Early Sunday Morning

  Appropriately Apocalyptic

Sincerelyornot of Oregon, 10/6/2011

Barry Denenberg is the author of several Dear America books, and I don't know if this is by choice or contractual obligation, but his diaries usually have a dramatically tragic twist. He always pulls out the sucker punch of the time, the most tragic version of events. Sometimes it is just over the top, other ties, it makes sense. In this case, you get a feel for what it was really like to live through the period that wouldn't be possible if the story was wrapped up in a cute pink bow.

Pearl Harbor was more than a paragraph in a history book, a multiple choice bubble, yawned over in the comfort of a classroom. It as that generation's 9/11, the day everyone remembers where they were when it happened, how they felt sucker-punched when they saw the images, heard the names of the dead. Normally, I'm not a fan of Barry Denenberg, but for this subject his style is both era- and age-appropriate.