A noteworthy chronicle—and surprising appreciation—of two well-matched foes from the Greatest Generation.
A debut book details the fighting lives of two soldiers in the South Pacific during World War II, one a U.S. Navy officer, the other a young Japanese lieutenant.
The author deploys an intriguing dual biography of two combatants on opposite sides during the war in the Pacific, neatly balancing the two portraits of military officers from two very different cultures. One is his own uncle, Vernon Jannotta, a veteran of both world wars who saw extensive Navy service during World War II—and, being middle-aged, was “the old man” to his younger troops in battles throughout the Philippines and New Guinea (yet could still hold his own physically and in drinking, readers are told). Through the family, the author was provided with his uncle’s many descriptive letters home to his beloved wife, describing the rigors of combat and command in detail (the officer was bright enough not to include classified material that could assist the enemy). The other protagonist is Kotaro Kawanishi, a Japanese Imperial lieutenant who, before his death in 1967, wrote an unpublished memoir, which was helpfully provided to the author. The two soldiers never met but are still a compelling study paired side by side. Many band-of-brothers tales from the South Pacific (going all the way back to James Michener) relate the conflict from the American vantage point. The victory here lies with an evenhanded view of the Japanese, making (somewhat) comprehensible to a modern Western mindset the rigid ideas of discipline and beyond-human sacrifice that still seem outwardly savage and barbaric (even before the advent of the kamikazes, Japanese Zero pilots flew missions without parachutes; the notion of surviving a plane crash was not an option). Although only in his 20s and sometimes overwhelmed by responsibilities, Kawanishi seemed an enlightened sort. Rather than succumbing to base survival instinct when stranded on an island with thousands of starving comrades (of whom only about 270 would live to the war’s end), he worked out an equitable, humane farming/education deal with the natives. He was ultimately offered a chief’s virgin daughter in appreciation (he appears to have declined); even the French and Australians treated him with respect. Generous photos and maps accompany the accounts of courage and day-to-day travails.
A noteworthy chronicle—and surprising appreciation—of two well-matched foes from the Greatest Generation.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5049-5008-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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