In 1928, a young social worker and hobby pilot named Amelia Earhart arrived in the office of George Putnam, heir to the Putnam & Sons throne and hitmaker, on the hunt for the right woman for a secret flying mission across the Atlantic. A partnership --- professional and soon otherwise --- was born. THE AVIATOR AND THE SHOWMAN unveils the untold story of Amelia's decade-long marriage to Putnam, offering an intimate exploration of their relationship and the pivotal role it played in her enduring legacy. Their ahead-of-its time partnership supported her grand ambitions --- but also pressed her into more and more treacherous stunts to promote her books, influencing a certain recklessness up to and including her final flight.

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, first generation New York City high schooler Billy Gawronski jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard. Could he get away with it?