Book of the week: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

(Random House, 473 pages, $27)

“Rarely has a single man had to endure such an extraordinary array of woes” as the real-life subject of Laura Hillenbrand’s new book, said Gary Krist in The Washington Post. In her long-awaited follow-up to Seabiscuit, the author of that 2001 horse-racing best-seller proves she has a knack for picking underdog stories. Louis Zamperini was an American distance runner of modest origins who competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and would have competed in 1940 had the Games not been derailed by the outbreak of World War II. Instead, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, flew combat missions over the Pacific, crashed at sea, survived 47 days on a raft, then suffered two years of savage torture in various Japanese prison camps. As “epic tales of endurance” go, Zamperini’s easily beats a library full of pretenders.

Hillenbrand proves again to be “a muscular, dynamic storyteller,” said Janet Maslin in The New York Times. She never uses “an ordinary verb” when “a ‘teeming’ or ‘porpoising’ will do.” And it helps that she has “located a tale full of unforgettable characters, multi-hanky moments, and wild turns.” When Zamperini is adrift at sea, he fights off sharks with his fists and tears apart seabirds for food. Captured, he lands in the hands of a sadistic Japanese jailer who delights in punching him in the face and making him clean pigsties by hand. Though such tales may sound suspiciously tall, Hillenbrand proves she’s done her research. To appreciate what Zamperini saw as a bombardier, for example, the author—housebound by illness—persuaded an Army historian to visit with an old bombsight and teach her how a World War II crew might “bomb” the city of Phoenix.

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Fans of Seabiscuit may find the brutality of this narrative difficult to endure, said Benjamin Svetkey in Entertainment Weekly. “As inspiring as Zamperini’s tale is, his ordeal isn’t exactly a joy to experience on the page.” Even later in his life, when he’s battling alcoholism and post-traumatic stress syndrome on his way to finding religion, “the bleakness” of his days makes grim reading. Still, few heroes live up to the title the way Zamperini did—and does. (He’s 93 and still kicking.) Hillenbrand has done him a great honor with this very good, “sometimes even profound, book.” It may never be anyone’s idea of a great beach read, but that’s what Seabiscuit is for.