The Tucson Festival of Books will make a full-scale return to in-person festivities this March 12-13, 2022, at the University of Arizona Mall, Tucson, AZ. Booklovers and fairgoers should expect a more exciting and colorful weekend full of presentations, exhibits, book signings, panel discussions, stage entertainment, food vendors, children's and Science City programming, dozens of free activities – and books, tons of books. One book that booklovers should check out is Robert M. Pennoyer's “As It Was: A Memoir” (Prospect Press; 2015).
Pennoyer's “As It Was” will be publicly displayed at the exhibit that self-publishing and book marketing company ReadersMagnet will host at the 2022 Tucson Festival of Books.
“As It Was” is a delightful memoir of a life dedicated to public service by Pennoyer, who is a grandson of J.P. Morgan. During World War II, he served for two years in the Pacific aboard a cruiser heavily damaged at Iwo Jima with almost 150 killed and wounded.
In the 1950s after law school, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and as general counsel in the office of the Secretary of Defense, where he defied Senator Joe McCarthy by directing his Pentagon witnesses to refuse to answer McCarthy's questions. After then, he joined Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, which has 22 lawyers at that time. He helped to build the firm which today with close to 200 lawyers is one of the nation's leading firms known for its outstanding record of pro bono service.
“This book is itself a demonstration of the values that boosted America on its path to greatness,” said Scott Horton, author of Lords of Secrecy contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, “and for which no finer exemplar could be found than its author.
“It bespeaks a belief in democracy that is passionate and unshakable and builds on a deep appreciation of the institutions that enable it. The spirit that flows through these pages may be modest, but it is also filled with an irrepressible optimism and a faith in simple values that are both uplifting and marvelously contagious. As It Was is a lesson in a life well-lived, and a tonic for dark and troubled times.”
Robert M. Pennoyer's “As It Was: A Memoir” is available at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/As-Was-Robert-M-Pennoyer/dp/163226045X
As It Was: A Memoir
Author | Robert M. Pennoyer
Published date | 2015
Publisher | Prospect Press
Book retail price | $15.00
Author Bio
Robert M. Pennoyer attended St. Paul's School and Harvard College. During World War II, he saw action in the Pacific as a young Naval officer. After graduation from Columbia Law School, he became, successively, a Federal prosecutor, and a counsel in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Eisenhower years. In 1958, he returned to private practice in New York, joining a small firm, Patterson Belknap & Webb, which he helped to build into one of the leading firms in the country. For many years, he served as counsel to the Rockefeller foundation.
Committed to public service, Pennoyer founded a halfway house for men emerging from prison, and over the years served as a trustee of Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and, for half a century each, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library.
In the 1970s, under his leadership as president, the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation established, at the suggestion of his poet wife, Victoria Parsons Pennoyer, the prestigious Whiting Writers' Awards.
He lives on Manhattan's Upper East Side and, at the age of 90, still goes to the office every day.
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