Review by Booklist Review
Six members of Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" here escape from collective anonymity, thanks to Coyne's rare investigative and narrative gifts. Though all are from Coyne's hometown of Freehold, New Jersey, these six men diverged widely in their military assignments in World War II (dividing up into infantry and engineering units in the army, cruiser and bombardment detachments in the navy and air corps) and in their deployments (serving from London to Reims in Europe, from Pearl Harbor to the Philippines in the Pacific). No headline winners, these ordinary soldiers faced the common--yet harrowing--rigors of war, their combined experiences coalescing into a compelling microcosm of global conflict. Coyne's synthetic vision likewise fuses the postwar lives of these six veterans, giving readers a fully detailed small-town mosaic, suffused with the nation's buoyant peacetime hopes--and fractured by its peacetime economic and social tensions. No segments will disquiet readers more than those reflecting the postwar travails of the one African American soldier in this small band, a soldier who valiantly defended America against Nazi Germany only to subsequently run a gauntlet of racial prejudice in his hometown. Coyne's volume preserves the richest--and most unsettling--kind of history. --Bryce Christensen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This distinctive "Greatest Generation" chronicle portrays men from the author's hometown of Freehold, N.J., as they left for war and returned to face the often mundane but still very real difficulties of postwar life. Coyne (Domers: A Year at Notre Dame) recounts this panoramic story in superior journalistic prose, free of hyper-patriotic guff or pop-psych jargon. Stu Bunton was a naval radio operator who later entered the Freehold police force. Walter Denise returned to the family apple orchard after a distinguished career as an infantryman in northern Europe. Jake Erickson was a radio-intercept operator in the southwest Pacific who married an Australian woman and rose to foreman at the local rug factory. Undertaker Jim Higgins was in air force intelligence in England, while Jewish immigrant Bud Lopatin, a home builder, flew 72 missions in B-26s. The youngest of the six, Bigerton "Buddy" Lewis endured the gross discrimination that was the lot of the army's African-Americans, but came home to rise in county government. Eventually, Jake's rug factory went out of business, and Walter's orchard was reduced to housing-development oblivion as Freehold turned into a New York City bedroom community. A fire destroyed much of downtown, and rebuilding set off arguments over urban renewal; the civil rights and antiwar movements provoked much tension but little bloodshed and led to real progress; and while prayers were banned in schools, other prayers were answered by the building of a new hospital. While this book does not break new ground, it is head and shoulders above much of the near competition, with graceful storytelling and enough social commentary to appeal to fans of Studs Terkel. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Coyne (A Day in the Night of America: An Absorbing Journey Through the Upside-Down World of America's Night-Shift Workers) weaves together the stories of six young men who left Freehold, NJ, for service in the armed forces during World War II and later returned to resume their lives in the town. The masterly writing illuminates some of the major American social and economic themes of the past century-e.g., the decline of manufacturing and farming, the struggle over civil rights, and the growth of the middle class and suburbanization-through changes in the lives and surroundings of the six servicemen. Coyne captures the complex emotions of the soldiers on the front lines as well as their achievements and disappointments at home, where things are not as they left them. He shows the optimism, enterprise, and decency of the men yet avoids hagiography; the six subjects remain human beings. As a sixth-generation Freehold resident, Coyne apparently is close to his subjects, but he never puts himself in the narrative. A winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, this book is highly recommended for all libraries.-Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Journalist Coyne (Domers: A Year at Notre Dame, 1995, etc.) won the first J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award in 1999 for this thoughtful account of six young men who went to war, came back home, and then had to adjust to new challenges. The author deftly keeps track of six protagonists and their hometown, Freehold, New Jersey, as the years advance from spring 1941 to the present in a tale that is both portrait and history. Now a New York suburb whose potato fields and orchards have given way to subdivisions and malls, Freehold then was a close-knit town where everyone turned out for the Memorial Day parade, watched the home team play baseball, saw the latest movies at the Strand movie house, and mostly worked at the carpet-weaving mill. The scene set, Coyne introduces the six young men who fought in WWII: Stu Bunton, a radioman on the USS Santa Fe who saw action in the Mediterranean and the Pacific; Walter Denise, a rifleman who served in France and Germany; Jake Errickson, a radio intercept operator stationed in Australia and New Guinea; intelligence officer Jim Higgins; Buddy Lewis, a private in a segregated colored regiment in Europe; and Bill Lopatin, a waist gunner who flew bombing missions from England. Coyne vividly describes their varied war experiences-Denise heroically rescuing the wounded, Lopatin flying more than the usual 50 raids-and their determination to get home alive and get on with their lives. When they did, Freehold was booming, and all six found work. But life changed in the '50s, and Coyne poignantly details how the men and the town adjusted as the mill closed down, racial tensions intensified, the antiwar movement grew, and fire destroyed the heart of Main Street. A notable achievement in understanding as well as reporting that pays moving tribute to the men and their town.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
