Louis Graveraet Kaufman: The Fabulous Michigan Gatsby Who Conquered Wall Street, Took Over General Motors, and Built the World’s Tallest Building

A once famous but now little remembered turn-of-the-20th-century executive had a secret Gatsby-esque trajectory, hiding his Native American and Jewish roots in order to “pass” as white, according to this captivating debut investigation from journalist Berman. Born in 1870 in Marquette, Mich., to a Métis mother and a Jewish father, Louis Graveraet Kaufman (1870–1942), or LG, as he was commonly known, grew up poor, until his older brother Nathan found success in iron ore mining. With Nathan’s support, LG married into old money and was given a job at Nathan’s Marquette County Savings Bank. “From the start LG seemed to know exactly what he was doing—grasping financial and managerial concepts and utilizing them with energy, charm, and finesse,” Berman writes. In 1910, he was chosen to head one of the largest banks in New York, the Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust. Wildly successful, LG went on to finance numerous constructions, among them the Empire State Building—then the world’s tallest building—and “the world’s largest log structure,” an Adirondack-style lodge near Marquette that became a boozy Prohibition-era hot spot for America’s rich and famous. However, he lost everything in the 1932 market crash and retreated back to Michigan, dying in obscurity. Combining dogged archival sleuthing with vibrant storytelling, this makes for a unique and riveting American saga. (June)