ONE OF FOUR

An American doughboy experiences horror and heroism on the Western Front in Davis’ searing World War I novel.

This story centers on the mysterious diary of a soldier (with the American Expeditionary Force in France in 1917 and 1918) whose vivid account of the war never mentions his name. The diary is discovered in the present day, hidden in a Parisian bookstore, by Alex Grover, an American high school senior on an awkward graduation holiday with his estranged dad, Walter, a retired U.S. Army veteran. The two bond over the journal’s gripping portrait of the war. The diary recaps the soldier’s training as he learns to survive the extraordinarily lethal environment of high-intensity combat, where death lurks in everything from snipers’ bullets and explosive shells to poison gas and, late in the war, the Spanish flu. The action ramps up to the great Allied offensives of 1918 as the diarist weathers shattering bombardments and leads his squad through machine-gun fire as they storm German trenches. Reading the diary and visiting American military cemeteries in France, Alex and Walter piece together clues indicating that the diarist might be the man buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Davis, himself a veteran, has penned a rousing, blood-and-guts combat narrative, steeped in meticulously rendered military procedure and ghastly carnage, depicted in blunt, visceral prose. (“All of a sudden, I heard the sound of metal on metal. I looked over to the soldier on my right. He just lay there. Half his head was gone.”) He also deftly traces the psychological transformation of his protagonist, who is brave, patriotic, and self-sacrificing but increasingly coarsened by war. (“Once we got out of the building, we laid the soldier on the ground…I didn’t cry. I don’t feel empathy or sadness. I’m mad I’m one soldier short in my squad.”) The result is a riveting tale of a nameless everyman charging through hell on earth.

An engrossing war saga that mixes harrowing battle scenes with resonant pathos.