TO THE READER

W hen I began to think about writing a series of novels dealing with the Second World War, one obvious question came to mind. What could I possibly add that hasn’t already been written about so many times before? I felt I knew much about the history of the war, certainly the high points: Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the Holocaust. I knew who Patton was, and Rommel, Eisenhower, Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill. I’ve seen films about fictitious characters with names like Mr. Roberts and Private Ryan, that to some are as familiar as the figures in our high school textbooks. But when I began digging into the research, the diaries and memoirs, the personal lives of the characters I hoped to use in this story, I found out that I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did. What I also found was a story.

None of my books are comprehensive accounts of a historical event, the detailed, blow-by-blow fact upon fact that you’ll find in a textbook. My goal is to find a few voices, and to tell their story through their eyes, to put you in the same room with some of the most important and fascinating characters in our history. In this kind of story, there must be a variety of characters, different perspectives, different experiences. I focus not only on the famous, those men who changed history, but also the unknown, whose experiences mirrored the experiences of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, just like them. The events are real, the history is accurate, the conversations are often from recorded memories. But this is a novel by definition because I take you into the characters’ minds, using dialogue and action to tell a story, as they might have told it themselves.

The Rising Tide covers the war in North Africa from spring 1942 to its conclusion in 1943, and then, the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy, through the beginning of 1944. It is the first book of a trilogy that will take you to the end of the war in Europe. I am well aware that as the time line of this book unfolds, an extraordinary drama has been unfolding throughout Western Europe, another in Russia, another on (and beneath) the Atlantic Ocean, and another across the Pacific. Each of those stories has as much drama, sacrifice, and heroism as this one. But those are stories that would not fit here. To those who feel that their own history or that of their ancestors has been ignored, I apologize. The war in the Pacific, certainly, is an epic story that I would one day like to tell.

This story follows several primary characters, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and Erwin Rommel, and two who are far more obscure, a tank gunner, Private Jack Logan, and a paratrooper, Sergeant Jesse Adams. Included also are the voices of several well-known historical figures whose pivotal roles make them essential to the story, including Bernard Montgomery, George Patton, Mark Wayne Clark, and Albert Kesselring. Not all are heroes, not all are “good guys.” But they are all important.

One note about the language in this book. Occasionally I receive somewhat hostile letters condemning my use of even mild profanity. This amazes me, since with rare exceptions I do not go beyond the bounds of what any child might hear on prime-time television. I am no prude, but if I chose to make the dialogue in my novels as graphic as it certainly was, it would likely make me blush. Some of our most illustrious historical figures were famously profane, but I have always believed that if I cannot tell you their story without bombarding you with stark profanity, then I’m not doing my job. But, four-letter words serve a purpose. They reveal character and they illustrate and emphasize emotions. I am aware, and extremely gratified, that young people read my books, and I do not believe that any boundary has been crossed that makes these stories inappropriate for young readers. And believe me, when you’re writing from the point of view of George Patton, or a twenty-year-old paratroop sergeant, a great many boundaries could have been crossed. The most profane words in this book are direct quotes, and their inclusion is, I believe, entirely appropriate.

You may disagree with my portrayal of certain historical figures. This is, after all, my interpretation of who these people were, and how they responded to events around them. However, I take few liberties with characters whose thoughts and actions are well documented. In all of my books, I take pride in historical accuracy. To portray these events and these characters any other way would be a gross disservice to the legacies of these extraordinary men.

Ultimately, this is a story about people not so very different from us, though their experiences are quite different indeed. Some would describe our world today as an endless source of bad news: war and bloodshed, horror and strife, bombings and chaos and civil war. But imagine a world where the ongoing event filling our daily news reports ultimately claims the lives of fifty million people. It is not my place to question or pass judgment as to whether the Second World War was, as some have described it, the last good war, or whether it should have been fought at all; whether it could have been avoided, whether mistakes were made on all sides, or whether there are lessons we should learn from this human catastrophe…these are questions for historians and political scientists. My goal here is to offer you a good story. I hope you find it so.

JEFF SHAARA
October 2006