Daniel James Brown

Many of the Nisei men incarcerated in America's WWII concentration camps chose to go to war for their country. Some chose to fight for America in court by challenging the unconstitutional anti-Japanese-American laws such as curfews and conscription. To Daniel James Brown's credit, this epic history deals with both.

In "The Boys in the Boat", Brown had little choice but to focus on one of the crew, whose life was more thoroughly documented. For "Facing The Mountain", he had many sources and was able to tell a much wider-ranging story. He keeps the story moving along well; once he has introduced his main characters (and he does that so well that they are unforgettable and not easily mistaken), he narrates their adventures in parallel so we don't lose sight of any one of them, yet we don't have too much going on at once. He also manages to introduce many secondary characters who also are memorable individuals. Some fiction writers could and should take lessons from him.

At well over 600 pages (700 counting the notes and other end material), this is an epic. But even if the pace (or one's attention span) starts to flag at times, it's absolutely worth finishing. The last two chapters are some of the best writing in the book, dealing with the liberation of the German concentration camps and with the aftermath of the War when the young soldiers returned to find their families struggling and racism rampant. I was moved to tears.… (mais)

As someone who live in Reno, I’ve been to Donner Lake, driven over Donner Summit, and been to Donner Memorial State Park. But all I really knew about the Donner Party beforehand was that they’d gotten stuck up in the Sierras and had to turn to cannibalism to survive. This book was informative and very well-written, but also the word “harrowing” in the book’s subtitle is there for a reason…Brown really immerses you in the world and experiences of the party and parts of it are incredibly hard to read. It’s very good, but it’s nightmare fuel.… (mais)

Years ago, an author I respect greatly recommended this on social media. Unknown to one another, both she and I were reading Donner Party books at the same time. Eagerly, I placed an ebook on hold and was delighted to read a sample. I was disheartened to find out that I considered the writing style annoying, canceled the hold and that was that. Fast forward to now, I wanted to know if I would have the same opinion. I did not, and I even finished the book and decided to review it. I expected something different than I got the first time. Now, I remembered the style it was written and that helped my reading experience a lot. It's jarring to go from vividly written word about the past, right into making modern-day comparisons in the next paragraph. The author does that a lot. It's the style in which the book is written. I never got used to it, but I was on the lookout, as it were. I appreciated the efforts to draw the audience in. The level of detail drew me in. I'm glad the author did so much work to write this. I'm glad I was able to finish the book on second read.… (mais)