The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig
Here’s the situation, if it had been possible to start this book smack dab in the middle, say page 200, I think I would have enjoyed this book a little bit more. Of course the book wouldn’t make sense but I think you get the point I’m making.
Obviously this book started off a little rough for me. As always when I have this problem with books I come to the age old dilemma of “do I stop reading it, or carry on?” Well, if you’ve read some of my previous posts you know that I can’t stand not finishing a book so that’s exactly what I did. Naturally, by the time I finished the book I had warmed up to it a bit. I’m not going to say I wholeheartedly enjoyed it, but I did a bit.
It’s another World War II story that is told from the perspective of a journalist, Ben Reinking, during the war. During this particular journalist’s college days he was on a championship football team out of Montana. After being ordered from flight training and told that he would instead be writing for the Threshold Press War Project, a propaganda news source, he was instructed that he would be covering the stories of the other 10 players from his football team. You see back in 1941 they didn’t have all the substitutes and backup players that colleges have today, instead of having a sideline packed with guys trying to look tough, they were lucky to have a few. What apparently made this football team newsworthy to the army was the simple fact that all 11 of them (including Ben) enrolled in the army after graduating. In order to cover each of their stories Ben travels to the Pacific Northwest, Guam, New Guinea, the open ocean and Antwerp to report on his former teammates. Although the true purpose of his reporting was never really revealed to him, Ben dutifully does as he is told and attempts to bring his former teammates to been seen as “heroes” off the football field.
While no story like this would be complete without a love story the one told here is pretty interesting. Not only is Ben’s love interest a married woman but she is also a part of the women air force service pilots or wasp. Honestly this doesn’t add a whole lot to the central ideas of the story but it does make it a little more personal from the point of view which the story is told.
As the story progresses you can’t help but feel the sense of utter defeat despite Ben’s somewhat peaceful disposition. He can clearly see how his and his fellow teammates stories are going to end. Just by mentioning that you can probably guess the same. There are of course a few twists and turns and the unexpected does of course happen along the way but for the most part the story is pretty predictable.
Would I recommend this book, probably not. I’ve read far more interesting stories recently that I would rather read again that try and get through this one again.
