nonfiction

“With measured verve, McAuliffe
presents an accessible text that occasionally approaches
Barbara Tuchman’s talented touch.”
from clash of crowns
unpleasant terms). The intensity of his combat experience has
clearly stayed with him all his life; recalling friends he never
saw again after certain battles, he notes, “I suppose dying is just
another way of saying good-bye.” The author is disarmingly honest,
as when the young soldier-protagonist visits a prostitute in
order to lose his virginity before shipping out, and particularly in
his vivid recollections of an oddly idyllic Depression adolescence
in Queens, with no clue of the storm that lay ahead: “Where in
the hell is Pearl Harbor Nobody had the foggiest that 108,504 U.S.
servicemen would have to die…to answer that question, to make
things right.” Mace describes the war in tactile, often gruesome
terms, suggesting that the Pacific campaign was remarkably filthy
and grueling, as when he encountered “Japanese corpses [that]
have congested this open area with open wounds, glossy red tripe
boiling from naked bellies.” The tough-guy prose recalls James
Ellroy, but the first-person perspective suggests authenticity with
regard to the little-understood experience of the frontline rifleman
in the Pacific theater. Young Marines like Mace contended
not only with a formidable and little-seen enemy, but also with
military bureaucracy, inter-service rivalries, supply problems and
an unbearable physical environment. The author mingles increasingly
dark humor with terror at the seeming randomness of violent
death in war, yet the narrative also dramatizes the diverse
humanity of the ordinary Americans who were sucked into the
conflict. The book culminates in a poignant scene in which Mace
visits the mother of a close friend who died in battle.
A mostly valuable testimonial of the Pacific campaign’s
desperate brutality—will appeal to fans of The Pacific or
Band of Brothers.
SUPERFUEL
Thorium, the
Zero-Risk Energy
Source for the Future
Martin, Richard
Palgrave Macmillan (272 pp.)
$27.00 | May 8, 2012
978-0-230-11647-4
The story of the slightly radioactive
element thorium, a much-touted alternative
fuel for nuclear power plants.
Abundant in the Earth’s crust, thorium has been used in
various industrial processes since its discovery in 1828. Advocates,
writes Martin, an award-winning journalist and editorial director
for Pike Research, a clean energy firm, say the silver-gray element
has another possible use: as an cheap, safe energy source
with the potential to “solve our power crisis.” Expanding on his
Wired cover story, the author explains that the element was actually
used as a nuclear fuel in an experimental reactor built and
run by American scientists at Oak Ridge in the late 1960s. Since
then, it has become a forgotten technology, losing out to uranium,
which powers all reactors operating in the United States.
In the wake of Japan’s recent Fukushima Daiichi disaster, many
scientists and entrepreneurs are now seeking U.S. government
and corporate backing of thorium, which has become the fuel of
choice for nuclear energy efforts in India, Japan and elsewhere.
Martin focuses on the work of Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA
engineer, now head of Flibe Energy, who urges U.S. utilities that
are preparing to replace some 30 older reactors to build a new
kind of reactor—a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor, which proponents
consider to be more efficient and safer than existing plants.
He describes how uranium-based nuclear reactors came to
dominate the nuclear industry and how industry leaders are now
thwarting the use of thorium power, while conceding its possible
advantages. They complain of the high costs associated with converting
to the alternative energy source. Martin also details Asia’s
enthusiasm for thorium power and its implications for reducing
reliance on fossil fuels and slowing climate change.
A lucid overview of a still-developing chapter in the
story of nuclear power.
HILARITY ENSUES
Max, Tucker
Blue Heeler Books (448 pp.)
$25.99 | Feb. 7, 2012
978-1-4516-6903-9
Expensively educated child-of-privilege-turned-professional-asshole
Max
(Assholes Finish First, 2011, etc.) ends his
“fratire” series with another memoir full
of binge drinking, upchucking and general
unhinged misanthropy.
Here the author cuddles up next to blowhard Bill O’Reilly,
crackpot psychologists, Hollywood gossips and psychotic Army
snipers. There are also plenty of repetitious barhopping stories
involving Max and the angry gynophobes he hangs with, all out
for some good old-fashioned recreational hate sex (or often just
hate, period) with clueless sorority-type chicks. The Tucker Max
formula for success He interacts with people who have the rare
disability of being even more moronic than he is—and so-called
hilarity ensues. Beyond the predictable mouthing off about his
“awesome” life, in this latest book we also get sections featuring
Max’s boring “sexting” transcripts, a self-righteous diatribe
against the mother of Miss Vermont (who sued him for libel),
some routine white-trash strip-club experiences and a proud
recollection of the time he beat up a frail European guy. There’s
also a fond remembrance of his homosocial maritime bromance
with one of the macho crab fisherman of Deadliest Catch fame:
Although he vomited from seasickness during much of his Alaskan
fishing expedition, he seemed to be much more at ease with
the rough boys on the Time Bandit than with the unfortunate
females he hits on in yuppie bars. We also learn some further
startling new information about the author—he likes Southern
rap and hates the French! Although there’s no telling how
much honesty there is behind any of Max’s chauvinist bluster,
undoubtedly the most believable statement in the book comes
in the penultimate chapter, where he reveals the fact that he has
no girlfriend or wife. Shocking.
The 18-year-old fraternity pledge’s guide to life.
CLASH OF CROWNS
William the Conqueror,
Richard Lionheart, and
Eleanor of Aquitaine—
a Story of Bloodshed,
Betrayal, and Revenge
McAuliffe, Mary
Rowman & Littlefield (248 pp.)
$26.00 | $25.99 e-book | Apr. 1, 2012
978-1-4422-1471-2
978-1-4422-1473-6 e-book
A recovery from romantic fable of some of the brightest
stars of Western medieval history.
Among the many notables, McAuliffe (Dawn of the Belle
Epoque: The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau,
and Their Friends, 2011, etc.) reintroduces us to the likes
of William the Conqueror, Barbarossa, Rollo the Viking, Robert
Curthose of Normandy, Louis the Fat and a cadre of Henrys.
(Readers will have no problem keeping them straight—the
author appends a table of key people and a helpful chronology).
After assessing the famously dysfunctional English household
of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, McAuliffe focuses on
the truly excellent adventures of their son, Richard Lionheart.
In clear prose, the author examines Richard’s internecine
struggles, usually with his brother, his feckless Third Crusade
fighting Saladin and his many clashes with archenemy Philip of
France. In these eclectic pages, we learn of 12th-century statecraft,
the design of fortress castles and how to lay siege to them,
the wages of mounted knights and foot soldiers, the rise of the
notion of romance and the wonderful victuals consumed at
great state dinners. The author weaves a selective tapestry that
does not scant personal qualities of her featured players. She
reveals the Conqueror’s baldness and staunch Eleanor’s attractions.
Also, it appears that Lionheart may have been gay, according
to the author’s research.
With measured verve, McAuliffe presents an accessible
text that occasionally approaches Barbara Tuchman’s talented
touch.
CALL OF THE MILD
Learning to Hunt
My Own Dinner
McCaulou, Lily Raff
Grand Central Publishing (336 pp.)
$24.99 | Jun. 12, 2012
978-1-4555-0074-1
Eloquent debut memoir about a young
woman’s transformation from a New York
City urbanite into a small-town Oregon
hunter with a conscience.
In her mid 20s, journalist McCaulou suddenly found that
her job as an independent film production assistant had lost its
charm. While the work put her in contact with indie stars and
“fun, artsy people” all over New York City, she couldn’t get away
from the feeling that what she was doing was “one big, glitzy
distraction.” On a whim, McCaulou accepted a job at a Bend,
Ore., newspaper. She thought the experience would offer her
a much-needed change of scenery and a new arsenal of journalistic
skills. What she discovered was a lifestyle that, though “a
distant cousin” to the one she had known, proved far more satisfying
than anything she imagined. As she learned to fly-fish,
McCaulou wrote articles about natural resources and the environment.
One topic that intrigued her was hunting, which she
had long associated with cruel and indiscriminate killing. The
more she researched this sport, the more she came to believe
that true hunters, as opposed to poachers, were really “environmentalist
role models.” To better understand their lifestyle,
McCaulou decided to take up the sport herself. She gradually
grew to appreciate hunting for what it taught her about her relationship
to the wilderness. Killing, and eating, a hunted animal
created an intimate bond between her, another creature and, by
extension, the land on which that creature lived. Throughout
the book, the author shares her mostly profound insights.
A powerful story in which the author shapes a narrative
of personal growth into a symbol of modern humanity’s
alienation from the natural world.
ROAD TO VALOR
A True Story of World
War II Italy, the Nazis,
and the Cyclist Who
Inspired a Nation
McConnon, Aili and McConnon, Andres
Crown (352 pp.)
$25.00 | Jun. 12, 2012
978-0-307-59064-0
Mostly uplifting account of the Tuscan
champion cyclist whose prime was
ruptured by the advent of World War II.
The extent of Gino Bartali’s work as a courier of forged
documents for Jews hiding in Tuscany has only recently gained
the cyclist, who died in 2000, humanitarian recognition. The
scrappy laborer’s son was 24 when he won his first Tour de
France in 1938, his best years subsequently interrupted by military
service when war broke out and Mussolini’s Italy was allied
with Nazi Germany, yet he made his incredible comeback and
won the race again for a war-defeated Italy in 1948. The McConnons—former
BusinessWeek writer Aili and filmmaker Andres—
have sifted through the archives and interviewed Bartali’s
widow, family and former teammates. With his simple peasant
beginnings in the Tuscan village of Ponte a Ema, Bartali and his
younger brother, Giulio, found in cycling races around their
native mountains an opportunity for distinction and money.
After winning the Giro d’Italia in 1936, Bartali almost quit racing
following Giulio’s fatal accident, but meeting the young woman
who would become his wife, Adriana Bani, encouraged him to
strive on, and he won another Giro in 1937. He was manipulated
by Mussolini’s national sports directors to concentrate solely on
the Tour de France; however, because of his alliance with the
826 | 15 april 2012 | nonfiction | kirkusreviews.com |
| kirkusreviews.com | nonfiction | 15 april 2012 | 827