Dan's Reading Journal

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

From the author of the absolutely phenomenal Seabiscuit comes the equally phenomenal and even more moving Unbroken. Ever wonder why our parent's generation never warmed up completely to Japanese cars and culture?  Ever ponder that which makes some individuals cling to life with unbelievable tenacity while others sharing the same experience can't hang on?  Unbroken explores these themes and more through the biography of the extraordinary life of Louie Zamperini.  This is a story of competitiveness, compassion, carnage, and cruelty, Unbroken is a marvel you will find very hard to put down.

Hillenbrand starts with the somewhat troubled youth and then rehabilitation of Louis Zampernini.  And Louie really turned around indeed....before joining the Navy, Louie was considered a real threat to be a gold medalist and the first man to break the 4 minute mile. That could have been story enough, but it is Louie's war time story (and post-war) that distinguish his life and this book.  Thus, Unbroken is the story of the war in the Pacific...and Louis's short career as a bombardier on a P-29.  It is a story of survival at sea, survival as a POW, and survival as a survivor.  Hillenbrand does justice to all phases of Louie's life -- her research, interviewing, and assembly of Louie's story (and the story of all the men) as a prisoner-of-war in a Japanese prison camp creates prose that has visceral impact.  You will cringe and be sickened by what you read, but marvel at the human spirit. Her treatment of Louie's post-war life is equally good and equally moving.

Hillenbrand reintroduces all the skills she displayed in bringing Seabiscuit to us...meticulous research, a terrific grasp of detail, and the ability to produce compelling, gripping, and emotionally moving prose.  If you, as a number of friends who have mentioned to me, are better versed in the European theatre in WWII than the Pacific, you are in for an education.  If the survivor rate of German and Japanese POWs in American hands was 99%, the survival rate of American POWs in Japanese custody was only 60%.  Louis Zamperini was one of the survivors.  The record for survival for downed airman at sea in a life raft was like 40 days....Louis Zampeini lasted 47.

I will not retell the story here other than to say again how incredibly  well told and compelling it is....start this book at the beginning of your weekend....because you really will not be able to put it down.

City Room by Arthur Gelb

There is a payoff to listening to your father.  In this case it was the recommendation to hunt down and obtain an out of print book titled "City Room" by Arthur Gelb.  Gelb joined The New York Times as a night copyboy (the lowest professional position at the paper) in 1944 and retired as The New York Times Managing Director some 45 years later.

Gelb has written such a fine account that I wished he could have worked at The New York times for 100 years.  Engaging, intriguing, fascinating and just plain enjoyable, Gelb's 45 years with the gray lady brought him into contact with great newsmakers, celebrities, and major pieces of our history.  Throughout all, he brings the facts, the context, and the impact and operations of the paper into sharp focus -- all with a reporter's eye for detail and writing with the classic journalistic understanding that some editor might come by and slash half the column inches out of the story....so the impact, heat, and meaning all show up early in the narrative.

Name dropping is unavoidable....brought under the tutelage of the eminent editor, Abe Rosenthal, Gelb met, reported on, and mingled with the best and the brightest from the end of WWII to the Clinton White House.  He was a copy boy, arts editor, news editor, Sunday supplement editor and just about everything else.  He "discovered" Joe Papp, reported on Joe McCarthy, covered Nixon's resignation, helped publish the Pentagon Papers, joked with Marilyn Monroe and Tallulah Bankhead, exposed corruption in the New York City police force, and covered the Rosenberg's trial and execution.

Gelb is open and honest about the workings of The New York Times and that produces a phenomenally interesting view into how the news is dug up and reported.  He does not shirk from criticism, most notably in his discussion about The Times timidity when it came to reporting on the Holocaust amidst worries about being viewed as "too Jewish" a paper. But he also covers the emergence of truth in reporting about rape, homosexuality (and how long it took to allow the word "gay" into print) and AIDS, as well as the struggle for ensuring women got a fair shot in the newsroom.

Truly this is a journey from a newsroom that was exclusively male -- complete with spittoons, typewriters, and guys monopolizing pay phones to the modern technology of reporting and competing with television and the internet.  It is a fascinating journey and a simply terrific story well told.

While I typically shun and detest the quips on the back of the book extolling its virtues, in this case they are accurate.  Charlayne Hunter-Gault said of City Room that is was, "a reminder of what it means to be the best", and Pete Hamill remarked that "a sense of intelligent innocence permeates this affectionate memoir."  Both are quite correct -- and so was Dad.

Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend by James S. Hirsh

I picked up this book because I liked Willie Mays as a kid (I was a Mets fan and had the privilege of watching Willie Mays at the end of his career) and because Pete Hamill, who is no slouch of a writer all on his own, wrote a terrific review of this book in The New York Times Sunday Book Review.  Check out the review at Pete Hamill's Review.

I always thought Willie Mays was a phenomenal athlete and Hirsh's book will leave you rather breathless at Mays' exploits.  However, you probably do need to have an appreciation of the sport of baseball to enjoy this book -- because there is a lot of baseball as you might imagine to be the case for a man who played professional ball for almost 25 years.  Willie Mays started his career in the old Negro leagues (he was in high school) and played there for a couple of years before being drafted by the San Francisco Giants and playing in the minors for just a bit before being called up to "save" the Giants.  And save them he did.  Hirsh, who also wrote the biography of Hurricane Carter, does a good job of illuminating what was truly astonishing about Willie Mays's talent without becoming breathless.  However, there is also no question that Hirsh is a fan (read the author's note at the end).

Aside from Mays physical dominance in the game and his truly astonishing athleticism, Hirsh provides an insightful look into an age and attitude almost unthinkable today.  Willie was 19 years old when he broke into the big leagues in 1951 and black players were still a rarity (Jackie Robinson was in his late 20s in 1947 when he broke the color line, Larry Doby was 24 or 25 and both spent years in the Negro Leagues beforehand).  There were still teams in 1959 that did not have black players on the roster.  Moreover, most of us have viewed our sports through the age of free-agency.  But Willie Mays, whose top salary was $125,00 a year (and he was the top paid player that year) was subject to the "reserve clause" - in practical terms, he was owned by the San Francisco Giants and Horace Stoneham, the Giants owner.  It was amazing to me that Willie Mays, who in 1960 had batted over .300 in 6 of the previous 7 years (and in the year he missed, he hit .296) was still doing barnstorming tours with other black players and Negro league stars to make additional money.

Hirsh brings out the total story of Mays and Stoneham -- Stoneham had the courage and character to have the most black/latin players on his team at time where people worried that attendance would suffer with too many "colored" on the team.  Stoneham and his family adored and took care of Willie and the respect was mutual for many, many years.  The denouement of the relationship is sad and unfortunate and Hirsch does it justice.

The other major storyline that Hirsh does fair justice with is the relationship between Willie Mays and the civil rights movement.  Mays was criticized by Jackie Robinson and others for not being more aggressive, but Hirsh deftly demonstrates that Mays was very well aware of what was going on and made a conscious choice to contribute in ways that were true to his character as well as his strong belief that actions speak louder than words.

Willie Mays was a marvel.  He ended his career including the last two miserable years (in terms of performance) with the Mets as a .302 hitter with well over 3,000 hits and 660 home runs.  Had he not missed most of the 1952 and all of the 1953 season, he could have easily hit over 720 home runs and perhaps more (he averaged 45 home runs a season in the two years after his army stint).  He learned many of life's lessons the hard way given he really grew up in baseball and in the glare of the spotlight. 

His is a life of accomplishments worth remembering.  If you like baseball at all, you should read
Willie Mays:  The Life, The Legend.

A Country of Vast Designs by Robert W. Merry

It is clear to me that many of my readers have not been sitting around asking themselves, "I wonder when the next biography of James K. Polk is coming out?" I get it, I really do.  James K. Polk is would probably not be on the top of my list either except for a couple of things.  First, I am an Andrew Jackson fan, and just finished a good (but not great) biography by Jon Meacham (editor of Newsweek) by the title of American Lion - a book, I am ashamed to say, I have failed to review in this blog.  So my interest is Jacksonian America is reason #1 - and Polk was, perhaps the last of the Jacksonian Presidents.  Second, it got a very good review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review ( by the way, The Sunday Book Review is edited by a college colleague and much better writer than I, by the name of Sam Tanenhaus).   Third, as the history major, I have always been intrigued by the the people and events that shaped America.  And James K. Polk certainly helped shape America.  Polk was an unapologetic expansionist and under his watch, the United States expanded by one-third adding Texas, the Oregon Territory, and New Mexico and California. It is in that vein that I recommend reading A Country of Vast Designs.

Merry, the President and Editor-in-Chief of Congressional Quarterly, Inc did a a very good job keeping my interest and wove the key themes of Polk's presidency (slavery, manifest destiny, diplomacy with Britain, and war) together with skill.  Merry has a perspective on Polk and history that I found interesting.  With regard to Polk, he shows how indomitable will (and political maneuvering) can and does trump morality and how by holding fast to an overarching strategy (or vision) Polk overcame all the deficiencies of personal relations that he created for himself.

Polk's presidency was preceeded by Jackson, then Van Buren and Tyler (Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died of pneumonia a month after giving a 3 hour inaugural speech in the bitter cold) and preceeded Zachary Taylor (who won his fame in Polk's war with Mexico), Millard Fillmore (who succeeded upon Taylor's death in office after only 16 months), Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan (who was Polk's irascible and irritating - if not downright disloyal - Secretary of State).  Abraham Lincoln was elected President follwing Buchanan.  Polk sat right in the middle of the creation of the USA we know today - land acquistion by conquest and diplomacy, the beginnings of the politics of succession and the Civil War, and the death of the Whigs and creation of the Republican Party (under Abraham Lincoln among others).

In many way Polk evoked some of the same feelings as Truman did and for many of the same reasons.  They saw the world in straighforward fashion, had a vision of success, and used all the tools at their disposal to ensure that success happened.  In Polk's case, a war with Mexico brought Texas (and one could argue California, New Mexico, and Arizona) into the United States -- and Polk has been vilified since for engineering a war for profit.  Truman lost no sleep in ordering the use of nuclear bombs to bring an end to the war with Japan.  Simple ends accomplished by using all the tools at their disposal. 

While not purple prose, Merry is an engaging writer and I found the subject matter - and the politics - of great interest.   As a side note, one of the intriguing aspects of Polk's time was that the Whigs (later the Republicans) were the advocates against slavery while the Democrats agitated against the use of tax funds for public improvement projects like roads (because it was unconstitutional). 

Everything in a circle, yes? Thus, Polk's extraordinary success in a time of politics every bit as bitter and partisan as today's actually gives me hope that we can yet accomplish something important and meaningful.

As a post-script, American Lion by Jon Meacham is a very worthwhile read as well.  Meacham spends even more time than Merry going through the minutia of the brutal political environment of the time - as Jackson generated even more partisan politics than Polk.  Anyone who thinks it is only recently that dysfunction, deceit, and distortion have risen to the top of the political scene need to read both these books.  As in, when it comes to politics -- whether discussing Cicero, Jackson, or Obama -- there really ain't much new under the sun.

   

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

I may the the last person you know to read Team of Rivals and I probably am a bit of a contrarian with some of my reaction.  Let me say up-front that it is a terrific store of information and I learned a lot that I did not know.  The premise of the work is interesting -- Abraham Lincoln has not been given his due as a political genius nor a leader (manager) of people.  Goodwin sets about and very successfully makes her point. And doing huge injustice to her scholarship, those points are simple and straightforward.  First, Lincoln's nomination as the Republican nominee and his subsequent election as President was no fluke, no accident, and anything but lucky.  Rather, Lincoln's election was the direct result of his own political acumen and the application thereof to the situation as he saw it (better than most) and his execution (better and more sophisticated than almost everyone).  Second, his process of selecting, attracting, and managing the key members of his cabinet - all of whom were his rivals for the Presidency (William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates) was an unparalleled demonstration of superior knowledge and understanding of human behavior and motivation.  Her exploration and demonstration of her thesis is interesting and the politics of the US from 1844 - 1864 is indeed fascinating.  While I am certainly no expert, Goodwin's scholarship appears exhaustive and detailed.

The book suffers from two flaws in my opinion.  First, Goodwin has sharp insights, but is constantly asserting as fact what she believes Lincoln was feeling or what his motivation or thinking must have been.  I do not question her analysis, but it was occasionally noticeable that conjecture was presented as fact. Second, the story is not told linearly, but jumps vertically through the experiences of Lincoln, Seward, Chase, and Bates.  It took me a while to get it  - until I did, it was a bit confusing.  Once I got it, it worked rather well. 

Goodwin is a thoughtful writer, but her prose is not exciting nor inventive.  As a small example, Salmon Chase's daughter Kate is describe numerous times....and always the same way, "beautiful".  Minor perhaps, but it was telling. However, these are small flaws. In the whole the scholarship overwhelms the narrative deficiencies.  More important, there is so much to learn and Goodwin lays it all out for us. 

As a final note, while the book centers on Lincoln, I found the descriptions of Seward and Chase to be very, very interesting (Bates was less a focus, or left less of an impression on me).  Chase turned out to be a self-centered, colorless and while effective in his technical role he was endlessly and quite annoyingly blind to his own impact on others.  Seward, in contrast, came across as a terrific ally who subjugated his own interests (after losing the nomination to Lincoln) to the betterment of the country.  Not only was he a tireless worker, he showed extraordinary judgment, tact, and commitment.  Seward, unfortunately, paid a much higher price for his loyalty than Chase paid for his lack thereof and comes off decidedly as the better man.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Abraham Lincoln is a terrifically complex, interesting, fascinating, and absorbing character.  I truly enjoyed getting to know him, his style, his way of thinking and acting, and his ability to understand the American people both writ large and individual by individual.

While a bit of an effort, it appears to be worth the work of reading Team of Rivals. No question you will learn something new.

Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

Let's get this over with quick -- Warren Buffet, while apparently a moral and, in some ways ways, wise man, may have very little to teach you and me about "the business of life" based on his personal life in general.  Then again, maybe he does.  Warren Buffet is a mass of contradictions.

In addition to being the 1st or 2nd richest human being on the planet is/was also mono-maniacally focused on money-making, incapable of sustaining a monogamous relationship with his spouse;  mostly a miser, but not quite; at best an indifferent parent - at worst, perhaps incapable of really caring about his children; absolutely cold and cruel to his adopted grandchildren (he couldn't quite see them as real family); pathologically incapable of dealing with stress or crisis in his family (and not all that prepared to do so in business either); a man with limited tastes to the point of dysfunction or autism (he only went to China with Bill Gates when he learned that Gates had taken along a chef that would make Buffett hamburgers and fries for every meal). Even recognizing the dysfunction of the family he was raised in, he rarely spoke to his mother after he left home.  He attended neither his mother''s funeral nor his wife's.

However, Mr. Buffett has had an interesting life and has taken some surprising courageous stands.  Brought up by (and marrying into) ultra-right wing Republicans (his father was so extreme that the Republicans eventually dumped him) and more than simply casual anti-Semites (his father-in-law forbid Warren's eventual wife-to-be from pursuing a romance with a Jewish man), it is a testimony to his personal values that he has become attached to a number of liberal causes and has been proven right more than wrong.  He asked, and became the first non-Jewish member of the Jewish country club in Omaha (at a time where religion determined where one could be a member).  Once a member, he turned around and sponsored the first Jewish member of the Omaha Club. He has always been somewhat of a philanthropist (although up until his startling announcement of giving 85% of his wealth to the Gates foundation, always hitting a bit below his grade-level) and the causes he supported were surprisingly liberal, i.e., women's reproductive rights.

That he has integrity in business dealings is beyond doubt and that in and of itself is noteworthy in these times.  That he has been upfront and out-spoken about the need for self-restraint on Wall Street (decrying the culture of greed and the danger of over-leverage, derivatives, and "irrational exuberance") is a mark of reason and business wisdom.  The fact that he has been a quiet force for dumping over-paid, underperforming CEOs who were enriching themselves at stockholder expense is laudatory.  He has been consistent in his opposition to the dismantling of the estate tax -- he has always believed that dynastic wealth is a anathema to democracy.  His investment record is still unchallenged.  No one has out-performed the market as consistently as Warren Buffett.

However, when the Right-to-Life movement threatened to boycott one of his companies, he had the companies in question quit making donations to the charities that Right-to-Life objected to.  After deriding derivatives as an evil (and after pulling Salomon out of the activity, and refusing to assist Long-Term Capital Management in their pursuit of derivatives) he has issued derivatives based on Berkshire-Hathaway.

His story is interesting - and remains so despite Alice Schoeder's daunting level of detail.  Some of that detail is fun and interesting (e.g., Buffet's purchase of the Omaha Furniture Marta and his dealings with its obstreperous, Eastern-European Jewish mother owner/operator) while some of it, particularly some of the family detail, seemed overdone.

All in, Buffet ends very much on the plus side of the ledger -- perhaps the price of genius is weirdness,  hard-to-understand focus, and dysfunctional families.  Buffett's family may have suffered and he may have very weird habits and idiosyncrasies, but his vision regarding investing and money-making has been relatively consistent and moral.  His integrity is mostly intact, and he is still - after 50 years - regarded as an oracle.  For a guy who has been worth as much as $60-70 billion dollars, that is quite an accomplishment.  So is the amount of wealth he has created and promised to give away.

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer

Unless you are on either extreme fringe of today's American politics, you are probably somewhat conflicted by US policy towards Iran.  Are they a threat?  Will they really try to create a nuclear weapon?  Do they really sponsor anti-American terrorists?  Should we confront them militarily or will diplomacy work?  Are they really an existential threat to Israel?

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer should answer any number of those questions - not through political exegesis by through the subtle exploration of one family's experience with post-revolution Iran.  Here is a picture of the day-to-day erosion of basic civil liberties and civil behaviors that the Iranian revolution put in place and has kept in place since the Islamic regime took over.  Sofer's family escaped this darkening place in 1982 (when she was 10 years old), but her tale of what happened to her Jewish family is harrowing and telling.  Without warning, without legal foundation, and without mercy, her father is visited by the Revolutionary Guards and taken away to prison.  It is fairly clear that his only crimes are being Jewish in an Islamic state, and having had a once thriving jewelry store whose assets are now coveted by others.  Success, wealth, and having once served those who served the Shah are enough reasons for loss of liberty, property, and dignity.

Sofer tells her story in three tracks.  First, the story of how her mother tries to keep her family together and free from harm.  This is complicated by Dalia's theft of some very important papers (regarding her father) from the Warden of the prison that holds her father (the Warden's daughter was a playmate).  Second, the story of her non-religious brother's life in New York where he is struggling to make a living, but falls in love with the daughter of his Hasidic landlord.  Third, through the story of her father's experience in prison.

Sofer is best when describing a character's feelings - though she tends toward a bit more introspection and perhaps self-pity than is always comfortable.  Her dialog is not spectacular (and occasionally a bit contrived) But much more often than not, she is terrifically accurate in her descriptions of the emotional impact of events on people.  How she feels being deprived of her father, her playmates, her school.  How her brother feels being stereotyped and profiled in New York, how he feels about his European devout landlord, how he feels being poor.  Best drawn, perhaps are her mother and father - both suffering privations they never contemplated and both figuring out how to survive.  In the mother's case, being deprived of her husband, her security, and her whole world view.  In the father's case, being exposed to random terror and torture, to constant threats and the loss of any standing.  Sofer makes the reader feel each hurt, each slight, each small (and large) stripping away of comfort and dignity.

Moreover, Sofer's account reads eerily and scarily like anything you have ever read about the coming of the Nazi's to power and the implementation of the Nuremberg laws. Are the Iranians a threat?  Perhaps not the people, but any government that would perpetrate upon its own people what this one has is very definitely a threat.  Yes, of course, the Jews come (and came) first as targets...but then come the liberals, the educated, the Christians, and so on.  We have seen this before and we know where it ends.  Pastor Martin Niemöller reaction to the inaction of Germany's intellectuals is quite germane here:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

George Santyana said so correctly, " Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it".  Dalia Sofer has shown us the present threat and reminded us of the past threat in The Septembers of Shiraz, and we should heed the warning.

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is a superb biographer (his Benjamin Franklin: An American Life was simply terrific) and Einstein: His Life and Universe does not disappoint.  Of course with Franklin and Einstein it may be hard to go wrong, but Isaacson approached these giants not with awe but with interest and has created a terrific book.  This is not a simple recitation of time and events, but more focused on how Einstein thought, his personality and how that shaped how (and about what) he thought.  This makes for fascinating reading and Isaacson brings out how very self-aware Einstein really was when it came to his own scientific thinking.  I found it both striking and surprising how aware Einstein was of his becoming more of a "conservative" as he grew older -- switching from being the challenger of the status quo to defender. Einstein's scientific "conservatism" (as illustrated by his difficulties in embracing quantum theory development) come less from his hanging on to his own theories and more from his incredibly strong belief that "God does not play dice" with the universe.  That is, Einstein could not accept as complete the idea that there were not rules and principles that could explain how the universe worked -- that probabilities were all we could determine.  His conservatism came from an underlying and life-long conviction that there was an order to the universe that was structured and ordered, if currently beyond our (and his) grasp.  Isaacson gives us this insight and with it an understanding of and, in my case at least, a tremendous compassion for, Einstein's world view.

Isaacson also shows how that self-awareness was not quite so acute in Einstein's personal life - his estrangement from his first wife and first child, to his relationships with his subsequent children, to his seemingly random affairs.  Perhaps such is the case with such genius.  He was however, aware enough of his own capabilities not to accept the Presidency of the State of Israel -- knowing his talents were not diplomatic. 

One of Isaacson's unique contributions is his ability to bring Einstein to life as not only the genius, but also as the human, the citizen, the friend.  Einstein gave his personal support to Zionism and maintained a life-long aversion to, and resistance to, coercive, discriminatory, and thought-restrictive governments - Nazi, Soviet, or McCarthyism.  While originally a total pacifist, Nazi ideology and aggression made him revisit his philosophy and he lent his support to the Allied efforts to defeat Germany and Japan.  In scientific concerns, social concerns, and in life in general, Isaacson shows us a genius willing to learn from new facts, but steadfast in his principles.

Perhaps the greatest testimony to Isaacson's Einstein is, when finished with the book, not only did I think I had a small understanding of the man, I also had an overwhelming desire to have known Albert Einstein, to have walked and talked with him.  I think I would have enjoyed it very much. 

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Gregory David Roberts (GDR) has a backstory that should rank up there with all the phonies you have read about, but does not because it is (unbelievably, unfortunately, and incredibly) real.  So real is the experience and so overwhelming, that it provokes quotes like the following in response to a question about Hannah Arendt's observation regarding "the banality of evil" (first used to describe Adolf Eichman sitting in the dock during his trial in Israel); "a phrase like “the banality of evil” doesn’t mean anything. That phrase is typical of a lot of the philosophy of the 20th century in my view; it is the philosophy of appearance, the philosophy of phrases that look more clever than they actually are. The second thing is, if you’ve actually been chained to a wall and tortured, the last thing it is is banal."
See Interview with Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram is an epic in the style of the great adventure stories and I will not take anything away from GDR's story by telling you that the outline of the novel is completely biographical, yet is fiction.  Typically, a novelist's first (and sometimes second, third and every) book is based on their personal experiences, and in GDR's case, it appears he had enough for a dozen books, but fit a lot into the almost thousand pages of his first.  It is worth the reading on a couple of levels.  First, it is a hell of a story.  If you liked Papillion, you will like Shantaram.  If you liked The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask, you will like Shantaram.  It is a rollicking story of success, failure, adventure, lost loves, betrayal, brutality, and redemption. It has prison breaks and all too real descriptions of third-world incarceration and corruption.  It has murder, mayhem, and the mafia. Second, it is a fascinating look at India.  If you read and liked A Fine Balance or City of Joy, you will find the insights that GDR has to offer of equal interest. Want an idea of what it is like to live in a Bombay slum, here it is as vivid and compelling as I have found anywhere.  Want a picture of village life, here it is, with wonderful detail and insight. The city of Bombay and the village of Sunder are major characters in this novel. Geography or place plays a large role in the shaping of events, thoughts, and behavior.  Where you are from matters and GDR does a very good job of weaving that reality into his story.  Third, it is a credible (with a few incredible moments) story of personal journey and the contrasts that make us the personalities that we are.  Drug runner, mafia enforcer, black market currency operator vs. slum medical clinic founder/operator, anti-Soviet mujahadeen in Afghanistan, slum dweller. Do opposites really attract?  I do not know the answer, but do know that they combine fantastically in the personality of Gregory Roberts. Finally, in many ways, it is a story of redemption, and I will let Gregory Roberts tell you about that.

At the end, Shantaram is a lot of things, but most interestingly, it is a window into a most unusual man - an intellectual criminal, a philosophical freedom fighter, a modern samurai to his modern mafia master, a great and caring friend, with an incredibly strong and flexible psyche.  I highly recommend Shantaram.

Note Found In A Bottle by Susan Cheever

Susan Cheever came by her alcoholism naturally.  Her father, John Cheever (and presumably her mother as well) were well known for being quite into their cups as they say.  Her father, whose drinking and bisexuality came to the fore after his death, is more than a token presence in this memoir, but does not dominate.  One of the best things about the book is that Cheever really does not seem to blame any single other individual for her drunkenness and promiscuity - she blames a culture (hers of the 50's and 60's) and herself (but only a little).

This book has been done before and better.  Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life" and J.R. Moehringer's "The Tender Bar" are both better and more insightful memoirs of the how, what, and why of drinking.  Susan Cheever's memoir is sometimes poignant, but more often makes one wince -- and this reaction can come from one of two sources.  First, there is the wince that comes from the awful debasement that she allows herself to endure -- the multiple lovers and affairs, the sex with more than one man in the same day, the abuse inflicted upon her by others that she tolerates.  That first source of wincing also includes her statement that drinking seemed to make all her problems go away.  That has never been my experience with alcohol, certainly not my experience with alcoholics I have known, and is further betrayed by Cheever’s own descriptions of the fights, funks, and accidents that she engages in while drinking.

The second source of the wince is the too cute society life that she describes as both the cause and perpetuator of her drinking problem.  According to Susan, her grandmother taught her how to make the perfect dry martini.  She grew up on a rich family's property (renting an outbuilding) and hob nobs throughout the book with the literati in New York and San Francisco and just about everywhere she goes.  Not many of us, finding ourselves drinking up our rent money and having no place to stay are invited to house sit for Julia Child's place (by Julia) in rural France.  It seems just too precious and too much the "poor little rich girl" - although it is clear she is not rich -- she just seems always to be able to live that way.

Having said all that, Ms. Cheever can write.  Her prose is terrific and her characterizations of place, time, and people are interesting and insightful.  Moreover, her eventual self-awareness of both how bad and how damaging (to herself and others) is her behavior is laudable -- but the cliche-ish discovery of religion as salvation is a bit overdone.  She is clearly taken with the Alcoholics Anonymous story and its founder Bill Wilson - she has written a biography of him and the movement.  It is not the religion I mind (clearly her choice and not one I would denigrate) but how entirely convenient it seems to be -- not one mention of God until the peak of the crisis.

This memoir could have used either a bit more context - the how's and why's of the culture that produced her drinking, not just wonderful descriptions of the drinking, or a bit more reflection and/or a study of how she got sober (which is not discussed) would have made it more interesting for me.  As it is, the book is a quick read with some very insightful pieces.  As a whole, however, it did not strike me as the lead example of the genre.

A Mother's Holocaust

Behind Enemy Lines by Marthe Cohn with Wendy Holden
Sala’s Gift by Ann Kirschner

Many of us have read the story or seen the movie or watched the TV show where the victim is horrified into silence. Typically, some cataclysmic event or some incredibly empathetic and creative doctor forces the victim to speak and all begin to heal.

That is not what happens in these two books. In Behind Enemy Lines, Marthe Cohn is silent until she is 80 years old and more than 60 years removed from the events to tell her family the story of her wartime espionage against the Nazi’s for the French First Army. In Sala’s Gift, Sala Garncarz Kirschner waits 46 years before handing her journalist daughter a package of saved letters from her years in the Nazi’s Polish forced labor camps. Apparently to keep the fiction alive, the Nazis continued to let heavily censored mail in and out of the labor camps up through 1943. It is these letters to Sala from friends and family – letters she kept through 7 different labor camps – at no small risk to her life, that this story is made. Marthe Cohn’s push to reveal her past was the French Government’s decision to award her the Medaille Militare (which she had applied for as she applied to regain her French citizenship). For Sala Garncarz, it was impending heart surgery and the desire to answer questions her daughter had asked her in childhood.

It would be foolish of me to recount specific events or atrocities as these are all too well known. I will make note of the fact that Marthe Cohn’s sister was captured and sent to Auschwitz and most of her family fled to the south of France where they managed to avoid French complicity in the Holocaust. Marthe’s story tells of the everyday, mundane destruction of the lives of French Jews in parallel with her exploits behind enemy lines, living with and working for the Nazis while spying on them. She presents what it is to be surrounded by the enemy while trying to keep one’s wits about them. Sala’s story tells of the creation of the ghettos in Eastern Silesia (Poland), the increasing pressure on the Jewish leadership (both those foolishly cooperative and those relatively ineffectively resistant); the selections, the transports to concentration camps, the liquidation of the ghetto and the relatively few who were lucky enough to be used as slaves. This is a picture what it is like to be without any control over one’s life other than trying to survive. While Sala loses most of her family to the death camps, she and two sisters (of 11 children and her parents) survive.

Both of these are well-written documentaries of the incomprehensible being acted out. Marthe is clearly an adventurer as her post-war activities included a long stint in the Corps Expeditionaire d’Extreme Orient as a nurse in Cambodia. Sala met and married a US Army Corporal and immigrated to New York in 1946. After long, productive lives as professionals and mother's, their stories get told.

These are truly unbelievable stories about an unbelievable time. However, you will be left mostly to your own devices to figure out why these women waited so long to tell them.

Tunney by Jack Cavanaugh

The subtitle of this exquisite biography is "Boxing's Brainiest Champ And His Upset Of The Great Jack Dempsey", but it is even more than that. This is the biography of James Joseph (Gene) Tunney and Jack Dempsey and the growth of boxing into its (almost) modern incarnation.

Cavanaugh does a terrific job of recreating Tunney's world -- his upbringing as the son of a longshoreman living next to the New York docks where a good week meant $15 bucks a week, his introduction to boxing as a teen, his service as a US Marine Private in WWI, his maturation as a boxer (with the all the great and gory details of dishonest promoters, mob influences, and fixed fights) to his thrilling fights with Jack Dempsey (including a terrific description and explanation of the famous "long count" fight) and other noteworthy opponents, his reign as champion (back in the days when there were only two real champions of each weight division -- one white, one black), his life-long love of English Literature, to his retirement as heavyweight champion and his subsequent life as a US Navy Captain in WWII and as a husband, father, and businessman.

Equally important in recreating Tunney's world are the characters that inhabit the "roaring 20's" and Cavanaugh does a great job bringing this group to life: Damon Runyon - the soon-to-be-famous writer that fighters had to pay to get good press; New York Mayor Jimmy Walker (one of the more flamboyant) who, as a state senator, introduced the legislation that made boxing legal in New York; Al Capone who may have had a hand in trying to fix one of the Dempsey-Tunney fights, and Doc Kearns, Dempsey's manager, who became a boxing promoter legend after stints as a gambler, gold prospector and semi-pro baseball player.

Tunney was the first fighter to make $1 million for a fight (his second fight with Dempsey, the equivalent of #11 million today) and probably the first and perhaps the only boxer to lecture at Yale on the topic of Shakespeare (focusing on Trolius and Cressida and the fight between Hector and Ajax). He was one of the first big-name fighters to retire as champion (his record, 58-1, 44 by KO. He married a rich socialite and had a wonderful life. However, because he beat the beloved "Manassa Mauler", Jack Dempsey, and because he never showed the "killer instinct", he was never really highly regarded as a heavyweight champion. Interestingly, once he retired, he rarely went to boxing matches or talked about his time as "champ" --- a sobriquet that never really landed on him.

In contrast, Jack Dempsey was the "Champ" and was referred to that way for his entire life. Dempsey's hardscrabble life and rise to heavyweight champion is equally as interesting as Tunney's (though this biography is decidedly centered on Tunney). Tunney's career started in 1915 and ended in 1928. His record of 58-1 does not reflect fights he engaged in during the era when boxing was illegal in many states and thus bouts were called exhibitions with no winner. Dempsey went 60-6 with probably as many "newspaper bouts" (i.e., "exhibitions" in states where boxing was illegal) as Tunney. The two men's personalities, fighting style, ambition, and outlook on life could not have been different. However, they grew to respect each other and had one common aim -- to make a lot of money by getting into the ring - something they both accomplished.

As far as great bits to look for -- pay attention to Cavanaugh's mini-biography of Harry Greb. Greb, known as the Pittsburgh Windmill, also at various times as the Human Windmill, The Iron City Express, the Smoky City Bearcat, the Rubber Man, and the Wildest Tiger. Greb fought well over 250 recorded fights and the total might well be beyond 300. In 1921 alone, he went 20-1. Grantland Rice described Greb as "one of the most remarkable athletic products in the history of the world" as well as describing his fighting style as "a cross between a wildcat and a hornet's nest". Greb, losing or having lost the sight in his right eye, beat Tunney in 1922 in one of the bloodiest fights in Tunney's career - a 15 round battle where Tunney did not win a round, but was also never knocked down. Tunney reportedly lost 2 quarts of blood and once again Grantland Rice's observation -- "Greb handled Tunney like a butcher hammering a Swiss steak" would appear spot on. Greb fought Tunney three more times, losing a 15 round split decision to Tunney in February 1923 (after having fought 6 times in 6 weeks prior to the Tunney rematch) and then losing more decisively in 15 rounds in December 1923. Tunney and Greb fought twice more - with Tunney outweighing Greb by 15 to 20 pounds. Both fights ended in "draw newspaper decisions", but with Tunney clearly out scoring Greb in at least one of the two. Tunney would go 3-1-1 against Greb. After 300 plus fights, Harry Greb died at the age of 32 in 1926. One of his pall bearers was Gene Tunney,

How good was Tunney? "How would Tunney have done against the best heavyweight champions who followed him? Bert Randolph Sugar, the boxing historian and author, thought Tunney would have beaten Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano. Red Smith, the highly respected sports columnist, once wrote that Tunney 'would have handled Muhammad Ali like breaking sticks." Sugar found such a hypothetical matchup between two of the best defensive heavyweights of all time tough to call, since, as he speculated, 'they might fight fifteen rounds without either one landing a punch, although he thought that Ali would eventually 'out-fast' Tunney. Budd Schulberg, who began watching prizefights in the 1920s, also thought Tunney probably would have beaten Louis." He was that good.

The only question mark for both Tunney and Dempsey is that they never fought the black heavyweight champion.

I leave you with this moment in time. In their first fight, in the fifth round, writers at ringside noticed that Tunney said something to Dempsey. "Asked later what is was, Tunney replied, "I said, 'keep them up, Jack', an obvious reference to what Tunney considered a low blow or two. To which, Tunney said, Dempsey replied, 'Sorry, Gene'. When the gong rang at the end of the fight, [Dempsey] threw an arm over my [Tunney's] shoulder and said, ' You fought a great fight, Gene. You deserve to win'." Not exactly Tyson vs. Holyfield, eh?

A truly wonderful and entertaining biography.

The Tender Bar - J.R. Moehringer

The coming of age memoir is a genre all by itself. The plight of the reader is that while there are many to choose from, few are really terrific. Terrific as defined by J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye or Frank Conroy’s Stop Time (the best since Catcher that I have read). One step down would perhaps include Larry McMurtry’s Last Picture Show and (if you have a very strong stomach), August Burroughs Running Scissors. After that there are a lot of decent, good reads, and then a whole bunch of nameless almosts. J.R. Moehringer is not a namless almost, but a distinct couple of notches above that.

The centerpiece for Moehringer is the local bar where his Uncle Charlie works first named Dickens and then Publicans and is located out on Long Island in Manhasset. All the right touches for a good coming of age story…..a single mom, a difficult boy being raised mostly without a father but yeaning for the one that only very rarely makes an appearance, a fairly dysfunctional extended family occasionally living under the same roof, and so on. But Moehringer not only makes it work, he makes it real.

If Hillary Clinton had written this book, the subtitle might have been, “It takes a village of drunks to make a man”. However, there is more to it than that. Two (maybe three) relationships wind through JR’s journey from lonely 8 year old to twenty-something reporter.

First and foremost, there is JR and his mom (he is an only child) and JR was one heck of an observant kid as he vividly captures the fierce love, as well as the astonishingly hard work, struggle, and anguish that a single mother trying and only barely succeeding to keep things together goes through every single day.

The second important relationship is with his Uncle Charlie, a habitual gambler and bartender by trade so successful that he still lives in his parents house as he approaches his mid-40’s. But Charlie and his bar buddies come to collectively represent the father that JR yearns for and needs. As JR learns to judge the severity of hangovers, the perils of missing the under/over, and the real, true-life unpleasantness of being in just a bit too deep with the local bookies, the crowd from Publicans teaches JR about keeping his word, baseball, long-term friendships, drinking protocol, and other keenly important male topics. But mostly, they teach him about respecting himself and others.

The essence of any coming of age memoir is the slow reveal of the instances and circumstance that lead up to the ultimate transformation of child to adult and in this Moehringer is really superb. He captures the small and large moments. Small moments as in when JR finds he can do the “wordy-gurdy” puzzles that stump the big guys (a wordy-gurdy is an adult hinky-pinky, i.e., a clue to a rhyming answer, to wit: Hint: Jane’s Vehicles Answer: Fonda’s Honda’s). Large moments as in when JR goes to the bar to drown his sorrows when his big chance at the New York Times is threatened by his own errors – only to discover the real stories behind some of Uncle Charlie’s buddies. Moehringer brings you there with skill and with surprising tenderness. Moehringer’s recounting of his college involvement (on-again, off-again) with the lovely Sidney is simply terrific. He brings all of the reality – the almost physical impact of first love and the thrill of physical intimacy (and the fear of losing that intimacy) to the page in such a way that is almost as if you are remembering it.

This is a tale with a lot of humor, and only some of it is used to hide the hurt - - a lot of it is just plain funny. So, all the elements for a very good story well told. This first book is well executed with a great ear for the real and a sense of the funny and absurd. Very much worth the time.

Postscript: Re-reading this review, I am struck by the fact that I think the book is much better than my review…I really liked reading this book and am surprised that my enthusiasm seems muted and it is certainly not. This is a very good book.

Jesse James - T.J. Stiles

Last Rebel Of the Civil War

In a way, argues T.J. Stiles, the South won the Civil War. Stiles argues that, based on the results following the military victory in 1865 and the subsequent, but ultimately abortive attempt at Reconstruction, the South really did get its way following the war. Unreconstructed Confederates became the South’s Congressmen, Senators, Governors, and Judges. Blacks were systematically excluded from their voting, property, and human rights. The Ku Klux Klan intimidated and killed their way to disenfranchising and demoralizing the freed slaves, and any and all progress made immediately post-war was deliberately and specifically eradicated by a politically resurgent, and unrepentant, set of ex-Confederates.

Stiles argues persuasively that Jesse James – in both reality and in legend – was a key player in this political resurgence, particularly in Missouri.

What makes this book so powerful is Stiles ability to place Jesse James in his time and place, showing us the conditions, attitudes, and behaviors that created Jesse James. I have never read a more brutal description of the internecine battles of Civil War Missouri. Second son of a slave owning Minister and hard-as-nails (and soon to be widowed) mother, James grew up in Clay County Missouri – the center of the slave-owning slice of Missouri known as “little Dixie”. The Civil War came to Clay County at least a decade before it engulfed the nation as a whole. All of this was set in motion by the debate over slavery – first impacting Missouri in the ill-fated Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Missouri Compromise brought Missouri into the Union as a slave state but prohibited any slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase not yet admitted to the Union. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened up the issue of slavery in Kansas to “popular sovereignty”, repealed the anti-slavery promise of the Missouri Compromise.

The battle thus enjoined both pro- and anti-slavery factions poured into Kansas, forming so-called self-protection clubs supported by their supporters in the border state of Missouri. The violence begat violence and the killings and reprisals escalated and accelerated and continued right up through the Civil War. Jesse James grew up in this time – was shaped and formed by it and learned from it.

Joining the infamous Quantrill irregulars in the Civil War (of the sack of Lawrence, Kansas fame), James fought for the Confederacy in his home state. Stiles depicts this awful deadly war of attrition of neighbor against neighbor, farmer against farmer and you feel as if you are observing, not just reading.

Following the surrender at Appomattox James, along with many other Confederates and irregulars, cannot abide the decision and continue to wage their war against reconstruction – a brutal battle in its own right. It is here James becomes not only the bandit of legend, but also a savvy and daring leader of the Confederacy’s bid to recapture political power. He is a visible, outspoken, and imagination-capturing hero of “southern rights” and, with a strange alliance with an ex-Confederate newspaper editor, makes headlines with both his daring and his politically charged justifications. Today, Jesse James would be described much more as a terrorist than as a wild-west bandit or Robin Hood. As Stiles tells it, James comes off much more like Sub-Commander Marcos than Bonnie and Clyde.

What makes this very detailed and well-researched work a wonder is the masterful job Stiles does in weaving the history, the facts, the interpretations, the politics and the geography into a story line that is both captivating and compelling. To that narrative Stiles adds a powerful coming of age story that illuminates the physical and psychological impact of being raised in the crucible that was created in Clay County Missouri. That environment, fueled by the bloody battles prior to the Civil War, and accelerated by the brutal terrorism practiced by the Irregulars fighting on the side of the Confederacy, and finally capped by the naked profiteering and awful retribution imposed by the North on the South in Reconstruction, along with James’ own predilection for, and love of violence and risk, creates the Jesse James we come to know in this spectacular biography.

If you have an interest in knowing our real history, read this book. If you ever wondered how legends are made (and unmade), read this book. If you have no or little knowledge of just how hurtful and terrible a price the battle against and for slavery exacted upon our nation, read this book. Finally, if you are an appreciative fan of well-written biography, read this book.