You might be skeptical if this were a novel. As a biography it is fascinating. The most unlikely hero, a Black man born in 1872 to former slaves in Mississippi, not only leaves Mississippi, but heads for Europe where, unlike others, he doesn't remain in Paris but ventures out further afield and ends up in Moscow where he makes a small fortune. Frederick Bruce Thomas had smarts, pluck, and some good luck. He kept testing that luck and in the end, it failed him. But what a wild ride he had along the way!
The parts about his life in the American south are well told, necessary, but not surprising. What was compelling was what he managed to achieve (and how he achieved it) in Russia and later in Constantinople. ( )

Quite fascinating, well-written, and well-researched. If the topic seems interesting to you, go for it. ( )

Interesting story that brought me closer to a side of history I was previously unfamiliar with... the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As I'm finding, many of these biographies end rather sadly and with the protagonist quite alone. ( )

I must be losing it, I was so sure I wrote this one up already. Anyway, this is a very strong three stars.

Frederick Thomas is an American, a black man born in 1872 in Mississippi, who seems to have had possessed an entrepreneurial early in life, but obviously, was not really enjoying the benefits of a level playing field. After working in a number of restaurants and hotels, he made his way to Europe and eventually Russia, where he ended up buying a nightclub and apparently turning it into the sensation of Moscow. It's an intriguing success story ... but then, Russian Revolution! Ultimately he found himself stateless (by taking Russian citizenship, he gave up US citizenship) in Turkey, just in time for their revolution.

The disappointing part, not on the part of the author, but with reality, is that the records of his life are those of business transactions, and his personal story is from family narrative, which is pretty removed by this point. The book did a great job of showing the trajectory of his life by providing a lot of context about the times and locales in which he lived, but there's not a strong sense of him as a person, what he was like and what he thought of his own successes and disappointments, which would be the truly amazing elements of his story. Tons of great information about the years leading up to the revolution in Russia, and the Russian refugee population in Turkey, though. ( )