Hey guys, this is my first post here. I read a lot and figured I could pass on a short book review here and there.
Anyway, this is my review of “Once an Eagle” by Anton Myrer.
8.5/10 on the Krisler Scale
First let me start by saying that this book is LONG. I had back problems after carrying it around for a month. But, let me also say that the book doesn’t seem long. There are lulls in the action as the narration follows a life, not just a man at war, and sometimes I found myself thinking that I just wanted to get back to the action. But, I’m an impatient man and overall it didn’t take that much away from the book.
The book follows the life of Sam Damon, a clean cut Nebraska farm boy, from a rowdy high school senior, through WWI, the depression, WWII, and Vietnam. In the reviews for this book on Amazon, it said that this book is the only novel that’s required reading at West Point. I can certainly see why as Sam is a man of incredible moral fiber and someone who would be a great role model to an up and coming officer.
I really really enjoyed this book. It is not the best novel I’ve ever read by any means (that prize belongs and always will belong to “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy, if you’re a serious reader and you haven’t read this book, consider yourself on notice), but it kept me interested the whole way through and finished off in style.
I will say this; I’m 32 years old and I read, on average, a book every week or week and a half. I have never once been moved so much by a book that it brought me to tears. “Once an Eagle” broke this streak. I found myself begging the author not to do what I knew was coming, and when it happened, a big surly looking dude had tears running down his face on his lunch break in the middle of a New Jersey mall. In other words, Myrer has fantastic character development and always maintains a sense of impending doom, giving you a great sense of what it was like to be someone that had to constantly worry about his own survival.
I don’t know, I might be reading too much into the character development, but in a book this long, you have a lot of time to get to know the characters.
$16 at Borders, whaddya got to lose?