O'Hara's Choice

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A Last Dim Hurrah - Rated
From the opening pages of Battle Cry, through Mila-18 and Exodus, Uris develops his fine stories of people in battle. Battle against prejudice, against poverty, against class structures, against themselves. This, his last novel, once more places people in jeopardy. Covering a period from just before the Civil War to the early 1890's, it is a tale of honorable men fighting to save what they believe in, most noticeably Uris' beloved Marine Corps, but also fighting for a chance to live life and love as they wish, to acknowledge the right of all to be free, and for honor itself.

Zachary O'Hara is the model Marine; practically raised within the corps by his father, Paddy O'Hara, a Civil War Medal of Honor hero who, at one point or another, had saved most of the lives of the male characters in this book. Zachary must fight the battle common to children of famous parents, that of making his way in the world out from the shadow of his parent. His external battle takes the shape of drafting policy papers that will show the necessity of Marine Corps as a functioning part of the U. S. Military, both in the present time and in the foreseeable future, as in the late 1880's the general feeling was that the Marine Corps was a body that had outlived its usefulness.

But this battle must take place alongside his battle to be able to love Amanda Kerr, daughter of ship-building magnate Horace. As Zachary is clearly below Amanda's station, marriage would seem to be out of the question - but Amanda herself is a strong-willed, intelligent woman who knows how to broker deals.

With this as the skeleton upon which to construct his novel, it would seem that sure-handed Uris would have an easy time building a strong novel. But perhaps because Uris died before doing the final edits on this work, the novel comes off as somewhat disjointed, characters (especially the minor ones) not as clearly delineated as is normal for Uris, and occasional pieces of text are repeated, something I'm sure he would have eliminated had he had the chance. As it is, there are places that feel incomplete, dialogue that seems to assume the reader knows more than has been presented, and the prime story, that of ensuring the continuance of the Marine Corps, does not seem to carry the sense of urgency and criticality that I'm sure Uris intended the novel to portray. The historical backdrop of both national events and his character's past does not have enough detail to really make this era come alive. The climax of the story comes as something of a surprise, as only minimal hints about it have been set in earlier portions of the novel.

What could have been a strong story of love and nation-building is compromised, leaving only the feeling of what could have been with perhaps another hundred pages and some strong editing. A disappointment from an author who almost never failed to engage both the hearts and minds of his readers.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)