Description
Book SynopsisSkywalks is the story of the 1981 Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel disaster that killed 114 people, as told through the actions of Kansas City attorney Robert Gordon.
Trade Review"Paul's account is clear and well-paced even as he takes the reader through the weeds of legal arguments, filings, and rulings. It is a laudable and worthy addition to the skywalks story."—Steve Paul,
Missouri Historical Review"In true whodunit fashion, R. Eli Paul has told Gordon's story."—Charles E. Rankin,
Roundup Magazine“Through this overdue telling of the skywalks collapse, readers confront powerful, disturbing questions about the ways truth and justice after a tragedy can be crushed by the quick social need for narrative consensus, and about the consequences that land on flawed but courageous dissenters like Robert Gordon.”—James N. Leiker, coauthor of the award-winning
The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory“
Skywalks is the story of an obsession. But the obsession belongs to lawyer Robert Gordon. R. Eli Paul, the retired head of the Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Kansas City Public Library, has completed the job that Gordon could not. Paul brings not just rigor to the job but insight. This book is about influence and power in 1980s Kansas City, Missouri, and it is among the best literary nonfiction about place.”—Max McCoy, award-winning author of
Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas RiverTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
1. The Tapes
2. Molly Riley, a Class Act
3. Robert Charles “Bobby” Gordon
4. One in a Hundred Lawsuits
5. Hallmark’s Kansas City
6. The Deponent
7. The
Federal Skywalk Cases 8. Setback
9. Betrayal
10. Writer
11. House of Cards
12. The Gordon Thesis
13. Rinse and Repeat
14. What Might Have Been
15. Excerpt
16. Interruptions
17. Finales
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Selections from the Deposition of Donald Joyce Hall
Notes
Bibliographic Essay
Index
