This was added to the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website Message Board this morning:
I read this one recently, and enjoyed it. I'd
been somewhat skeptical about the idea of organizing a biography around
the concept of the Campbellian monomyth, but in this case it's a useful
way of getting at why the life experiences of this particular man
resonate with so many people.
The book also offers some clearer
breakdowns on stuff that I'd seen laid out in a more confusing manner
elsewhere: the "shooting the kid and dog" scripting gag during the
filming of Ride a Crooked Trail is a lot less sinister when told in full
here than when abbreviated or exaggerated in other accounts. There is
also a much more sensitive and modern take on the PTSD issue, when so
many articles about Murphy, and at least one book, are tainted with the
view of PTSD that the early Rambo movies represent: a little pity, a lot
of patronization, and a kind of fascinated revulsion.
I don't
know that it's the first book I'd give to a young adult about Audie
Murphy-if they're old enough to absorb this level of vocabulary and
abstract discourse, they're probably old enough to read To Hell and Back
for themselves, and learn about the little Texan in his own words. But
it's a good second book to give them, to answer the question "what
happened to him afterwards?" in a positive way and to explain the
emotional aftershocks he experienced from the war.