A debut novel about a young soldier’s World War II experiences in the South Pacific and his romance with a hometown girl.
Smith mines a rich trove of family history to tell the fictionalized story of his parents, Red and Judy Smith, who hailed from farming families in East Texas and fell in love as teenagers. The novel opens on a hot day in Hopkins County in August of 1940, when local, 19-year-old baseball player Horace Garlton “Red” Smith, a responsible eldest son in his family, first notices Juliette “Judy” Hamilton, a 12-year-old girl from a neighboring farm, cheering him on. Despite the age difference, Judy says to herself that “she would, by hook or crook, someday, somehow, win the heart of this Red-Headed Prince and be carried away to Paradise, to live, as they say, happily ever after.” The story follows their later wartime courtship and postwar marriage, closing with epilogues that capture each spouse’s final moments, reaffirming their bond. Judy remains a somewhat idealized character throughout, and this narrative choice makes the postwar section of the novel feel less compelling than earlier chapters. But the book succeeds in its detailed evocation of Red’s transformation from a young farm boy to a seasoned soldier fighting in ferocious jungle battles in the South Pacific, tried by combat and buoyed by the strong bonds of friendship with a small band of fellow soldiers. In a prelude, Smith effectively foreshadows Red’s experiences during the November 1944 battle in Leyte in the Philippines: “The night was dark as pitch. Howling winds carried horizontal sheets of blinding, cutting rain.” And although Red’s survival is never in doubt, the tension is high as each battle threatens his closest friends—Nobel Horner, Pete Petty, and Kenny Herrod—and the other members of the mortar unit. Crisp, believable dialogue and backstories bring these secondary characters into sharper focus.
A well-researched tribute and a memorable addition to World War II literature.