BEST BY FAR

by Roger Eddy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 1966

Stealing a march from Chaucer, Eddy reports the pilgrimage of the veterans of the 57th Special Attack Regiment through their own stories. Nineteen years later, and that much stouter, the warriors return, with wives, cameras, offspring and appetites, to look again upon their scenes of glory. It's pre-packaged tour deal of their battlefields. The turnout includes: The Red Cross Girl, one of WW II's most aggressive doughnut makers; The Colonel, strangely unimpressive in a civilian suit; The Gold Star Mother, who had made grief her way of life and who embarrassingly fell on her knees at the wrong grave in the moving ceremonies at the American Cemetery; The Photographer, who recorded the pilgrimage in such never-to-be-forgotten snaps as that of the veteran who had once held the line failing to hold his wine. Only one of the farcical elements here is the fact that the veterans of the 57th keep bumping into their nostalgic German counterparts entering their battle scenes from the other side of the tourist happy Italian towns. The author is an irrepressibly irreverent observer and his satire ""is right on target."" The title is the 57th's marching song and it is also Roger Eddy's Best By Far.

Pub Date: March 25, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1966

Categories: FICTION