THE BRASS RING: A Sort of a Memoir

by Bill Mauldin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 29, 1971

As the casual ""Sort of"" implies, this is a nice and easy re-run of Bill Mauldin's boyhood on through the over there and Up Front years and for those who can remember back when (the late '40's and early '50's) Bill Mauldin wrote with a nice and natural likability which was hard to beat. It still is. Born of relatively indigent and stridently discordant parents, brought up in Alamogordo, New Mexico, Bill got his call during his 13th summer when, milking the cow, he decided to become a cartoonist and earn money. He enlisted then in a correspondence course which put him barely ahead of Happy Holligan, did earn ten dollars which his father appropriated for a driving ticket, and by 17 went on to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts with Arizona Highways the only available market for his early work. A good half of this deals with the war years when he went right on drawing in Sicily and Italy for the 45th Division News and later Stars and Stripes, created those lovably scruffy immortals, Willie and Joe, and towards the end of the war had his own confrontation with Patton who would have liked to have seen them polished up with spit. The book will be illustrated with 167 photos and his own drawings and it's nice to have him back -- no mulled nostalgia, just dogfaced honesty.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION