Reviews for The Eleventh Man

The average rating for The Eleventh Man based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-14 00:00:00 Natanel Philosophe "Sure, you could believe for all you were worth that you were too young and fit and lucky to be chased down by death, but all of accumulated history yawns back, 'Why not you?'" ' from "The Eleventh Man" Ivan Doig's previous novel, the terrific "The Whistling Season" (2006) casts a long shadow, and "The Eleventh Man" never escapes from it to soak up some sun, but that doesn't make this World War II tale a bad one. It's Doig, so of course it's good. In the "The Eleventh Man" the starting 11 from a legendary (fictional) Montana college football team (!) are upset ' big time ' by the law of averages on the homefront and in war-torn areas of the globe. The U.S. military propaganda machine picks Ben Reinking, son of a newspaper editor, to chronicle the wartime exploits of his 10 former teammates in puff pieces designed to appear in small-town newspapers across the country, an effort to boost morale. The odds say the vast majority of these men will make it through alive, but there are no oddsmakers at the end of a gun or flying a plane or on a ship when a kamikaze pilot attacks. Ben chafes against his superiors as he travels forth and back to his former teammates: on the U.S. West Coast patrolling for Japanese submarine crews seeking fresh water; in battles in Guam and the Battle of the Bulge; flying ships from Montana to Alaska to hand over to the Russians. All the while Ben pursues a relationship with a female pilot ' a WASP ' married to a soldier serving overseas. Like nearly all of Doig's work, Montana is central to the tale. And although there are several exciting battle scenes, this isn't an action/adventure book at its heart. Doig goes small instead of big; Ben's struggles of conscience and the gut-punch horror of these men's deaths, one by one, are the focus, not battle-hero stuff. Ben thinks, "The damned odds again. Why can't the numbers just behave and quit giving out coincidences like card tricks?" And the deaths of so many men with one common tie does seem like a tremendous stretch, the dramatic license of a novelist. But in the acknowledgements at the back of the book Doig reveals that 11 starting players from a Montana college apparently did, in fact, die in World War II! Truth as strange as fiction. Doig's writing here, while of course good, doesn't seem as evocative as it was in "The Whistling Season." And "The Eleventh Man" suffers a bit from the bouncing around from man to man as Ben follows the teammates at home and abroad. At just over 400 pages, and with 11 players and a host of other characters, we simply don't have enough time to get to know everyone. The novel would have worked better much longer, more detailed. A more epic treatment with the same real-person tone would have been more moving. But, hell, Doig's 70 years old! He probably just wants to make sure he finishes!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-12-02 00:00:00 Richard Voller Sometimes, I know exactly how I'll review a book and can hardly wait to get my thoughts down. Other times, like, this time in particular, a book is so lost in that foggy middle between good and bad, that my thoughts never seem articulate. I've avoided writing about The Eleventh Man, by Ivan Doig, for over a month now. I've got eight books dammed up behind it, waiting their turn for review. I grew up looking at Ivan Doig titles in my parent's living room. Surprisingly, it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally read the first of his Montana trilogy, Dancing At The Rascal Fair. That experience taught me that Doig is in no hurry to entertain his readers. Rather, a lot like growing up in Montana, he rewards those who endure. With this in mind, I began The Eleventh Man, Doig's latest novel. Ben Reinking grew up understanding how the world of journalism worked as his father owned the local paper in Gros Ventre, Montana. With a degree in journalism from Treasure State University, where he was also a member of "The Supreme Team" 1941 championship football team, he enlists in the armed forces as a pilot. Before he is finished with his training, however, he is given an assignment a war correspondent for the Threshold Press War Project. When the war department learns that the entire eleven members of "The Supreme Team" are enlisted in the war, they propagandize the situation into a opportunity to create war heroes. Ben travels around, visiting his old teammates where they are serving and writes a regular column, spinning tales of bravery and American pride. While waiting for his different travel assignments, he spends his time at East Base outside of Great Falls, Montana. There, he falls in love with Cass Standish, a married female pilot in the Women's Airforce Service Pilot (WASP. There really were female pilots. I had no idea!) When his columns turn into obituaries as teammate after teammate falls, Ben is forced into understanding that nothing is fair in love and war. An interesting enough look at WWII, but there is something almost too planned about this book to make it satisfying. It's almost as if I could see his brainstorm page lying somewhere on a table - "I'll have one guy serving in Italy. This guy in the Pacific. Another one in London and another storming Normandy. I need a few to be stuck in the states to highlight what went on here, though. I know...I'll put one guy in the coast guard and another will be stuck flying back and forth to Alaska where I can write up the Russia angle. To tie them all together, I'll make them all old friends....no...teammates! Even better. And one will know what's going on with everyone else and he'll mainly be in Montana so I can still write about the area I know best!" A jaded opinion, but it felt that way. If you love all things WWII, then you'd probably enjoy this book as well. If not, then read Doig's other books instead. They're better.