The Big War

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The second novel by Anton Myrer, published by Appleton Century Crofts in 1957. While Myrer is best known for his 1968 novel Once an Eagle, this was his first commercial and critical success.

The ordinary soldier's perception of battle is described in this book in a manner much like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, although in this work Myrer also gives a detailed description of life on "the home front" for both soldiers (during leave) and their families.

[edit] Critical Reviews

"...perhaps the best of all the recent tales of the Pacific... His descriptions of the Marines in action ... are brilliant and terrifying ... some of the most eloquent war writing that has been done. But he is also one of the most intelligent and sensitive of these new war novelists, and a writer who is seeking the meaning of compassion..." Maxwell Geismar, Saturday Review.

"May well turn out the most interesting piece of fiction produced by an American veteran of World War II ... Myrer writes with such zest, power, humor and balance (this last quality gives The Big War a certain edge over The Naked and the Dead) that the reader will be kept a reader from first page to last." Clifton Fadiman, Book-of-the-Month Club News.

"I doubt if it is possible to come very much closer at this time to an American War and Peace than The Big War. It is one of the most impressive war novels of this country -- with the possible exception of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage the best." Commonweal.

"One rarely encounters a work in which brutality, terror and anguish are handled in a manner so sensitive as to bring all the emotions of the reader into active concert. This is precisely what happens in the reading of this magnificent novel. I think more terrifying, more convincing battle scenes have not been described since Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. Cleveland Press.

"One must go back to Remarque's All quiet on the Western Front to find another book as charged as this one is with revulsion of war." Philadelphia Inquirer.

"An impact, a horizon and a meaning which set it apart as a work of genuine quality ... Myrer's soldiers are genuine people ... and their story is told with holding power and emotional truth ... a modern Iliad which should be widely read and long remembered." Boston Herald.

Note: All six of the above reviews are found republished on the back dust jacket of: Anton Myrer, The Violent Shore (Little, Brown & Co. 1st Ed. 1962).