Authors: Laura Hillenbrand
ISBN-13: 9780375435010, ISBN-10: 0375435018
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Diversified Publishing
Date Published: November 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Though Laura Hillenbrand had been writing about thoroughbred racing since 1988 as a contributing writer/editor for Equus magazine and other publications, it was her riveting 2001 retelling of the super-inspirational Seabiscuit saga that captured the nation's attention.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
It is Hillenbrand's great accomplishment that the heart of Unbroken, describing the more than two brutal years between [Louie Zamperini]'s crash and his unlikely return home, is not an exhausting catalog of misery but a suspenseful and at times uplifting testament to human survival. And just as Hillenbrand's previous book, Seabiscuit, was about more than a horse, so Unbroken ends up being about more than the punishing wartime experiences of one man.