Liberation Road: A Novel of World War II and the Red Ball Express

By David L. Robbins

Book Overview

With his acclaimed novels of World War II, David L. Robbins awakened a generation to the drama, tragedy, and heroism of some of history's greatest battles. Now he delivers a gripping and authentic story set against one of our greatest wartime achievements: the Red Ball Express, six thousand trucks and twenty-three thousand men-most of them African-American-who forged a lifeline of supplies in the Allied struggle to liberate France.

June 1944. The Allies deliver a staggering blow to Hitler's Atlantic fortress, leaving the beaches and bluffs of Normandy strewn with corpses. The Germans have only one chance to stop the immense invasion-by bottling up the Americans on the Cotentin Peninsula. There, in fields crisscrossed with dense hedgerows, many will meet their death while others will search for signs of life. Among the latter are two very different men, each with his own demons to fight and his own reasons to risk his life for his fellow man.

Joe Amos Biggs is an invisible "colored" driver in the Red Ball Express, the unheralded convoy of trucks that serves as a precious lifeline to the front. Delivering fuel and ammunition to men whose survival depends on the truckers, Joe Amos finds himself hungering to make his mark and propelled into battle among those who don't see him as an equal-but will need him to be a hero.

A chaplain in the demoralized 90th Infantry, Rabbi Ben Kahn is a veteran of the first great war and old enough to be the father of the GIs he tends. Searching for the truth about his own son, a downed pilot missing in action, Kahn finds himself dueling with God, wading into combat without a gun, and becoming a leader among men in need of someone-anyone-to follow.

The prize: the liberation of Paris, where a ruthless American traitor known as Chien Blanc-White Dog-grows fat and rich in the black market. Whatever the occupied city's destiny, destroyed or freed, he will win.

The fates of these three men will collide, hurtling toward an uncommon destiny in which people commit deeds they cannot foresee and can never truly explain.

From the screams of German .88 howitzers to the last whispers of dying young soldiers, Robbins captures war in all its awful fullness. And through the eyes of his unique characters, he leaves us with a mature, brilliant, and memorable vision of humanity in the face of inhumanity itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055338175X
• ISBN13: 9780553381757
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An outstanding read - powerful and emotional

My name is Larry Gunsberg, from Farmington Hills, MI. I am a fan of historical fiction..as well as nonfiction, and have just finished reading Liberation Road. I became emotionally involved with the story...I actually cried (I kid you not!), I got angry, I laughed out loud, shook my head in amazement over what people do to survive, and sighed with totally satisfaction at the end with the good Rabbi's redemption. I have NEVER read a WWII story from a Chaplains perspective, much less a working class Rabbi (and, even better, a WWI Vet) I felt Robbins three perspective approach and its culmination in the stinking French garage and the battle torn fox hole with our heroic young black driver and our anti-hero Rabbi, was satisfying and believable. Robbins ability to capture the sick arrogance of the Nazi Major after reveling the truth of the camps, the stupid cracker mentality (I wanted to punch the sons of bitches out), the varying attitudes among the Black soldiers, involved and moving. It was readable, believable, and provided the feeling of being on the battle field, in the trucks and in their heads. It is a great story...it just worked on so many levels. I'll be recommending it.

Humanity & War

Although ardent fans of his eastern front trilogy might disagree, David Robbins' latest book strikes me as his finest story yet. It is appropriate that a national periodical described him as the "Homer of World War II." The pathos of war is timeworn, as old as the western literary tradition itself, but Robbins has captured the profundity of this subject in a manner that is fresh even as it is familiar. On the one hand, his prose is magnificent, his turn of the phrase certain to capture and enthrall. On the other, he has crafted characters with whom the reader can identify. We are privy to the hopes and fears of Ben Kahn and Joe Amos. They are people we know. These men are our neighbors. They live and they breathe. This is no mean feat given that both men speak to us across time and race. Moreover, both men have to compete with the larger story unfolding around them for our attention. Nevertheless, Robbins successfully weaves their two tales into one account that conveys as well the enormity of the allied drive on Paris in the summer of 1944. Anyone reading this book will come away from it with a better understanding of that crucial campaign, Robbins' research, as always, is superlative. More immediately, however, readers will be reminded that this great crusade was the sum of millions of individual accounts, most of which are lost in the maelstrom of history. In this work of fiction, Robbins has provided two such imagined histories, and left us with a universal story of humanity striving to assert itself in the face of mortal carnage and moral confusion. This book is a study of war, but most particularly, of the American experience of war. As such, it is also a commentary on the American character, on our inimitable national optimism, and the shadows that have darkened our national experience. I cannot recommend enough that you read it yourself, that you encourage your friends to do so as well, and that you leave your thoughts on the book in this forum.

Moving, accurate, fast-paced historical fiction; marvelous!

Robbins has again cast light on a little-recognized corner of World War II. The Civil Rights movement in America had its beginnings in that war, and the desegreation of the military was the first great step forward for our integrated society. The black Red Ball drivers were really the pioneers, because of their intrepidness and courage in the face of not only combat but the inbred racism in the army. Add to that the power of the novel's story of a rabbi chaplain, gone to war to determine the fate of his pilot son, and you have a moving mix of characters, a fascinating backdrop, and Robbins' proven abilies with action, fact, place and people. Read this and learn while you enjoy a marvelous, fast-paced novel about a little known corner of WWII. Excellent and recommended.