Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking

**The rollicking true story of a 1930s version of Bernie Madoff-and the building and loan crash he helped precipitate-in a wonderful work of narrative nonfiction by the Gustavus Myers book award winner** *Shortfall* opens with a surprise discovery in an attic-boxes filled with letters and documents hidden for more than seventy years-and launches into a fast-paced story that uncovers the dark secrets in Echols's family-an upside-down version of the building and loan story at the center of Frank Capra's 1946 movie, *It's a Wonderful Life*. In a narrative filled with colorful characters and profound insights into the American past, *Shortfall* is also the essential backstory to more recent financial crises, from the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s and 1990s to the subprime collapse of 2008. *Shortfall* chronicles the collapse of the building and loan industry during the Great Depression-a story told in microcosm through the firestorm that erupted in one hard-hit American city during the early 1930s. Over a six-month period in 1932, all four of the building and loan associations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, crashed in an awful domino-like fashion, leaving some of the town's citizens destitute. The largest of these associations was owned by author Alice Echols's grandfather, Walter Davis, who absconded with millions of dollars in a case that riveted the national media. This book tells the dramatic story of his rise and shocking fall.