Lower Than Angels: A Memoir of War & Peace

By W.W. Windstaff

Book Overview

When he wrote this memoir over sixty years ago, the author planned a privately printed edition as gifts for his friends. He chose a pseudonym, W.W. Windstaff, to avoid embarrassing his socially prominent family. His true identity remains a secret.

In a unique style, Lower than Angels captures the essence of war with wonderfully descriptive passages of air combat, and life in Paris and Rome during the 1920s. Later, Windstaff vividly memorializes the expatriate experience. More than simply a memoir of fascinating times, Lower than Angels is a raw and powerful portrayal of a man who could not overcome the trauma of war, and survived with a veneer of cynicism aided by the bottle. Lower than Angles will certainly be appreciated for its value as an historical record. It will also captivate readers with its charm, and delight a wide audience.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0910155240
• ISBN13: 9780910155243
• Release Date: September 1993
• Publisher: Bartleby Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

"From Publishers Weekly" certainly unfair in this case.

In the "From Publishers Weekly" section of this page they bash this book rather thoroughly. This is completely unfair. This is one of the best books I have ever read. It tells the story of a young WWI airman, and the life after the conflict, better than any other memoir or autobiography has done. Certainly not a PG story, but it is amazing. Read what the other reviewer also wrote about this memoir, as they too are completely correct.

Plain-spoken poetry

Damaged by war, looking for solace and overrun with hormones, W.W. Windstaff (or so he calls himself) is a casual observer to post WWI city life. His text is real and alive. His words carry a soft cynicism and lyric but brutal honesty. We never know his name. Doesn't matter, he has the versatility one learns from desperation. He is anybody from nerve racked fighter pilot to well kept whore. His simple and natural character brings to light the humanity behind the images surrounding him--Hemingway is a whining brute with a gift for terse prose, Gertrude Stein an over ambitious skirt chaser, and his best friend can't remember how to grow up. Windstaff's writing is real and conversational. I can almost imagine a gruff but still handsome older man leaning in front of me, his hand creeping up my knee, whispering,"This is how it is". He likes truth. Wandering Europe, giving in to base sex and good alcohol, he still keeps his guard-avoiding the artistic lif! e but unable to resist those that create it. He is a drunk with a reality fix, sick of the superficial city but believing in the moral to any story. Yet,through all his dirty, backhand and heroic experiences he maintains an innocence I admire. This is the man women want to change,never do and love them more for their stubborness. This book is above all dignified. No wonder God chose us over the angels.