A decently thorough look at how the McDonald's empire came together, and how its runaway success allowed Joan Kroc to completely leave it behind and dedicate an enormous fortune to philanthropy and any other pet project she wanted. It's relatively well-known how Ray Kroc took over a restaurant chain that he didn't invent, but this gives a fuller story, even including what happened to the McDonald brothers and their original location afterward. There were a couple of things I could have done without, though, including the breathlessly specific descriptions of Joan's house, pets, etc. ( )

The title should be Joan & Ray. Although Napoli writes about both Ray and Joan, the focus is usually on Joan Kroc, and her unlikely life. That might be because Ray Kroc is not very likeable. Joan is both likeable and always interesting, a free spirit who went from a broke piano player to one of the richest women in the world. But I found the sections about how Ray Kroc and McDonalds were so successful the most interesting in the book. The last few chapters are a bonus for San Diegans, as you discover the huge impact Joan Kroc had on the area. ( )

After watching “The Founder”, it was interesting to have more of the story. Immensely readable, Joan Ray Kroc’s third wife, is shown to be a force of her own. She may have lived in the shadow of her husband, but once he died, it was as if she was reborn. No longer worried about showing her liberal leanings, her philanthropic gifts were varied and generous. What surprised me was how despite her lack of baseball knowledge she kept the San Diego Padres that her husband had purchased. Good reading. ( )

Lisa Napoli’s dual biography of Ray and Joan Kroc is a detailed account of the lives of two people who turned out to be a whole lot more fascinating than I expected they would be. Admittedly, Ray and Joan were not always fascinating for the right reasons, but no one could ever call Ray Kroc boring - and anyone that managed to live with the man as long as Joan did, has to have been a little different herself.

By opening Ray & Joan with a story about how each preferred to “outsource bad news,” Napoli hints at the kind of eccentric behavior common to both of them. According to the story, rather than tell his second wife that he wanted a divorce (so that he could marry Joan), Ray had his lawyer tell her. Too, rather than face them himself, Ray had his longtime secretary fire employees – sometimes for the most frivolous of reasons (such as wearing a hat he disapproved of or drinking a cocktail he considered to be less than manly). Outsourcing at its finest.

Perhaps learning from his example, after Ray’s death, Joan removed her son-in-law (who lived just down the street from her in California) from the McDonald’s board of directors by sending her Gulfstream jet to Chicago to bring her chief advisor to her home to receive instructions about flying back to Chicago to remove the man from the board for her. Apparently that worked so well, that years later Joan even outsourced the difficult task of telling her immediate family that her death was imminent.

Ray Kroc, who once sold underwater plots of land to Florida tourists that failed to do their homework, was a born salesman. He may have been a short man, but what Ray lacked in height was more than offset by the man’s self-confidence and bluster – and he was always looking to get in on the inside of the next big idea before anyone else beat him to it. So when he saw the success that California brothers Dick and Mac McDonald were enjoying with their hamburger joints, Ray knew that he wanted in. And by convincing the brothers that he was the right man to sell McDonald’s franchises across America, he got in at the perfect moment. As Napoli clearly shows in Ray & Joan, although there were times that failure was much more likely than success, Ray’s association with the McDonald brothers would ultimately change the face of America (and, ultimately, the rest of the world) in ways both positive and negative.

Joan Beverly Mansfield Smith, on the other hand, was a St. Paul lounge singer when she caught Ray’s eye. As beautiful as she was talented, the attractive blond was married (as was Ray) when Ray came into her life, but Joan would soon learn just how little her marriage would concern Ray – or slow down his efforts to make her his wife. It took Ray a bit longer than he had hoped, giving him time to work in one more ex-wife, but six years after Joan turned down his first marriage proposal she finally said yes. Then all they had to do was shed their current spouses.

Largely due to Ray’s unrepentant alcoholism, prejudices, authoritarian nature, and single-mindedness, theirs was never going to be an easy marriage. Joan seems to have been surprised as to what she was getting when she married Ray, but her own passive-aggressive approach to their differences did little to ease the couple’s problems. Ray, twenty-five years older than Joan, was not destined to live a long life, and the $500 million fortune he left behind, allowed Joan to become one of the most generous philanthropists ever (during her life, most of her grants and donations were made anonymously).

Bottom Line: Lisa Napoli’s account of one of the most amazing rags-to-riches stories in American history makes for intriguing reading. Ray Kroc was a fascinating man, a “character” who met his match in Joan Kroc, the woman who was only too happy to give away the fortune Ray left her. ( )