{"product_id":"fighting-the-night-iwo-jima-world-war-ii-and-a-flyers-life-hardcover","title":"Fighting the Night: Iwo Jima, World War II, and a Flyer's Life - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003ePaul Hendrickson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the acclaimed and best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eHemingway's Boat, \u003c\/i\u003ethe profoundly moving story of his father's wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices he and his fellow soldiers paid for their acts of selfless, patriotic sacrifice\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the fall of 1944, Joe Paul Hendrickson, the author's father, kissed his twenty-one-year-old wife and two baby children goodbye. The twenty-five-year-old first lieutenant, pilot of a famed P-61 Black Widow, was leaving for the war. He and his night fighter squadron were sent to Iwo Jima, where, for the last five and a half months of World War II, he flew approximately seventy-five missions, largely in pitch-black conditions. His wife would wait out the war at the home of her small-town Ohio parents, one of the countless numbers of American family members shouldering the burden of being left behind. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJoe Paul, the son of a Depression-poor Kentucky sharecropper, was fresh out of high school in 1937 when he enlisted in mechanic school in the peacetime Army Air Corps. Eventually, he was able to qualify for flight school. After marriage, and with the war on, the young officer and his bride crisscrossed the country, airfield to airfield, base to base: Santa Ana, Yuma, Kissimmee, Bakersfield, Orlando, La Junta, Fresno. He volunteered for night fighters and the newly arrived and almost mythic Black Widow. A world away, the carnage continued. As Paul Hendrickson tracks his parents' journey, together and separate, both stateside and overseas, he creates a vivid portrait of a hard-to-know father whose time in the war, he comes to understand, was something truly heroic, but never without its hidden and unhidden psychic costs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBringing to life an iconic moment of American history, and the tragedy of all wars, \u003ci\u003eFighting the Night \u003c\/i\u003eis an intense and powerful story of violence and love, forgiveness and loss. And it is a tribute to those who got plunged into service, in the best years of their lives, and the sacrifices they and their loved ones made, then and thereafter.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003ePAUL HENDRICKSON is a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a winner in 2003 for his book \u003ci\u003eSons of Mississippi\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eThe Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War\u003c\/i\u003e was a 1996 finalist for the National Book Award. \u003ci\u003eHemingway's Boat\u003c\/i\u003e was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best seller and also a best seller in the UK. He has been the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Since 1998, he has been on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and for two decades before that, he was a staff writer at \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post.\u003c\/i\u003e He lives with his wife, Cecilia, a retired nurse, outside Philadelphia and in Washington, DC.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 320\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 9.3 x 6.6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 07, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42699868471392,"sku":"9780593321133","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bijoucc.myshopify.com\/products\/fighting-the-night-iwo-jima-world-war-ii-and-a-flyers-life-hardcover","provider":"CARIBBEAN CONNECT","version":"1.0","type":"link"}