Fierce Ambition

"The remarkable story of an irrepressible wartime reporter who would do almost anything to get a scoop. Beautiful, brilliant, and demanding, Maggie Higgins was a comet in the gray, male world of mid-20th century American journalism captured in all of her complexity by Jennet Conant in her utterly compelling Fierce Ambition." - Gay Talese, author of The Kingdom and the Power

"Jennet Conant’s brilliant storytelling and extraordinary granular research bring Maggie Higgins’s long forgotten but vital story to life. From small town California to Columbia University to Dachau to Washington, DC—Maggie lived passionately, but died tragically at the height of the Vietnam War. One wishes she had lived to report Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine, and the difference her work would have made. Her fearless quest to bring the truth to light will serve as inspiration for a new generation of pathfinding women. What a woman, what a legend." - Janine di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

"Maggie Higgins lived life at a gallop and this book keeps up with her—reporter, columnist, celebrity, mother, wife, lover, cheat, sneak, activist, combat correspondent, Pulitzer winner, war hero, patriot, polemicist, and drop-dead beauty. Jenny Conant tells the whole story with verve, insight, and deep appreciation for this fascinating, complex, and pioneering woman." - Richard Cohen, four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist

"Fierce Ambition is a reflection of journalism, hung on the passionate, brilliant, sexy, hilarious, honest, complicated, moving, tough, heartbreaking outrageous, courageous, astonishing life of the intrepid ‘girl’ war correspondent Maggie Higgins. Slam! Bang! Kapow! If you’re a journalist and you’re not reading Fierce Ambition you’re not doing your homework." - Terry McDonell, author of The Accidental Life: An Editor’s Notes on Writing and Writers