Charlie Ross and Harry Truman were boyhood friends and classmates in Independence, Missouri. Charlie Ross went on to help found the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri and later became the Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he was awarded a Pulitzer prize. He was named Press Secretary by President Truman in 1945 and was a close friend and advisor to Truman during some of the twentieth century's most pivotal events.

The author, John B. Ross, is the grandson of Charlie Ross. Using his unique access to family members, letters, photos, and unpublished memoirs, John Ross describes the life and times of Charlie Ross in vivid detail. He widens his lens to weave in the stories of Charlie's six younger sisters and their remarkable lives as independent and accomplished women in mid-twentieth-century America.