Book Review - The Rising Tide

 

The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara

Ballantine Books

672 pages, $27.95

ISBN 0-345-46141-X

 

As a writer of historical fiction Jeff Shaara has earned the right to avoid the inevitable comparisons with his father Michael, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning classic The Killer Angels.

 

With works on the American Revolution, the War with Mexico, and his Civil War novels Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, the younger Shaara has long proven himself a capable and talented writer, albeit one blessed (or cursed) with a famous name.

 

The Rising Tide is his first foray into the era of WWII, and the initial volume of a projected trilogy on the European war.

 

The book opens with the battle for North Africa between the British and the brilliant Erwin Rommel, continues with the American invasion of the continent, and traces the Allied efforts through the battle for Sicily and Italy, ending during the buildup for the Normandy invasion.

 

Throughout the action the novel takes the point of view of different historical figures, ranging from Rommel to Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, a technique that's become a Shaara staple.

 

Ordinarily that device brings the reader closer to the action, wrapping them in the thoughts and actions that defined the battlefield. It also helps overcome any gaps in the reader's knowledge of history, something that worked wonders in his earlier books.

 

It doesn't work as well here, perhaps because we are far more familiar with the players of WWII then we are those from the War with Mexico - Patton, after all, is not Winfield Scott. At times the recreation of these personalities becomes almost tedious and unnecessary.

 

Patton is aggressive and flamboyant, Rommel a genius handcuffed by his superiors in Berlin, Montgomery is cautious and pompous, and Eisenhower a born diplomat.  None of that is news to anyone remotely familiar with the era and these people, and add little significance to the story itself.

 

It is only when occupying the world of minor characters such as Pvt. Jack Logan, a tank gunner, and Sgt. Jesse Adams, a paratrooper, that we are emotionally vested in the story. It's also the area of the book where the beauty and potential of Shaara's writing shines the most, when we can forget the history lesson and experience the horror and fear of the battlefield ourselves.

 

Primarily an American tale, Shaara can be forgiven for excluding the point of view of an everyday German soldier, a civilian, or anyone on the raging Eastern Front. Even so, the inclusion of those points of view might have helped flesh out a story that somehow, against the odds, comes off a bit predictable.

 

          The Rising Tide, at 672 pages, is certainly not a small novel, in size or scope. And overall the novel achieves its intention, dropping us firmly into the middle of some of the 20th century's greatest personalities as they fought the most devastating war of all time. It is a well done book, detailed enough for the history buff, simplistic enough for the casual reader.

 

          If this book is any guide, the remaining volumes of this trilogy will be worth the wait.