Book Review: Where Men Win Glory

by Jared Blackley

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
by Jon Krakauer
416 pp. Doubleday. $27.95

Apparently, Doubleday sent out no reviewer copies of Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory prior to publication. Krakauer had scheduled the book for publication last year, under the title The Hero, but pulled it a few months before it was supposed to hit the shelves, presumably because he wasn't satisfied with the end product. Perhaps his confidence in the book is still not solid, so maybe he (and the publisher, of course) decided to not allow any reviews to be written before publication. Of course, I'm only speculating. But when the book was published last week, it immediately became a bestseller on the strength of his name alone. I bought the book and read it. It's quintessential Krakauer--clear, concise, direct prose that describes complex situations with simple language. It's not his best work--it starts out choppy and the research into Tillman's life seems superficial at times--but all in all, it's a good book. He doesn't waver in pointing blame where blame should be pointed. And the description (near the end of the book, not at the beginning) of the firefight that ended Tillman's life is brilliant. The affidavits and other documents from the military's seven (yes, seven!) investigations into what transpired numbers more than several thousand pages and are often contradictory and full of redactions and outright lies. To cut through all the bullshit and deceit and come out with a fairly accurate, and beautifully written, account of what actually transpired must have been a difficult and painstaking process.

One of the things that really struck me while reading the book is how thoughtful Tillman was. He faithfully kept a journal, from which Krakauer quotes liberally, and he was quite eloquent at times. Men generally have a difficult time understanding (sometimes even acknowledging) let alone explaining their emotions, but not Tillman. While in the military, his emotions were often conflicting. And his descriptions of them are worthy of note.

Krakauer's postscript is a bit baffling. He goes on a strange tirade about the American wimp and its counterpart, the alpha-male. At times, his logic seems to contradict itself. He uses Nietzsche's notion of the Übermench to describe Tillman and the alpha-male. While I agree with a lot of the basic idea he puts across, it seems a strange and random way to end the book. Nevertheless, it's worth reading.