Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny

Dark Side of Fortune is a brilliant biography of the tarnished oil tycoon, Edward Doheny, whose importance as an American industrial pioneer ranks with such better-known figures as Rockefeller and Carnegie. Margaret Leslie Davis has written a superbly researched and definitive account of the founder of the modern petroleum industry in California and of his machinations in Mexico and the involvement in the notorious Teapot Dome scandal. Davis has a sympathetic understanding of Doheny but tells his story warts and all. He emerges from the compelling biography as a conflicted man who is at once a hero and a scoundrel-and above all an American original who seems larger than life.-Lou CannonThe life of Edward L. Doheny offers a fascinating saga of early twentieth century American triumph and tragedy. Dark Side of Fortune, based on significant new archival discoveries, resurrects Doheny in a sympathetic, yet not uncritical, and always readable, biography, shedding new light on the oil industry, U.S. relations with Mexico, and the political scandals of the 1920s.-Jules Tygiel, San Francisco State UniversityIn terms of family saga, the Doheny story is the Ariadne's thread of Los Angeles history. It is perhaps the best pathway both into-and out of!-the labyrinth of the founding era. Thanks to Margaret Davis's Dark Side of Fortune, the full story of this previously mysterious Los Angeles Founder, his determined wife, and their murdered son stands revealed in all its resonant complexity. Ours is rapidly becoming a golden era of California biography, and here (once again, UC Press!) is further proof.-Dr. Kevin Starr, State Librarian of CaliforniaMargaret Davis' Dark Side of Fortune is pure California gold, a biography laced with adventure and misadventure, a carefully researched history that reads like today's investigative reporting, a briskly told tale rife with international hugger-mugger and domestic hanky-panky. And best of all, it just might rewrite the story of that White House horror of another year, the Teapot Dome scandal.-Ed Cray, University of Southern California; author of Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl WarrenOnce again, Margaret Davis has demonstrated that she is a gifted writer and that truth is more fascinating than fiction.-Burt Kennedy, Brigade ProductionsBehind Doheny's brash self-confidence and his mighty oil empire lurks the image of la calavera, like a skeleton in the closet. Death would undo many-from Doheny's murdered son to the fallen reputation of Harding's administration after the Teapot Dome scandal. This dramatic and historical tale reads like a novel. Davis has once again revealed a vital part of Los Angeles history and its national implications.-Noel Riley Fitch, author of Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child