120 Years On – Still Gripping!

Widely considered one of the best spy novels of all time, The Riddle of the Sands remains a riveting read. I had difficulty putting it down. The book really engaged me in unexpected ways.

Penned in 1903 by Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands was very popular in England before World War I. It became an international best seller and was read, too, by government officials. Some credit it with changing military strategy. The novel has remained a staple in the genre and has been made into movies and television.

The Riddle of the Sands was new to me. There are more than a few forgotten classics out there. Search those used book stores!

The story is told in the first person by a minor official in England’s foreign service office, their state department. An old friend, more acquaintance than confidant, contacts him about some duck hunting in the Baltic. Who would say no to a yachting holiday? However, it was no pleasure cruise. As truths unfold, we’re led into a complicated game of exploration, discovery and espionage. The characters are expertly drawn and there is anticipation as we all try to figure out what is and is not going on.

What sets the book apart is that it is extraordinarily grounded in detail, from the particulars of the ships to the description of places. I opened up my laptop several times to look up nautical terms and to map the action. While a work of fiction, there is nothing fantastical about it. It is still easy to trace what happens where. In all candor, though, I would need to spend significant time on a sailing ship to understand the sailing with the same degree of authenticity.

The author, Childers, is worthy of historical investigation and contemplation in his own right. A writer, soldier, explorer and lawyer, he led an extraordinary life of adventure, from work in Parliament to military service and honors. He sailed the Baltic several times. The novel was based, in part, on his direct experiences. Childers support of the British empire, strong in his early years, waned as he became an ever greater proponent of Irish nationalism. That led to his involvement in the Irish revolution and his execution. It was a hasty, brutish affair yet Childers, ever with presence, shook the hands of all of his executioners. Childers’ son, Erskine Hamilton Childers, would grow and later become president of Ireland.

Who could make this up? I certainly lack the imagination, so instead, I heartily recommend The Riddle of the Sands, a century plus page-turner.

David Potash

October 15, 2023 Reviews

King Does MacDonald – and More

Just like millions of other readers, I greatly enjoy curling up with Stephen King’s writing. While King may not always receive the critical accolades, many in the know appreciate his creativity, his skill and his extraordinary ability to tell fascinating stories. From what I’ve seen, other writers tend to appreciate King more than literary critics. In turn, I’ve read King writing about the many writers he admires. High on his list is John D. MacDonald. MacDonald wrote many different genres, but perhaps is best known for his Travis McGee mysteries, all of which are set in Florida. Count me as a fan.

Thoughts of McGee haunted my reading of Stephen King’s 2008 novel, Duma Key. A national best seller, Duma Key has sold untold copies and has been optioned for a move (though not yet made). It’s an extremely well-known book. I don’t know why it took so long for me to pick it up. Perhaps it is the 600 plus pages? It’s a very heavy tome to carry around?

There’s no real need to to review or report in general about the book. The plot is easy enough to find and King’s writing is solid, throughout. Perhaps it is not his most interesting or important work (who has read them all?), but Duma Key nevertheless resonated with me for two key reasons.

First, the main character in the novel is recovering from a life-threatening accident, having nearly died in a vehicular crash. Our hero lost his arm and is in pain throughout the book. The physical condition of our protagonist, his aches, pains and limitations, shape the narrative. In 1999, King was hit by car while walking on the side of a highway. He, too, nearly died. It wasn’t difficult to see King’s perspective and thoughts in Duma’s hero.

Second, while there is but one direct reference to MacDonald in the novel, his prose, his characters, and his asides are woven throughout Duma. This was the first of King’s books to be set in Florida. It also has the kind of semi-cynical asides and observations that are reminiscent of Travis McGee. I wondered: if John D. MacDonald were to try to write a Stephen King story, would it be like Duma Key? My sense is “yes.”

Duma borrows both King’s personal history and King’s admiration of John D. MacDonald. For these reasons – above and beyond the usual good horror writing from Stephen King – are more than enough to warrant picking up Duma Key. That is, of course, if you haven’t already read it.

And if you’re at it, don’t forget read some Travis McGee.

David Potash

October 11, 2023 Reviews

Writing and Laughing Through Tears

Hannah Pittard is a novelist, a successful writer, and a teacher at the University of Kentucky. She also knows, firsthand, hardship and heartbreak. Her marriage dissolved when her husband had an affair with the woman Pittard thought was her best friend. It was a double betrayal of epic proportions.

How does one make sense of the dissolution of a marriage? How can we take the all too common problems of a couple and render it into something special? Pittard takes that task to heart in We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind Of]. It is her story and also the stories of her ex-husband and ex-friend. Yet is it not non-fiction and it does not attempt to tell universal truths. The book works to imagine the friendships, the relationships, and the actions and the betrayals from multiple perspectives. She imagines her friend and ex, she questions her own narrative and understanding – and she does it in a pseudo-factual manner. The prose is akin to reporting. The result is an intrusive, somewhat uncomfortable look at lies, love, and relationships – friendships and marriage.

One observation, too, that rings true from Pittard’s closely watched observations. If her semi-reporting is close to what happened and what was said, then the novel makes a strong case for reminding all to think through the things that we do and say after drinking too much. The scenes at bars and restaurants, the times when the characters have tippled, have a painful awkwardness to them that hurts while ringing true.

It is also clear – at least from my perspective – that as painful as the experience may have been, Pittard is going to be OK. She is no romantic heroine, destined for weeping and isolation. A strong and insightful woman, she is processing and working things through. I admire her for putting this book together.

We Are Too Many is an intriguing read. I laughed, at times, but more often there was a sense of inevitability to it. We know – from the start – how things do not work out. That is not tragedy, but instead something more real, more everyday, and certain something familiar. Relationships can be painful and messy things.

David Potash

October 8, 2023 Reviews

Cadillac Desert

Non-fiction that makes you think is rare. Rarer still is a work non-fiction with legs that makes you think, decades after it was written. Marc Reisner’s 1986 environmental classic, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water is one of those exceptional works. Updated in 1993 and recently re-issued, it’s a massive tome, chock-filled with history, passion and a powerfully unique perspective on American history and development. Reisner writes with rage and urgency. While some things are very different in 2023 than they were in 1986, many of the same issues remain, shaped by the same history and forces. It remains an important and relevant book.

Reisner’s big picture approach starts with a fundamental fact that many Americans have ignored for decades: much of the western half of the United States has little rainfall and water. “Desert, semidesert, call it what you will,” Reisner stresses, the vast majority of the American west will never be changed simply because of limited water. Where there has been development – in Los Angeles, in Las Vegas, in the Imperial Valley – it has happened because of massive human effort. Each of these initiatives, many implemented by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, came with tremendous costs – and not just dollars. In fact, that is one of Cadillac Deserts big takeaways: the distribution of water in the American west has been about money and power, not conservation, common sense, or sound engineering. The book may be about the environment, but it’s even more about politics. He quite carefully chose the title of Chapter One: “A Country of Illusion.”

Some of the chapters in Cadillac Desert talk with each other, reinforcing a larger story. Others, though, stand on their own. These are set pieces, history framed with an angle. Reisner writes beautifully throughout, well-researched but miles away from pedantic. The chapter on the creation (or theft, depending upon your point of view) of Los Angeles’s water supply is a gem. Reisner highlights the deals, the contingencies and the ambition (naked and clothed) necessary to develop the city’s infrastructure. The book’s larger thread, a critical look at the Bureau of Reclamation, emerges in Chapter Three and again later. I had no idea of the tremendous push to build dams. It was extraordinary. The complicated history of the Colorado River is the backbone of one chapter, but it is a history that emerges again and again. The power and influence of the Army Corps on Engineers emerges in the work’s latter half. Founded during the Revolutionary War, the Army Corps’ impact on the west truly took off after World War II. They all wanted to build dams – for power, for irrigation, and for political capital. The eventual impact reshaped economics in the west, heavily subsidizing larger entities and reshaping politics. Larger than life characters drive the action. Floyd Dominy, for example, headed the Bureau of Reclamation, was a notorious womanizer and power broker. His leadership was essential in the decision to construct the Glen Canyon Dam and its progeny, Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs on the planet when there’s consistent precipitation.

Digesting all of Cadillac Desert took time to process and think through. More than once, while going through a chapter, I reached for the laptop to gain a broader context on the issue at hand. Reisner’s history is far from dry. He has arguments to make, and while they sharpen the prose, they also raise questions and heighten curiosity. This is a book that will make you reconsider traditional history of American expansion and development in the west.

David Potash

September 5, 2023 Reviews

Pulling The Climate Thread

Most Americans are concerned about changes to the climate. The percentage of folks paying attention has been steadily climbing over the decades, in sync with rises in temperatures and episodes of extreme weather. So we now know more. But what can one individual do? Is it possible to be an informed “green” consumer, to live an ethical life that does not unduly contribute to climate change?

It’s an extraordinarily difficult question to answer as I learned in Tatiana Schlossberg‘s engaging book, Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have. Schlossberg is a science journalist who writes for the mainstream press and did a stint as an environmental reporter for the New York Times. Her first book, Inconspicuous Consumption is a rambling effort that nevertheless finds a way to strike home. It won awards and for good reasons. Schlossberg loves details and her cheerful curiosity that loves to dig deeper renders her a complete guide to gaining an appreciation of the complexity of modern life and its impact on the environment. She aims to inform and to do so in a way that does not overwhelm – all the while making sure that the reader appreciates the absence of easy solutions. That is a difficult and impressive line to walk.

The book is organized into four sections: Technology and the Internet; Food; Fashion, and Fuel. For each, Schlossberg writes in the first person, sometimes intimately, about her questions and the difficulty in untangling environmental issues from those of economics, culture, politics, business, history, and much more. The internet, as an example, can be an extraordinarily inefficient consumer of energy. Schlossberg provides some history (power lines following telegraph lines, which in turn were strung to follow the railroads) as well as laws, policies and economics that create our current state of affairs. That’s just the internet as a physical thing. Schlossberg moves beyond direct costs to explore internet consumption and delivery. This relative new way of shopping has led to all manner of changes – in business, in supply, in patterns of consumption. The number and cost of consumers returning goods has soared. Consumption extends to viewing, too, and I learned that Netflix accounts for 15% of all internet bandwidth.

Schlossberg researches “common sense” rules as well. For example, when it comes to food, buying local does not necessarily reduce the carbon footprint. Some foods are more “green” when they are single source and shipped large distances. Polyester and cotton are both made with significant back end energy costs. Pick the subject and Schlossberg effectively problematizes it, highlighting the deep interconnectedness and complexity of the modern economy.

While all that may feel overwhelming, a difficulty Schlossberg acknowledges up front, she also works to humanize her quest for better understanding. This is a book with many asides and direct appeals, from writer to reader. If she is stumped, she tells us – just as she lets us know when facts depress or intrigue her. There’s a cheerfulness to her account that is sometimes in conflict with the information she imparts. More than anything else, Schlossberg wants us to comprehend that climate change is about everything we do as humans. If we grasp this, we will be much farther along in talking about it, appreciate it, and be willing to look for answers about how to lead a more just life.

An ambitious agenda – and well worth considering.

David Potash

August 31, 2023 Reviews

Native American Horror

Stephen Graham Jones‘ The Only Good Indians is a terrific horror novel. It is also a very good novel, a work of fiction that need not be pigeonholed into a genre.

Jones is a prolific and successful writer who has published a great deal, from experimental fiction to comic books. A member of the Blackfeet Nation, Jones has garnered many awards. He’s also an accomplished academic, with a PhD in English from Florida State University. Jones holds the Ivena Baldwin chair of English and the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Only Good Indians is a character study, an exploration of tradition and non-tradition, and a tale of violence and revenge. There’s quite a bit of gore, and some of it is staged in ways that are indelible. Jones, though, writes about more than horror and it’s clear that he has more on his mind than scaring the reader.

At the book’s core is a tale of four men, Blackfeet, who hunt elk on land that was prohibited. The four kill a pregnant elk, compounding their crime, and the costs of that hunt haunt the four. Over time, something else – an Elk Woman spirit – actually does haunt the men and their families. Like a fairy tale, when there is a transgression, consequences are inevitable.

Jones’ mixture of the spiritual and fantastic with the day-to-day specifics of everyday life is outstanding. He brings authentic voice to the task. No native American copy of Stephen King, the book plays with narration, with language and perspective. It’s darkly funny, too. The characters are distinct, carefully drawn, and complex. There’s a sense of place and culture throughout that rings as true.

A difficult novel to put down, The Only Good Indians is an outstanding read, one that will stay with you for a long time.

David Potash

June 29, 2023 Reviews

A Different Transatlantic History

We have multiple accounts of Europeans traveling the Americas in the 1400s and 1500s. Cross Atlantic journeys, though, were not unidirectional. Indigenous peoples of the Americas also went to Europe. Caroline Dodds Pennock, Britain’s foremost historian of the Aztecs, examines the histories of those who went to Europe in an extraordinarily interesting book: On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe. It is a provocative look at colonialism through a different lens. Many of the trips to Europe were forced, with indigenous people captured, coerced or enticed to Europe. However, indigenous people also demonstrated agency, diplomacy and a power in these exchanges. More than a corrective, Pennock’s study recasts early modern history in new light.

As stated here at: https://www.archaeologist-near-me.co.uk/survey/, History is not a simple account of what has transpired in the past. It is about making sense, crafting meaning, and telling stories that give us knowledge about what has happened, what is important, and what matters. The eurocentric “discovery” of the Americas has long been recognized as incomplete, racist, and politicized to an unacceptable degree. Real understanding demands broader and thoughtful inclusion. Pennock’s book, grounded in meticulous primary source research, gives the reader much more of that broad perspective. The author keeps us wondering – what was this like for the Totonacs, the Inuits, the Taino, and the many others who came to Europe? There were thousands and their voices have not been systematically heard.

The records are limited. Pennock, accordingly, focuses attention on the margins and the contexts, pulling meaning from scant sources. Most of the people she studies hailed from central America. She reminds us that translations were often done by the indigenous peoples, that their words are often hidden in colonial accounts. Indigenous people drew maps, wrote, argued in courts, and often had more agency and influence than the western writers and colonialists would ever admit.

The cross-cultural exchanges in On Savage Shores are especially fascinating. For example, Albrecht Durer, perhaps the most important artists of the Germanic renaissance, was captivated by the Aztec-Mexica artifacts displayed by King Charles V in Brussels in 1520. The world was significantly smaller and more known than we might recognize.

Some knowledge of European history and laws helps the reader untangle this complex history. For example, while slavery was common in the 1500s, Spanish law carefully assigned differing degrees of rights to different types of people. Cannibals, for example, could be treated much more harshly than other peoples defeated in war. Is it any wonder that so many early accounts of indigenous peoples stressed cannibalism? Slavery and other forms forced labor were extremely profitable. Women had few rights and were often victims. Pennock shares horrific accounts of sexual abuse and exploitation.

On Savage Shores is very good, very eye-opening history. The writing is clear, engaging, and accessible. It’s the kind of history that leaves one with a greater sense of understanding and also hungering for more information. Most importantly, Pennock’s book raises very important questions about who was and was not savage, questions that remain with me.

David Potash

May 19, 2023 Reviews

A Glass Castle Recommended

Librarians in my local public library branch are fond of calling attention to their favorite reads. One of their recent recommendations, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, is a gripping memoir that I had heard about but had never explored. A big thanks to Chicago Public librarians – you know your books!

Walls is an award-winning journalist and writer. The Glass Castle is a first person account of her harrowing childhood. Told in a matter of fact manner with scary good cheer, it’s a gripping account of children’s resilience and the tremendous damage parents can cause. The book, which came out in 2005, was on best-seller lists for years. In 2017 it became a film. Walls’ story remains relevant today, perhaps even more so, and the candor of her writing deserves extra attention and appreciation.

Walls’ first memory is of being badly burned while living in a trailer park in Arizona. She was three at the time. The accident – she was cooking herself hot dogs – is terrifying. Walls narrative, from her perspective as a toddler, is all the more frightening because she is not aware of just how serious her situation is. That pattern of forced optimism in the face of real concern is repeated throughout her childhood.

Severely injured, Walls is taken to a hospital for treatment. Her father, Rex, steals her away before she is released or a payment is due. Those who have also been injured in a road accident should consider hiring a personal injury attorney to seek compensation that they can use to pay for their treatment.

This is another pattern of behavior – skipping town, the “skedaddle” – that the family does repeatedly. There is very little stability at home, or precisely, at homes. Walls’ mother, Rose, is a fantasist, an artist, and poorly equipped to care for a family with children. Rex is a charming high-functioning alcoholic given to violence. He makes do on scams and luck, and is far from a stable provider. Walls loves her parents and knows, too, that they are dangerous to her well-being. When the family finally settles in abject poverty in West Virginia, close to Rex’s parents, the naive positivism of the younger Jeannette gives way to awareness of the severity of their situation. The kids are bullied, abused, neglected and often hungry. It is truly horrific. Eventually the oldest sister escapes to New York City and Jeannette follows. If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, particularly with substances like cocaine, seeking support from specialized facilities such as cocaine rehab UK could be crucial in the journey to recovery. If you want to know the symptoms of an alcoholic, you can read this article for more helpful tips.

Living apart from their parents was essential for the children to have some semblance of a healthy life. Things with their parents were that bad. Escape, though, proves difficult. Rex and Rose follow their children to New York City. As the children struggle to find employment, housing and stability, their parents battle mental health issues, addictions, and become homeless. The only way to help those struggling with addiction is getting them treatment in rehab centres in united kingdom.

The Wells children’s mutual cooperation and coping skills are outstanding. Jeannette works her way through Barnard. Her elder sister becomes a successful artist. There are some good moments. Rex gifts Jeannette with poker winnings to pay tuition. It is the kind of grand gesture, an act of generosity, that makes a reliably positive relationship with Rex so impossible. An inveterate dreamer, he promised that he would one day build a glass castle for Jeannette and the family. Along with the promises, there were many darker moments. Jeannette’s shame at seeing her parents scrounge through garbage, trying to scrape by, is an indelible moment.

Walls’ memoir is a testament to her strength, her resilience, her courage. She is direct about all manner of problems, whether it is fending for herself or fending away predators. There were many, too. Jeannette and her siblings are survivors and heroes. One one level, The Glass Castle is inspirational and speaks, I am sure, to many who have struggled with toxic home life. It offers a message of hope.

Ironically, The Glass Castle has been regularly banned by schools and libraries. Some have complained that the language, the descriptions of violence and sexual abuse are inappropriate for young adults. They are inappropriate. In fact, they are deeply wrong and troubling. Sadly, though, they took place. It is exactly Walls’ candor that makes this book important for so many people of all ages. We do not choose our parents and have little control over the first years of our lives. Walls’ harrowing journey to adulthood, like that of sadly many other children, is a powerful reminder that it is possible to find happiness, with or without a healthy and supportive family. That is an extremely powerful message.

David Potash

May 10, 2023 American Culture Today, Reviews

Justice, Women and the Law

Dahlia Lithwick is one of the nation’s most influential law commentators. Active across many publications and platforms, Lithwick is probably best known for her ongoing attention to the Supreme Court. She writes, presents, comments, and teaches with rigor and passion.

In 2022, Lithwick wrote Lady Justice: Women, The Law, and the Battle to Save America. Through a series of sharp biographical studies, Lithwick’s best-selling book examines the massive changes in women’s rights from the latter part of the Obama presidency through the Trump administration. It’s a story of rights being curtailed, denied, changed and re-evaluated – and the immense effort to push back and secure those rights by women lawyers. The book is a reminder of just how contentious the last six years have been. Lithwick zeroes in on a number of battles – at airports, in courtrooms, in the media and in demonstrations – and the tremendous trauma and costs. Many of these incidents are familiar, if only through the headlines at the time. Lithwick’s book gives context, broader legal understanding, and highlights the women attorneys who throughout found strength, strategy and alliances to fight for women’s rights. The book is encouraging and cautionary.

The women who emerge in Lithwick’s study are described with care and consideration. While we may have first heard about them through the media in times of drama, when they were often reduced to stereotypes and sound bites, in Lady Justice they emerge as complete human beings. Lithwick stresses that these women came from different backgrounds, with different agendas and ways of describing the law. What they share is a belief that law could provide structure. Its very rules would permit agency, a meaningful career, and the potential to make a difference.

Lithwick’s attorneys include Sally Yates, who was the US Attorney General at the end of the Obama administration and who was fired by President Trump when refused to implement the Trump administration’s executive order barring Muslims from entering the US. Yates, who is very much a believer in institutional stability, as Lithwick emphasizes, refused to act on an order she believed was unconstitutional. Becca Heller, who fought the Muslim ban as an attorney, has less faith in the system. Nevertheless, she played an instrumental role in organizing grass roots legal defense of immigrants at airports throughout the nation when the Trump Executive Order was implemented. The organization she founded, the International Refugee Assistance Project, continues to have an impact today. Although it took time, Yates and Heller’s legal arguments eventually were endorsed by the courts.

The courts also vindicated attorney Robbie Kaplan, who went after the Charlottesville, VA, white supremacists on behalf of the people they harmed. Kaplan had earlier played a leading role in securing the rights of homosexuals to marry. Brigitte Amiri, who has been fighting for women’s reproductive rights for decades with the ACLU, worked tirelessly on behalf of a pregnant teenager held at the border during the Trump administration. The young woman sought an abortion and the US government prevented it until Amiri’s arguments prevailed. Lithwick also looks at Vanita Gupta, who has a career advocating for civil rights, and Stacey Abrams, who has made the expansion of voting rights a priority.

Lithwick also talks about her own experiences with Judge Alex Kozinski, who sat on the US Court of Appeals. An influential jurist whose clerks often became judges, Kozinski was well-known in legal circles for his abuse and sexist behavior. When enough women and complaints came forward to seem to force accountability, Kozinski retired. One of his clerks, Brett Kavanaugh, claimed ignorance of his behavior during his confirmation to the Supreme Court. In these sections, Lithwick’s pain and anger at misogyny and blatant unfairness in top legal circles comes through loud and clear.

Despite that anger, Lithwick’s message is still ultimately about the importance of faith in process. She has belief in the law as a place for order and orderly change. Better arguments, over time, will win. The histories in the book reinforce the law’s slow and irregular move towards inclusivity and justice. It may be political, but it is not partisan. Tempering Lithwick’s optimism though, is that the legal system can be unduly influenced by partisan politics. Without process and care, the law can become a tool of repression. What I found most inspirational in Lady Justice was the immense heroism of these attorneys, their willingness to go above and beyond in pursuit of their clients and justice. Though perhaps not household names today, their efforts are what makes our democracy function. We are a national of laws. These attorneys, and Lithwick’s book, are most deserving of our time and appreciation.

David Potash

April 23, 2023 Reviews

Warriors For The Working Day – Classic WWII

In Shakespeare’s play Henry V, King Henry tells a Frenchman before the Battle of Agincourt that “we are but warriors for the working day; our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d with rainy marching in the painful field.” Not a boast, it is a statement of fact regarding the commitment and sand of the English soldier. “But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim” the soliloquy ends. Powerful and moving.

Peter Elstob lifted the quote for the title of his outstanding WWII novel about tank warfare. It’s an apt choice. Warriors for the Working Day is a superb book about the day-to-day of fighting in World War II from the solder’s perspective. It is beautifully written and extremely compelling, pulling the reader into the grit and internal stresses of the war. Most importantly, it is lightly fictionalized. Elstob knew the subject, personally and intimately, and that knowledge informs the entire endeavor. Published in the 1950s, it has resonance and impact today.

Gripping and engaging, the book is sprinkled with literary allusions and devices. The novel is structured into two parts. Book One, “First Light” is based on when it’s possible to distinguish between black and white. Book Two, “Last Light” is when it’s no longer possible to distinguish. The structure is literal and metaphorical, capturing the kinds of battles the soldiers’ face and the arc of the war through a soldier’s eyes. There is action, drama, and quite a bit of thoughtful reflection. Elstob’s skill allows one to enjoy the book’s prose, too. His writing is that good.

One character, Brooks, functions as the key thread throughout the novel, anchoring the action and the plot. However, the novel explores more than Brooks and his growth as a tank commander. We meet the senior officers and soldiers who school him, his colleagues, the men he commands, and a wide range of people he encounters in England and Europe. The book opens with training before D-Day and ends as the tank command is in Germany, heading toward the war’s conclusion. Characters come, go, live, die, and through it all, the soldiers must fight. They also have to fight in order to fight. The stresses, the demons, the pressures are constant and debilitating.

Warriors for the Working Day stands as a powerful corrective to narrative war history, the kinds of books that explain battles with maps, arrows and charts. With outcomes known, they give sense to what is inherently impossible to comprehend. Those kinds of history books are necessary but far removed from the actions of the poor folks who have to drive the tanks, shoot the weapons and hope for the best. There’s an immediacy to Elstob’s writing that carries you directly to the battlefield, to the bureaucracy, and the day to day. He is particularly good in his characterization. Everyone seems more than real.

Elstob’s personal war experiences made certain of the reality. He was a Royal Tank Regiment volunteer (his attempts at the RAF were unsuccessful). Elstob saw action in Asia, Africa, England and Europe. He lived through all that is recounted in Warriors for the Working Day. Moreover, he penned several military histories. Elstob truly knows his subject and that shines through his writing.

Massive thanks to the Imperial War Museum for reissuing this classic novel. It was as strong as anything new that I’ve read in years.

David Potash

June 28, 2022 Reviews