Dan's Bookshelf

The next book I recommend for your summer reading list is Now The Hell Will Start by Brendan Koerner. This one may be non-fiction. But the narrative is so weirdly compelling — and the Koerner’s eye for detail so wonderful — that it reads like a novel.

The story begins on the segregated streets of World War II Washington, DC, where Herman Perry, a handsome ladies’ man, is drafted and shipped to the jungles of the India-Burma border. His task: To help build the Ledo Road, a colossal, ill-conceived boondoggle of a project that ultimately never gets completed.

One of the things I found chilling in this book was how wretchedly African-Americans soldiers — people risking their lives for their country — were treated. It wasn’t simply segregation.  Fed subpar food, forced to travel across oceans in the holds of ships, and assigned only the most menial and demeaning jobs, they were often treated not much better than animals. The military’s policies, built on scary (and sometimes comical) notions of racial superiority and inferiority, had me constantly shaking my head in disbelief.

The mistreatment eventually takes its toll on Perry, who wasn’t all that stable to begin with. One day, in a haze of resentment, fatigue, and despair, he shoots and kills an especially abusive white officer. Knowing that his life is now essentially over, Perry escapes into the jungle, triggering a massive manhunt. Amazingly, he survives the snakes and tigers and malaria and makes his way to a village of opium-smoking Naga tribesmen, where — natch — he ends up becoming a mini-celebrity, marrying the leader’s 14-year-old daughter, and fathering a child. (Oh, did I mention that this is a tribe of headhunters and that human skulls adorn the place like lawn ornaments?)

It’s a crazy story. And I’ve described only about half the book. The manhunts (yes, there’s more than one) give the text page-turning propulsion. But Koerner also packs the book full of disturbing detail about race relations and keen insights into bureaucratic dysfunction.

I won’t tell you how it all ends. Instead, I’ll encourage you to pick up the book and give it a try. I think you’ll find it hard to put down.