name of a prestigious college on the back of a late-model luxury car. It’s also the place where Irena Smith—Soviet émigré, PhD in comparative literature, former Stanford admission reader—works as a private college counselor to some of the country’s most ambitious and tightly wound students . . . even as, at home, her own children unravel. Narrated as a series of responses to college application essay prompts, The Golden Ticket combines sharp social commentary, family history, and the lessons of great (and not so great) literature to offer a broader, more generous vision of what it means to succeed.