Head Butler - Books

We Die Alone
by David Howarth

Our favorite memories of reading are about books we couldn't put down. We started these books expecting nothing more than diversion, but they were so good we had to keep reading, and then we needed to go out on an errand, so we read as we walked, not caring if we bumped into people, and then we realized we were seriously hooked, so we made a call and canceled our evening plans, and suddenly it was one in the morning and everything was quiet as we turned the last page and sighed with pleasure.

Most of us can count those experiences on the fingers of one hand. For Butler, the first time came when he was 10 years old and read “We Die Alone.” Almost four decades later, Butler handed the book to his 11 year-old stepson and watched him have the same experience. And, along the way, he's given the book to others --- and never failed to hear how addictively readable it was.

What makes a book addictive? The story. Always. Great writing helps, but it's not crucial --- a great character in a thrilling situation, and we're hooked.

Which is very much the case with “We Die Alone.” Consider: It is 1943. The Germans have overrun Norway. But there is a vigorous Norwegian Resistance; in London, an ambitious plan has a dozen tough Norwegians cruising home on what looks like a fishing boat and blowing up a Nazi airfield.

As the boat chugs into the harbor of a tiny Norwegian town, the plan is discovered and the boat is blown out of the water. One man swims to safety: Jan Baalsrud. Now he has a fresh challenge --- get out of Norway .

He has no supplies. It is death to help him, yet people do. But there is a factor far bigger than human courage --- the force of nature. It's deadly cold, and Baalsrud must go it mostly alone.

Does he fall 300 feet in an avalanche? Is he frostbitten? Is he snowbound? Does he spend a week in a hut with almost no food? Does he ---- with a knife that's far from a surgical instrument --- amputate most of his toes? All of that, and more, and still he keeps his wits and his will.

It's not the physical triumph that's so thrilling. It's Jan Baalsrud's mental toughness. He simply refuses to lose --- he's a powerful example of positive stubbornness.

Early on, you know he's going to make it. It's a measure of Howarth's clean writing and Baalsrud's astonishing courage that this knowledge doesn't cut the suspense at all. This is a pure reading experience --- to cheer Baalsrud is to cheer for life, it is to affirm the power of the individual, it is to be thrilled by the possibility of confounding fate and cheating despair.

It's also to be thrilled just to be reading and turning the pages, as fast as you can, for as long as it takes.

--- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com

To buy "We Die Alone" from Amazon.com, click here.