And We Were Young
by
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Many years later he would sometimes think of them as beautiful young men who’d saved the world. But by the end of the war, Donald Upton hated his squad almost as much as the enemy. To him, the good civilian life meant never again watching Lisanbee poring. over . Variety. or Evans. lip-reading. his Merriam, Kansas Gazette or Rycinski laboriously printing his daily V-Mail letter which always began, "My dearest, darling Zuleika." Peacetime would be not hearing Showalter say "Huh?" to ever order or Adler’s constant mouthings of life wing pamphlets. These five were the remnants of Upton’s rifle squad, the only survivors of the eleven who’d first gone into action with him outside of Metz. He knew the animal in each of them, from their straddling slit trenches like mindless baboons to their efforts to kill. He’d seen their fear and they his. Six months after V-E Day, he led them home. "Anybody from Elizabeth, New Jersey?" A solitary small-town reporter had braved the November winds on the dock to meet their Victory Ship. Her long beaver coat looked moth-eaten, matching the assignment. "Elizabeth, New Jersey?" It had a note of desperation, as if she got paid by the paragraph. Her nose was red from the cold and running. It went with everything else that the only woman in sight was shivering and unattractive. "Any of you from Elizabeth, New Jersey?" "If I was," said Lisanbee, "I’d never admit it." "And we need ten of you," she said. Where once there’d been brass bands and waving banners and warm welcoming speeches. Three days later, they crossed the Hudson on the ferry to West Forty-second Street. They were officially civilians then and Upton’s hatred was gone. Addresses had been exchanged. There’d been solemn promises to keep in touch. Then they reached Manhattan and shook hands and said good-byes and walked off in different directions of different worlds.
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About the Book
Four members of an infantry rifle squad who fought alongside each other during the Second World War find their lives again intertwining four years later. This was the time when television was in its infancy. It plays a minor part in their story. But it is the growing tentacles of McCarthyism which entangle them and lead to their destroying each other. And We Were Young has been praised as the best novel written about this evil period which is still shamefully remembered.
About the Author
Elliott Baker was born in 1922 in Buffalo, New York, graduated from Indiana University, and was an infantry rifleman in World War II. His works have been published in numerous countries and languages. These include his novels, A Fine Madness (1964), The Penny Wars (1968), Pocock & Pitt (1971), Klynt’s Law (1976), And We Were Young (1979), Unhealthful Air (1988), and Doctor Lopez (1995). A partial autobiography, Unrequited Loves, was published in 1974 and a collection of essays, Bardolatry, in 1992. He has written for both television and motion pictures (receiving an Emmy nomination for his teleplay The Entertainer), and his fiction and non-fiction have appeared in publications ranging from GQ Magazine to The Elizabethan Review. In 1997, Indiana University awarded him its highest honor given to an alumnus, The President’s Medal for Excellence "for making a positive and profound impact in the literary field."