by Buzz Bissinger, 2022, Harper

This is possibly the worst book I have recently read. It attempts to portray the marines who played a game of football on Guadalcanal prior to fighting in the battle for Okinawa where many of them lost their lives.

The book is more of a tribute to those individuals and serves well as a memorial, but it is terrible reading. There is little information regarding the battle itself, but rather a play-by-play description of each of the marine’s death. The author also employs a great deal of the foul language that would have been used by the marines at the time, but it actually detracts from the narrative. I had a very hard time getting through the book and probably the best reward came when I was finally finished.

There were some passages in the book that were totally worthless. For example, there was a whole chapter on a scouting mission on Guadalcanal on which very little happened. There were also about three pages devoted to FDR’s recipe for a mint julip cocktail.

There was some information about John McLaughry who fought in and survived Okinawa. This was interesting to me as he was Brown University’s varsity football coach when I was a freshman and sophomore at Brown. Bissinger also highlighted the lives of some of the other football players of the time, but the detail was not very interesting.

This book was a Christmas present from my wife who had heard about it from some friends. Sorry to say, I didn’t enjoy it at all.