Refresh Refresh, by Danica Novgorodoff

For the last review this week I am looking at a graphic novel. Refresh Refresh is by far the darkest and saddest of these stories. Like Operation Oleander, Refresh Refresh is set in recent history. Josh’s father and Cody’s father are Marine Reservists who are deployed to Iraq. They live in a small, unnamed Oregon town where a lot of the men have gone to war. For many of the families the men’s absence is a financial as well as practical burden. Cody’s power is cut off even though his mother has a job and his father is being paid by the military. His mother says that they are in financial trouble from losing his father’s overtime pay, although she works extra hours at the factory, so she is hardly ever home for him and his small brother.

The title, Refresh Refresh, comes from the action of refreshing the computer browser to see if any email has arrived and at the beginning both boys do this continuously, almost obsessively. As I said in my post on Operation Oleander, electronic communication is both a blessing and and a curse. In wrenching panels we see the boys repeatedly looking at their computer screens and seeing the cheerful but heartbreaking message, “Welcome! You have 0 unread messages.”

Refresh Refresh does a good job of portraying the complex feelings military service creates in the families left behind. Josh and Cody are about to graduate from high school, but in their small town there are not many opportunities open to them. Most of their friends feel they have to work in a local factory–”the plant”–or join the military. The boys resent that their fathers are gone and see the negatives of military service, but at the same time are proud of them, leading to ambivalence, “This is what we all wanted: to please our fathers, to make them proud–even thought they had left us.” Josh wants to go to university–a fact that he hides from his friends. His distant mother and stepfather are willing to pay for college, but if he gets bad news from Iraq what decision will he make?

The artwork reflects the dark subject matter, with severe lines and somber, drab colors, mostly in army green and grey. Try Refresh Refresh for a stark and uncompromising look at military family life, especially for reservists. Refresh Refresh is a violent and often disturbing graphic novel suitable for adults and older teens.

Check the WRL catalog for Refresh, Refresh.

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Second Fiddle, by Rosanne Parry

Second Fiddle is a story of adventures in exotic locales. From the outside it may seem that this is always true of military family life. It is accurate that I have lived in six countries and four states. And I have the annoying habit of being able to trump just about anyone’s extreme temperature stories, having lived in both one of the hottest cities in the world, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and one of the coldest, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. But the appeal of exotic travel chronicles only part of the experience. The constant moving of military families is an important theme in Second Fiddle and the book does a great job of capturing the sense of loss, while at the same time, even the thirteen-year-old characters appreciate that they are also receiving a gift.

As the main character, Jody says near the beginning, “The upside of being a military kid was that you got to see a lot of cool places. The downside was that every time you made a friend, you had to move away.” And her friend Vivian adds, “My mother thinks I’m having this great international experience, but changing schools all the time is just the same horrible experience over and over.”

Jody and her two friends Giselle and Vivian live on an American Army base in Berlin in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They are brought together by their love of music and they travel by train each week to music lessons in East Germany with Herr Muller. They are scheduled to attend a music competition in Paris and they all know it will be their last time to perform together as they are all moving away. On their way home from a music lesson they witness an attempted murder and the adventure begins, sending them across international borders as they desperately try to save the life of a young man.

Without their musical connection the three would not have been friends at all, as Giselle’s father is a general and the base commander, while Jody’s father is enlisted. Jody feels she can’t invite the general’s daughter over as even the adults in the enlisted housing area wouldn’t like it. Of course, parents’ ranks shouldn’t make a difference to the children, but this book accurately reflects that they do.

Author, Roseanne Parry based Second Fiddle on her own life experiences as she says that she moved to Germany in 1990 with her soldier husband. While the details of girls’ adventures can at times seem melodramatic, the book does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of military life. She mentions details that I recognize or have heard from my children and other people. For example, impending doom in the smell of moving boxes; the constant absence of Jody’s Dad; Jody not minding moving so much when she was younger; finding the question of where are you from impossible to answer; living in one place for three years for the first time and feeling unnatural in knowing her way around; and also remembering the time of an event in your personal history from where you lived (“I was seven so it must have been Missouri”).

Second Fiddle is an exciting older children’s adventure that sneaks in some history about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War. Try it if you are interested in the military lifestyle and the people who lead it.  I also recommend it for military families, both older children of around ten and up and their parents. It will be a great start for conversations about the lifestyle.

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Joseph, by Shelia P. Moses

“Daddy does not know what it is like to have to be a father to your mother. “

It is always an adjustment when a parent is deployed, but what happens when a  family is held together by one parent and that parent leaves?  In Joseph by Shelia P. Moses, Joseph’s father is deployed to Iraq and his mother, a drug addict, cannot cope. In fact Joseph, a boy mature beyond his years, ends up looking after her. When they are evicted he gets a chance to go to a better school although he is terrified that his new friends will learn that he and his mother are living in a homeless shelter. Joseph is torn; he is a good student who wants to do well in school and wants to take up tennis again, but he also wants to protect his mother and is suspended for three days for fighting with boys at school who insult her. Joseph’s parents were estranged before his father went away but the deployment makes it impossible for his father to offer any support to Joseph, except financial support. And that goes wrong when his mother uses Joseph’s father’s money to buy drugs rather than food or utilities. Joseph’s father knew about his wife’s problems and was trying to get custody of Joseph, but had missed two court dates because he was deployed, so may never get custody.

Joseph is a gritty book, not holding back from Joseph’s mother’s degradation and the negative effects on Joseph. Joseph’s mother is not at all likable, while his father is physically distant and therefore unable to help. Joseph is all alone. When some of his old school mates pick another fight with him: ”When they read me my rights they say I can make one phone call, but I have no one to call. Daddy is halfway around the world; Momma’s cell phone is off.” p75

Ultimately it is Joseph’s Aunt Shirley who saves him until his father returns, showing the importance of extended family in this sort of situation. When a military family are in crisis like this there are programs and people who are meant to help. I know that sometimes they are not as helpful as they are meant to be, especially in a case like this where Joseph and his mother live away from a military base. Isolated families face the same pressures in having a parent deployed but it is more likely that they will fall through the cracks and be missed by the  military assistance.

The author Shelia P. Moses was a National Book Award Finalist and a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Recipient for her 2004 novel The Legend of Buddy Bush.  In 2009, Joseph was nominated for the NAACP Image Award.

I recommend this book for adults and older teens who want a glimpse into the sordid life of addiction and the effects on children. It doesn’t talk a lot about what many people think of as a military lifestyle but does highlight that thousands of American children, far from military bases, have been affected by the recent wars as they have seen a parent leave.

Check the WRL catalog for Joseph

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Operation Oleander, by Valerie O. Patterson

This is the newest of the books I am reviewing this week, published in 2013. I found it difficult to read, not because of the length of the book or the complexity of the language – because it is a short and quick read, but because it too realistically portrayed details of my husband’s recent deployment to Afghanistan, although he is now safely home.

Jess’s Dad is in Afghanistan and she lives with her mother and toddler sister at invented army base, Fort Spencer, in Florida. She and her friends Meriwether and Sam have set up an unofficial charity to raise money in Florida to donate supplies to a girls’ orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan. Meriwether wants to stop working on the project and spend the rest of her summer sailing and swimming like usual. But Jess constantly looks at the photos and videos of the children they are helping and feels compelled to get more money for them.

A detail this book captures, that books set earlier miss, is the immediacy of electronic communication. Soldiers have always written letters home from war and letters from Civil War and World War I soldiers are now important and poignant historical documents. Will a transcript of a Skype session ever be seen as history? Can a Skype transcript even exist and can streaming video be saved? When you expect instant electronic communication from someone in a war zone at a certain time every day or at an expected frequency, if it doesn’t arrive, its absence carries a burden of worry. In the first few pages Jess says, “His email is there. I check the date and time of his note. As of this morning, Dad was still alive in Afghanistan.”

That turns out to be an ironic statement as they soon discover that a surge is underway and there have been several explosions in Kabul, including at the orphanage. The explosions over 7000 miles away in Kabul turn Jess’s life upside down. There are injuries and deaths and some people in her community blame her for the military being anywhere near the orphanage, endangering themselves and the orphans.

Operation Oleander is an up-to-date book that captures a slice of military child experience. A child with a deployed parent may be interested in the book’s perspective, although they may find it too raw and difficult to read, although it describes no graphic violence. And thankfully, most military children don’t have to deal with so much tragedy. It includes details about the expectations for extra responsibilities when a parent is away, such as Jess’s father teaching her specifically how to add gas to the lawn mower and turn off the water main before he goes away. For every reader Operation Oleander also asks profound questions about blame, accountability, unintended consequences and our obligation to each other as human beings.

Check the WRL catalog for Operation Oleander.

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Durable Goods, by Elizabeth Berg

All this week I am writing about a theme close to my heart – books featuring children of American military personnel. Some of the books I’m reviewing are up to date, talking about children with parents in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I am starting with an older book, with an even older setting.

Durable Goods is primarily a moving and beautiful coming of age story, written with a present tense immediacy. Katie is twelve and her friend Cherylanne is fourteen. They live next door to each other in a row of six connected houses on an army base in Texas around the 1960s. Katie’s mother recently died of cancer and most of Katie’s time and attention is taken up with navigating the changes of adolescence without her mother. Katie’s life is teasing Cherylanne’s older brother, worrying about shaving her legs, wanting her breasts to grow, and waiting for her first kiss.

Katie’s father’s military position holds a dominant position in their lives, and her Colonel father is inflexible, demanding and violent.  He is similar to, although not as colorful as, “Bull” Meecham in The Great Santini.  When I told a colleague at the library who grew up in a military family about my plans for my blog posts this week, she said she doesn’t like this sort of book because she is sick of military men being portrayed as thugs, as her father was stern but never violent. Author Elizabeth Berg said that Katie’s  father is based on her own father, but she adds that things have changed and violence is not acceptable in military families now.

Katie’s father clashes the most with Katie’s eighteen-year-old sister, Diane. “It’s not right, Katie. He’s not supposed to hit us like that. I’m going to tell someone, I swear. I’m going to get him into trouble.” Diane runs away and is brought back, but at eighteen she can leave, but will she?

Some of the details of military life are odd to civilians, “Our fathers’ names and ranks are posted outside our doors, above our mailboxes. We have look-alike bushes in the front and back.” Other details are well known, such as moving to a new base frequently, “‘We are not allowed to cry when we drive away–or any other time, either–about any place we leave behind. Sometimes it aches so hard, the thought of all you can’t have anymore, your desk the third in the third row, the place where you buy licorice, the familiarity of the freckles on your friends’ faces, the smell of your own good bedroom. You will be the new girl again, the one one always having to learn things.”

If you like the character-driven women’s fiction of Ann Hood or Anna Quindlen, try Durable Goods for its poignant coming of age story. I also recommend it for military children, either grown or older teenagers and current or retired military personnel. If you are interested in a longer list of books about military children check out my (now sadly dated looking but with updated content) website that I started for a class assignment in 2003. Things have changed a lot in ten years, not least the two wars that have lead to a resurgence of books about military children. I will review a sampling of four more of these books over the week ahead.

Check the WRL catalog for Durable Goods.

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The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles was the first book I read this year, and come December, there’s a pretty good chance I may say it was the best book I read in 2013.

I studied Classics at university, and of course the Iliad was required reading. But I often had to admit, always a little sheepishly, that I was never really a big fan of the epic. I could never enjoy the long lists of ships, war prizes, heroes, and descriptions of violent, bloody deaths that fans of Quentin Tarantino would find familiar – and least of all the sulking, brutish, prideful Achilles. I always found myself cheering for the tragic figure of Hector instead – the prince of Troy who fights not for glory or everlasting fame, but to defend his home and family.

But Madeline Miller has caused me to completely rethink and revise my opinion of Achilles. The novel tells the story of this mythological hero, from his boyhood in the kingdom of Phthia to the Trojan War, through the eyes of his beloved companion, Patroclus. Patroclus is a character from Greek mythology who we know less for himself and more for the cycle of vengeance that follows his death. (Spoiler alert! Hector, prince of Troy, kills Patroclus; in vengeance, Achilles kills Hector; to avenge his death, Paris kills Achilles; to avenge him, Philoctetes kills Paris, and so on. You get the idea.)

Ms. Miller begins her story with Patroclus, a sullen, awkward prince exiled from his home to the kingdom of Phthia, ruled by king Peleus. Patroclus quickly falls under the spell of the bright-eyed, golden-haired prince, Achilles. Achilles is intrigued by Patroclus and the two become inseparable. When Achilles is sent away to become a student of the ancient, learned centaur, Chiron, Patroclus cannot bear to be separated from his closest, and only, friend; and so he runs away from the palace and joins Achilles on the slopes of Mount Pelion.

The author handles their blossoming affection and romance very delicately and reverently. She does not beat around the bush in her explanation of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship as many more prudish historians and translators have been wont to do over the centuries. Moreover, Ms. Miller gives her readers an opportunity to better understand Achilles’ motives for going to war and provides believable explanations where Homer remains silent. She fleshes out both his and Patroclus’ characters and gives added dimensions to a character, who, in the Iliad, is little more than the sum of his anger (μηνιν…ουλομενην) and pride.

One of the difficulties facing any modern adapter of Homer and his heroic epics is the omnipresence of divinities. Do you, as an author, ignore them, thereby stripping the stories of their heart and soul? Or do you portray the heroes living in a magical world, thereby making the story unrealistic to modern readers and difficult to reconcile with the grim, visceral effects of war? Well, Ms. Miller simply takes the gods in her stride. At the beginning of the novel, she deals with them matter-of-factly in Patroclus’ child-voice. It reminded me very much of how a child today might explain the existence of Santa Claus and his elves. He does not think twice about their existence, and consequently, neither do you. She writes with clear, evocative prose and I would agree with the Guardian’s review that the prose is better than almost all the so-called poetic translations of Homer I have ever read. The Song of Achilles is a must-read for any lovers of historical fiction, and Classicists too, whether they are fans of the Iliad or not.

Check the WRL catalog for The Song of Achilles.

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The Judas Field, by Howard Bahr

Shell shock. Battle fatigue.  Soldier’s heart.  As early at the 1600′s it was known as Swiss Disease.  In the 1860′s some even called it “nostalgia,” thinking that simple homesickness could account for the disorientation, straggling, malingering, alcoholism, “cowardice,” and desertion that plagued the Union and Confederate armies.  In Howard Bahr’s novel of the Civil War, the debilitation follows a small group of comrades back to their Mississippi hometown, where they continue to relive their war experiences.  Those experiences gradually center on the heartbreak of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

Cass Wakefield and Roger Lewellyn enlisted in the rebel army in those heady days when it appeared that the war would be over by the end of the summer of 1861.  Serving in the Army of Tennessee, they fought at Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta Campaign, along with the dozens of smaller actions and skirmishes throughout those years.  They saw men die in every conceivable way, from the gruesome to the mundane, losing comrades at each step of the long march that brought them to Franklin.  They also picked up a boy, a toughened orphan named Lucifer, who they promptly renamed Lucius.  On his own, Lucius would adopt the name Wakefield and become mascot, comrade, and fellow sufferer in the line of battle.

Now, twenty years after the war, Lucius is addicted to laudanum, Roger carries the deep psychic wounds of an artist confronted with butchery, and Cass uses alcohol to numb his pain.  All three, and most of the men of their town, wander the streets in the middle of the night like ghosts in search of a place to haunt.  But when Alison Sansing, daughter of their regimental commander and sister of the dashing Perry, asks Cass to help her recover the bodies of her beloved father and brother, he agrees to accompany her to Franklin.

What Alison, one of Cass’s oldest friends, doesn’t tell him is that she is dying of cancer and this trip is the final obligation of a life filled with her own pain and heartbreak.  As their train rolls through the Southern countryside, she begins to see the landscape through which the men of her acquaintance marched and fought.  And Cass begins to recall and relive both painful and humorous episodes from his soldiering life.  It isn’t until they reach Franklin that they discover that both Lucian and Roger have followed them, and their emotional journey becomes a volatile one.

Howard Bahr is a rare combination of historian and author, skilled at gently and gradually exposing details of the soldier’s life and their direct battle experiences at places like Franklin while exploring the deeper battles hidden in human memory.  His writing is both insightful and evocative, with a perfect balance between description and psychological depth, while his characters are fully realized in all their glory and agony.  It’s not for nothing that his novels have been named Notable Books by the New York Times.  (Hey, Pulitzer people: were you asleep?)

For a historical account of the Union’s commander at Franklin and Nashville, check out Benson Bobrick’s Master of War.  Robert Hicks’s Widow of the South is a fictional account which details the life of Carrie McGavock, whose house was a Confederate hospital and who almost singlehandedly dug up and reburied Confederate dead on her own land.

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The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

Iraq War veteran and Virginia native Powers has transformed his experiences in Mosul and Tal Afar into a story that captures both the intimacy of comradeship and the larger impact of the war on soldiers’ lives.  And while many of the situations are brutal, Powers’s beautiful language redeems this story of combat and survival.

Privates Bartle and Murphy are a team, though hardly of equals.  At times, it seems as though the eighteen-year old Murphy could hardly have passed the minimum intelligence level to even join the Army, but Bartle takes very seriously the role of protector assigned to him by their sergeant and by Murphy’s mother.  In training, in garrison, and in combat, Bartle watches over Murphy, but there’s one place he can’t protect his buddy:  Murphy’s own mind.

While Bartle and Murphy’s relationship is the center of the story, there is a third man who looms over them.  Sergeant Sterling is their team leader, a career soldier who earned the Silver Star during his first rotation, and who has no illusions about what they are going back to.  He shifts from moderate affection to fierce protection to anger at the hapless soldiers he can’t keep from harm.  But Sterling has a dark side as well, with self-preservation trumping all other emotions.

Bartle narrates the story in multiple timelines, but each seems immediate rather than recalled from experience.  As he shifts settings, the reader comes to learn more about his transition from civilian to warrior, and from warrior to guilty survivor.  He holds back the worst of his experiences until he can no longer hide them from himself or from those who turn to him to understand what happened in Iraq.  It often escapes the reader that Bartle is only in his early twenties—it seems as though the trauma he has experienced has aged him out of his youth.

While this is not an emotionally easy read, there is pleasure to be had in Powers’s manipulation of language, setting, and character.  His skill at these belies his own youth, and we can only hope this first novel will be followed by many more.

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The Watch, by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

It seems as though it took years for fiction writers to process the impact of the Vietnam War in a meaningful way.  It also seems as though the fiction emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is more immediate, rawer, and as significant as any that came out of Vietnam.  I don’t know why the two wars differ in that respect, nor which of the newer novels will survive, but in terms of sheer impact, The Watch has a good chance of being that book.

The story: at a remote outpost guarding access to the mountains of Kandahar, American soldiers maintain a vigilant watch against Taliban fighters.  After a brutal night attack which leaves the Americans on edge, a legless young woman arrives on the plain outside the base.  She has wheeled herself on a cart through the tortuous landscape to retrieve the body of her brother for proper burial.  Suspicious of her motives, afraid of a suicide bombing attempt, and unable to communicate with her, the Americans order her first to leave, then to stay outside the perimeter.  Negotiations, if her stubborn refusal to leave and their refusal to release the body, can be called negotiations, proceed very slowly, until an uneasy truce is achieved.  While the events are slowly unfolding, we see through the eyes of the various characters that this culture clash is both unavoidable and irreconcilable.

The moral heart of the story is occupied by Nizam, the Pashtun woman, and by Americans Lieutenant Nick Frobenius and First Sergeant Marcus Whalen.  Frobenius brings the benefit of his classical Dartmouth education to the reader, recognizing Nizam’s stand as parallel to that of Antigone in Sophocles’ play.  He also represents the disillusionment of men who joined the military from patriotic motives only to discover that they were being used as pawns in a game of chess with ill-defined goals, as well as one whose relationship has suffered during his deployment.   Whalen is the competent career man, the bridge between the officers and the lower ranks whose sense of duty keeps him going despite his exhaustion.  And Nizam is the person who has right on her side but no power to claim it.  Now her family’s sole survivor, she wants to fulfill the final rite of a courageous warrior.  It is impossible for her to envision anything outside her traditional role in Pashtun society, but she brings the dignity and strength of a person secure in her identity to the battle of wills. Other chapters are narrated by different characters, but their stories revolve around their interactions with these three, and around the questions raised by the force of their characters.

Roy-Bhattacharya uses the atmosphere of the war zone effectively.  The Americans are running on uppers in the wake of the night attack, drowsing on their feet and experiencing vivid and all-too-short dreams of home.  Isolation and vulnerability,  and the harsh conditions—dust storms, freezing nights, hot days—reinforce to them that they are aliens.  Their base is cramped and smelly, but the expansive plains and looming mountains outside the walls may conceal threats.  And the close quarters can make them hate the comrades they must depend on.

Who should give way when an individual with right on her side meets powerful people with might and a strict code of conduct?  That question has been explored in literature and art, and lived out by individuals determined to change their world.  That question isn’t on Nizam’s mind, but the reader can’t help but confront it.  This is a tragic tale, told with power and precision by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya.

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The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman

Alan Bernstein’s review:

In The Guns of August Barbara Tuchman offers a narrative account of the fateful first month of World War I, a war that had been planned for and rehearsed by the two main European continental powers–France and Germany–practically ever since the end of their last war, the Franco-Prussian War, 44 years earlier in 1870.  Although the book is primarily concerned with military matters–differing philosophies of warfare; military strategy, doctrine, and education; logistics; proper martial spirit; and command structure–the author writes so well and organizes her material so skillfully that the book has the narrative flow of a superior novel instead of a musty tome of military and diplomatic history of a bygone era.  Mrs. Tuchman also provides enough background information to explain how and why Europe allowed itself to fall into this war.

What animates the author’s narrative is the human element of the major actors–the senior diplomats, government officials, rulers, and generals–who conceived, made, implemented, or reacted to the policies and events of their time.  She is superb in her thumbnail portraits of all the leading figures, and she has the knack of describing each of them with a few telling words.  Of General Ferdinand Foch, who was the molder of French military theory leading up to the war, she writes “His mind, like a heart, contained two valves: one pumped spirit into strategy; the other circulated common sense.”  However, what strikes Mrs. Tuchman most strongly is the level of stupidity, malevolence, self-deception, cruelty, and wishful thinking that appeared in varying degrees in almost every actor on the scene.  France and Germany had 42 years to think about and prepare for this war and yet from the beginning hardly anything went according to plan.

One of the unintended ironies of the book is that it was published in 1962, just as the United States was beginning its involvement in Vietnam.  Within a few years every unlearned lesson from World War I was repeated by us in Vietnam.  It seems that the military and the supporting civilian mindsets are universal and are doomed to repeat themselves.  And 40 years later the same human failings surfaced again in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Guns of August, read this way, becomes a meditation on human nature.

The book also gives insight into the German military psyche and its civilian component that goes far to explain the Nazi barbarism of World War II. Germany felt it had the moral right to ignore all international conventions of war and conduct war anyway it wanted because in the years leading up to World War I it felt itself to be the aggrieved party.  Its eventual defeat in that  war just magnified its grievances after the war.

One note of caution: the maps in The Library of America edition of The Guns of August (which also contains the author’s The Proud Tower) are superior to those I have seen in other editions.

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Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier, by Charles Spencer

I have been fascinated by the English Civil War ever since my youthful discovery of the historical fiction of John and Patricia Beatty.  The Beattys wrote several young adult titles set in the late Elizabethan period through the mid-18th century, and one of my favorites was Witch Dog (sadly, out of print now I think).  Witch Dog tells the story of Prince Rupert, commander of the Royalist cavalry (and sometimes the navy) during the English Civil War.  The novel centers around Rupert’s dog, Boye, reputed by Rupert’s Puritan foes to be an evil spirit and the source of his military prowess.  So when I was browsing the history section a few weeks ago and came across Charles Spencer’s biography of Rupert, I thought it was about time to refresh my knowledge of his exploits and perhaps learn a bit more.

Too often, biographies of historical characters become dull repetitions of dates and facts tied together with an occasional anecdote to remind the reader that we are talking about an actual human being.  Spencer, however, is anything but dull, and he does an excellent job of presenting both Rupert’s life and the broad stage on which it was played.  From my earlier reading, I knew some things about Rupert’s command of the Royalist cavalry — his early successes, his tendency towards headlong charges, and his later defeats at Naseby and Marston Moor.  But Spencer goes beyond just reciting dry facts and brings to life Rupert, his uncle, the unlucky Charles I, and a host of other characters.  The conflicts within the Royalist cause and Rupert’s place in those conflicts was fascinating and well-told.

What was most interesting to me, though sometimes quite sad, was the story of Rupert’s life before and after the Civil War.  His young exploits as a soldier in various European armies set him on the path to both success and failure in England.  Most touching were Rupert’s services to the Stuart family after the death of Charles I, and the seeming loss of the Royalists.  He served several hard years as a privateer captain, enduring miserable conditions, lack of support, and most terribly, the loss of his beloved brother Maurice, whose ship sank with all hands during a storm. Rupert’s later life following the restoration of the Stuarts saw him caught up in some of the same political infighting that proved so detrimental during the Civil War.  But there were pleasant times as well, and Spencer shows Rupert’s joy in scientific experimentation and his pleasure in hunting and riding.  He also makes the most of the scanty evidence at his disposal to illuminate Rupert’s social life.

For readers interested in English history, the military and political worlds of 17th c. Europe, or just a fascinating story of an intriguing man, Charles Spencer’s biography of Prince Rupert of the Rhine is sure to please.

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Oil on Water, by Helon Habila

It’s a popular question these days, mostly because the closest we get to oil is the pump at the nearest gas station.  But at ground level, in a place where there’s no safety, no regulation, and no hope of the wealth being shared, it’s entirely possible that the residents reverse the question.

Helon Habila takes us deep into Nigeria, where the promise of oil wealth has long been transmuted into the reality of oil industry.  The countryside is locked in a battle between lawless militants, many of whom say they’re fighting to share in the supposed prosperity, and the lawless military which is supposed to protect the oil infrastructure.  Caught in the middle (as usual) are the ordinary people who want to stay on their ancestral lands, worship at their shrines, and fish their waters.

The journey into this particular heart of darkness is narrated by Rufus, a young journalist looking to take his first step into the big time.  An Englishwoman, wife of a petroleum engineer working in-country, has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers want to open negotiations by proving she’s alive.  They issue an open invitation to the country’s media, and Rufus is among those to take up the challenge.  Along with several other reporters, including his idol Zaq, Rufus heads upriver for the meeting.

Nothing goes as it should, and Rufus becomes a firsthand witness to the brutality of both sides, and to the devastation of the environment.  The water is choked with oil.  Dead birds and fish are everywhere.  Abandoned drilling rigs overshadow villages.  Gas flares light the night sky.  No place is safe because the military suspects everyone of helping the militants, and the militants suspect everyone of helping the soldiers.  Raiders from both sides descend at will, stealing food, burning homes and boats, interrogating, even torturing and murdering random residents in sight of their neighbors and families.  Rufus, searching for what Zaq calls “the perfect story”, barely survives to return to his home in Port Harcourt.

The story behind the story, the true story, is the result of the ubiquitous oil drillers.  Using the implied promise of jobs and the practical demonstration of power, these men and the Company they work for represent the worst vestiges of colonialism left in the world.  Even as they rape the land, buy the leaders, and ship money and oil out of the country, they live lives of ease in their city strongholds.  Like oil and water, they do not–they cannot–mix.  But they are vulnerable to the blackmail and terror raids of the militants, and the kidnapping of Company employees has become the militants’ most lucrative industry.  When Isabel Floode disappears, her value to the various factions skyrockets and a miniature war breaks out as everyone tries to get their hands on her.  But even her kidnapping isn’t what it appears to be, and the deception has fatal consequences.

Habila immerses the reader in the chaos, heat, disease, and distress of the Niger Delta, where the rivers and waterways braid in myriad paths and where each turn may yield danger or comfort.  He also writes much of the dialogue between Rufus, Zaq, and the people they encounter in the pidgin of the Delta, which houses a multitude of ethnic groups and languages.  While the language may seem odd at first, context and growing familiarity make it easy to comprehend, and even to get some sense of the cultures that lie behind it.  I suspect, though, that those interested in learning about these cultures or reading Mr. Habila’s book aren’t the ones who need to understand that “our” oil carries a much higher cost than we see at the pump.

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The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

My friend and colleague Charlotte previously recommended the first book in Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go. If you haven’t read that book, you ought to stop here, read this post about the series starter and come back to The Ask and the Answer after you’ve read it. Spoiler alerts for anyone who reads on in this post! Still, this YA series is so good that it deserves a second entry.

The second book picks up with Todd and Viola waking to discover that Mayor Prentiss has arrived at Haven and holds them separately captive. The Mayor has changed tactics somewhat, and is now working to win Todd and Viola over to his cause. What follows are chapters full of subtle psychological games, as Todd and Viola try to confirm each other’s safety and reunite, while the Mayor plays both good cop and bad cop in his nasty but subtle style.

The unusual conceit of the series is that a virus left men on this planet unable to hide their thoughts from others. In their heads, each can hear what everyone else is thinking. Women don’t broadcast their thoughts but can hear those of men, an inequality that makes Mayor Prentiss particularly hard on them as he struggles to maintain control. Some residents of Haven give in quickly to his armed dictatorship, but others begin to engage in vicious guerilla warfare, hiding under the mysterious moniker of The Ask. The Mayor responds with his own Gestapo-like organization, The Answer. Not just Todd and Viola are at risk, everyone in Haven is in danger, and the future of the whole planet’s up for grabs, as another wave of colonizing ships is due soon. To make matters worse, the Mayor has discovered a method of masking his thoughts at time, using them like a weapon at others.

Todd, along with the Mayor’s bullying, ne’er-do-well son Davy, is put to work rounding up the planet’s other species, the strange Spackle, and monitoring their forced labor. Viola must recover from injuries, then begins to learn healing arts herself, all the while searching for both Todd and those with whom she could ally to fight the Mayor.

Ness writes masterfully, leaving the reader unsure of whom to trust. Todd, in particular, undergoes a dark journey in this novel, suffering manipulations that lead him to behaviors that give him great shame. The suspense of the outcome of the ongoing war becomes almost secondary to the question of whether Todd can even save his own soul. If you’ve ever wondered how people can become twisted enough to perpetrate the heinous deeds committed during wartime, this book will provide an unforgettable example. There’s drama, suspense, action, and an enduring romance at the core of a series, which should be enjoyable to all adults, whether they’re young or not.

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The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller

Here’s my take on a book coming out in August.  I got it as an advance reader copy.

The world as we know it ended nine years ago.  A virulent disease wiped out the world’s population, with the exception of a few people desperately hanging on to the remnants of civilization or roaming the country determined to steal those remnants.  Pockets of the afflicted are still around, quarantined and feared by the healthy.

Hig is a pilot, a grieving widower, a hunter and fisherman, a dog owner, a lover of books and poetry.  He lives at an old Midwest airport designed as the centerpiece of a community of nouveaux-riches pilots, where he tends to his 1956 Cessna, hunts deer, and scouts out interlopers from the air.  His sole neighbor is Bangley, a tough man determined to protect his territory or die trying.  Bangley continually tests Hig, pushing him to find his weak points and bullying him out of them.  Hig’s weaknesses? Caring about the community of contagious families within flying distance.  His reluctance to shoot people.  His dog Jasper.  His memories of the time before.  The innate trust that Bangley believes will kill them both one day.

His desire to go anywhere, to be anywhere but that old airport.

When the chance arises, Hig decides to fly off in the direction of a voice transmission he’d picked up years before, seeking a new face, a new place, a new something that will divert him from his grief and give him a shot at regaining his sense of humanity.  Loaded down with fuel and supplies, he takes off and leaves Bangley behind.

And meets other people.  The problem is that those people are also trying to protect their territory.  They don’t know that he’s looking for companionship or salvation, and he may be dead before he can communicate that to them.  He must balance his essential self with everything Bangley has drilled into him to weave his way through these encounters.

Heller uses the first person to tell this story, giving an immediacy to the adrenaline of Hig’s mortal encounters and the range of emotions he feels towards Jasper, Bangley, his wife, and all the things of the prior world that he misses, along with the complicated thrill Hig still gets from flying.  From the details of ambushing a raiding party to the feel of tickling fish in a mountain stream, Heller puts the reader into Hig’s unenviable place and finds the slightest glimmer of hope in a world that is barely holding on.

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World War II: When Lions Roared

This is an exceptional historical drama about the Big Three leaders of  the Allied front—Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt—and how they worked together to fight and overcome Hitler’s Nazi war machine in World War 2.  It offers a fascinating and unique “behind the scenes” look at the negotiations and decisions made by these three men. This insider view is enhanced by the fact that David Rintels, who wrote the screenplay, based most of the dialogue on transcripts, reports and memoirs of that time,  which lends an air of authenticity and significance to the dialogue, even when minute and mundane matters are discussed.

This three-hour film covers all of the major events of this great war from beginning to end. This includes many of the major conflicts like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Stalingrad and the D-Day invasion. Newsreel footage from each of these major events adds realism to the movie and significance to the diplomacy of the Big Three leaders.  Several meetings between the leaders are featured prominently,  including the important and well-known conferences in Tehran in 1943 and in Yalta in 1945.  Many of these meetings  involved a good deal of discord and wrangling: Churchill, for instance, was vehemently opposed to the spread of communism and was especially concerned about the fate of Poland when the war ended, while Stalin pushed long and loud for a second front in the West to help relieve his armies in Russia, and often accused the other two leaders of not doing enough.

The acting is first-rate: Bob Hoskins as Churchill, John Lithgow as Roosevelt, and Michael Caine as Stalin do a fine job with their very demanding roles. I especially liked Michael Caine, who had his part down pat; with his height, make-up and accent he made for an often chilling Stalin, so it is no surprise to me that he was nominated for an Emmy for his performance.  I also liked Ed Begley Jr. as Roosevelt’s aide Harry Hopkins and Jan Triska as Stalin’s aide Vyacheslav Molotov; both are very believable as top assistants carrying out the plans of their respective leaders.

I would recommend this movie, which won one Emmy award and was nominated for five others, to anyone interested in the history of World War 2. Because of its comprehensive coverage, it could be a good way for students to learn about this war,  and would also be a good movie to watch on Memorial Day.  I showed it to my 81-year-old Dad, who has seen every WW2 movie at least a dozen times and who was not interested in watching any of them for a thirteenth time.  But he paid this movie the biggest compliment when he thanked me at least three times over the next day or so for getting and watching this movie with him.

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Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by William Shawcross

How does a just and civilized country conduct the trial of the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11? Is he an enemy combatant? Is he a civilian who is deserving of a civilian trial? And what happens if, despite his confession, the rules of civilian justice require that evidence against him is inadmissible?

In trying to answer these questions William Shawcross refers to the famous Nuremberg Nazi war crime trials after WWII because they set a precedent for a new kind of justice. Previously, winners of many wars have conducted trials, but the Americans wanted to do something different. In 1945 the Americans, against the wishes of some of their allies, declared that they would not conduct simple sham or show trials at Nuremberg. In a speech to the American Society of International Law in 1945 Justice Robert Jackson said that, “You must put no man on trial under the forms of judicial proceeding, if you are not willing to see him freed if not proven guilty. If you are determined to execute a man in any case, there is no occasion for a trial; the world yields no respect to courts that are merely organized to convict.”

Since 9/11 these same questions of justice have vexed the government, the military and many individuals. How do we keep the public safe from self-avowed terrorists who promise to attack any target in their power, and at the same time ensure justice for the accused? With a sketchy knowledge of both Nuremberg and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed I was interested to learn how these newsworthy events and people are connected. I have to admit that even with an interest in the topic I was doubtful about starting a tome with such a weighty title, but I found that William Shawcross has a very readable style.

This book highlights fascinating background for the events that are in the news all the time. For example, the book states that only three prisoners were ever waterboarded by representatives of the U.S. government. Perhaps this is three too many, but from the controversy and vitriol surrounding the issue, I thought it must have happened to dozens, if not hundreds of people.

Author William Shawcross is the son of Chief British Prosecutor at Nuremberg, Hartley Shawcross. He obviously grew up hearing about the trial and occasionally inserts what his father said. This book is sure to be controversial and you may disagree violently with Shawcross’s conclusions, but it is definitely still worth reading to consider some depth behind the headlines.

Check the WRL catalog for Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

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War Music, by Christopher Logue

“Picture the east Aegean sea by night,
And on a beach aslant its shimmering
Upwards of 50,000 men
Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet.”

English poet Christopher Logue died last month, putting an end to the extremely gradual process by which he was retelling the Iliad in free verse. His obituary notes that, since he first started fiddling with Homer in 1959, this was “a literary endeavor noteworthy for lasting four times as long as the Trojan War itself.”

The bad news is that I’ll never get to read Logue’s take on Homer from beginning to end. The good news is that his existing work stands quite well as an Iliad in miniature. War Music hits all the highlights, from the opening confrontation of Achilles and Agamemnon, the original rock and hard place, to Trojan Hector’s off-screen but inevitable death. You get a little bit of single combat, cuckolded Menelaos versus Paris “with the curly-girly hair,” and you get a full-scale Greek-and-Trojan melee, with officers and grunts alike inflicting “high-reliability fast-forward pain.”

Aeneas’ axe
Enhanced the natural crackage of his skull,
And he quit being.

Logue, who famously knew no Greek, keeps to plain language and a rolling more-or-less iambic pentameter with a lot of forward momentum. Freely anachronistic, he incorporates WWII references and screenplay terms into something like a director’s cut of Homer’s epic poem. It hardly matters that his words are modern, when the tone and the themes are age-old: what are we fighting for, is it worth it, and will this nine, no, ten-year war ever end?

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Flashman at the Charge, by George MacDonald Fraser

There’s never been an anti-hero quite so … heroic … as Harry Paget Flashman.   Cad, coward, spendthrift, popinjay, drunkard, turncoat, bully: all the things you’d normally avoid in the ordinary protagonist of your ordinary reading (and hopefully in your daily existence) are Flashman’s best features.  In his private memoirs (transcribed from his papers by George MacDonald Fraser), Flashy is charmingly consistent in relating his tales without concealing a single detail of his abominable behavior.  Anyone else might occasionally attempt to justify their behavior, but Flashman is perfectly aware of his “strengths,” and that candor forms the root of his attraction.  (And if there was even a single hint of remorse, the whole edifice would come tumbling down.)  In the course of 12 volumes, Flashy travels more miles than Phileas Fogg (usually on the run or under arrest), beds more women than Casanova, and escapes hordes of outraged husbands, parents, and harem guards.  Honestly, what’s not to like?

He also manages to participate in every military scrap of any significance, in spite of his deep and abiding concern for his own skin.  (In one of his famous references, he somehow manages to fight on both sides at Gettysburg, winning medals from both the Union and Confederacy.  Alas, Fraser was not able to edit and present those papers to his readers.)  And, although he would prefer to be in the rear cheering on the fools and would-be heroes, events always conspire to put him in the thick of things.  Despite his best (worst?) instincts, somehow he survives to get the credit, the medals, and the reputation.  Problem is, everyone expects him to keep living up to his reputation and the cycle starts all over again.

Flashman at the Charge recounts his misadventures in the Crimean War, and his return to the land that made him a hero the first time around.  When the story takes off, Flashy has detected the rising drumbeat for war with Russia and successfully gotten himself into a billet guaranteed to suit his indolent life—part of the British Army’s Board of Ordnance.  The Board gives him great cover as an essential part of the war effort, and allows him to live at home with his randy wife, go to his club, and chase the prostitutes and young women of London.  When a young European prince is turned over to the “heroic” Flashy to complete his military education, all of Flashman’s efforts are for naught and he finds himself aboard a transport heading to the Black Sea.  His chagrin is offset by cases of excellent wine and cigars, the finest foodstuffs, and new uniforms designed to highlight his magnificent physique.

Being Flashman, he winds up at the center of the Battle of Balaclava, culminating in the Charge of the Light Brigade.  And being Flashman, he happily accedes to surrender, especially when taken to the estate of a Russian noble blessed with a beautiful sister and daughter.  Being Flashman, he’s happy to make their most intimate acquaintance, which he’s determined to enjoy until a treaty is signed.  And, of course, being Flashman, there’s a fly in the pudding that sends him rushing headlong from his host’s house.  The journey that follows takes him all the way back to the Khyber Pass and the tribal guerilla war against the Russians, and another unwanted opportunity to be a hero.  The poor fellow just can’t catch a break.

Barry wrote a fine obituary for George MacDonald Fraser when he died nearly four years before this post (!), capturing all of Flashy’s appeal.  My enjoyment stems from the historical detail that Flashman provides and that Fraser annotates.  Flashman also has an eye for the social hypocrisy and sometimes the brutality that he witnesses.  Ironically, he does not notice his own casual racism which is cringe-worthy in the modern reader but accurate for the English upper class of his day.  Finally, it’s amazing to see the parallels between Flashy’s adventures and the modern day.  If the Kremlin and the White House had read the first Flashman book, the hard lessons learned by the British might have dissuaded them from wading into the morass of Afghanistan.  There truly is nothing new under the sun.

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