For my second book of the year, I recently finished Alex Kershaw's The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau. Although I'm very interested in 20th century European history, I hadn't specifically planned to read the book--it just happened to be sitting on the shelf of new arrivals at my local library, and the first few pages pulled me in immediately. I love it when that happens--it's an unexpected gift.
With all the books, movies, and television shows about World War II, it's becoming increasingly difficult for new material about that period to present something fresh and original. That's one of the reasons why Kershaw's book appealed to me: I've read much less about the Allied campaign in Italy than about the D-Day landings or the war in the Pacific, for example. Also, Kershaw explains events by following the experience of a single soldier, Felix Sparks, an American infantryman whose unit landed on Sicily in 1943 and who fought through Italy, France and Germany, ultimately being among the handful of men who liberated the Dachau concentration camp in 1945. Even though Kershaw tells the story through the lens of one person, he balances the micro-level narrative with all the macro-level context necessary to understand why the battles are significant and how the overall war effort is proceeding at each stage.
The story is gripping, and Kershaw's writing is smooth and well-paced. He introduces Felix Sparks as such a likable and heroic figure that I wasn't just reading about Sparks, I was worrying about him as he fought through Europe. And I was imagining how awful it must have been for his wife and parents, knowing that he was in constant danger.
More than once, The Liberator reminded me of John Steinbeck's outstanding book Once There Was a War, which was a collection of the articles he wrote as a journalist covering the WWII. Steinbeck's journalism has a lot in common with Kershaw's narrative nonfiction: both are at their best telling stories of individuals who didn't choose to go to war but who act with integrity and courage, doing their best as small parts of a mammoth war effort. Done well, as it is in these two cases, that is a worthy read.
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