A look at war, sacrifice, and the uses of fiction

December 19, 2008|David Liss, Globe Correspondent

As he does with his many preceding novels, Ivan Doig roots "The Eleventh Man" in rural Montana of the past, but this book, set during the years of American involvement in World War II, is much more wide-ranging than the author's previous work. Here Doig focuses on the exploits of a monumentally successful football team, but lest the combination of college football and the Second World War make the book sound like a parody of Father's Day marketing, let me state right away that Doig has bigger fish to fry than pressing the hot buttons of American masculinity. This is a tale almost entirely devoid of nostalgia, and one that wishes to celebrate the valor of the greatest generation while viewing it with skepticism and even cynicism.

The novel centers on Ben Reinking (I feel like there is something metaphorical happening with this name, but I haven't figured out what exactly), a war correspondent working for the vaguely mysterious Threshold Press War Project, a government news bureau that specializes in providing stories to small-town papers. Ben was once part of the "Supreme Team," an undefeated Montana university football team, and when the entire starting lineup enlists following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ben is assigned to write inspiring profiles on the other 10 men.

It seems like a straightforward project, and one the son of a small-town newspaper man ought to embrace, but Ben has plenty of doubts and resents having been forced out of pilot training to pursue the family business. He also has plenty of problems, not the least of which is his romance with a married female pilot, an affair that provides much fodder for musings on personal responsibility and loyalty in wartime. If this weren't enough, Ben hates the fact that his stories are consistently altered to make the details more patriotic and uplifting. These redactions grow increasingly troubling as a disproportionate number of the former teammates are injured or killed in action, leaving Ben to wonder if perhaps they are being put in harm's way deliberately so the propaganda machine might generate more heroes.