Awash in History: A Stirring Naval Saga Blending Fact and Fiction
BOOK REVIEW: THE RESTLESS WAVE: A Novel of the United States Navy
By Admiral James Stavridis, USN, (Ret.)
Reviewed by: Marty Petersen
The Reviewer — Martin Petersen is a CIA veteran, Asia expert, and a Cipher Brief Expert. He is the author of City of Lost Souls, A Novel of Shanghai 1932, which will be published November 26th.
REVIEW — What a story! Admiral Stavridis’s The Restless Wave takes us from the attack on Pearl Harbor through the Coral Sea, the Doolittle Raid, and Midway to the fierce naval actions at Guadalcanal, where more Navy personnel perished than Marines or Army. The Restless Wave follows the career of young Scott Bradley James. The book gives us a picture of life at the US Naval Academy in the days before WWII and the relaxing life at Pearl Harbor before that fateful morning. There is the bond between three friends and a love story to round things out.
Admiral Stavridis’s description of Honolulu brought back memories for me. I went to the East West Center for my MA, and life along Hotel Street and Chinatown in 1968 was still much as he paints it before World War II. And I am sure that the Navy veterans among our readers will react the same way to his accounts of life at sea, Naval traditions and protocol, and the risks on the great deep. Other reviewers—Admiral Bill McRaven, former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, historian Doris Kerns Goodman, and others—all praise the book, and I agree with Michael Beschloss, author of Presidents at War, that “Historical fiction can tell us things that orthodox history cannot…”
The Restless Wave is peppered throughout with the fictional Ensign James’s encounters with real figures. There are not only the big names—Nimitz, Spruance, Halsey, Burke, etc.—but also men like Petty Officer Dorie Miller, who was aboard the USS West Virginia, and Chief John Finn, the first Medal of Honor recipient of World War II. I admit I have a special likely for this type of fiction. The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser are favorites of mine, and my novel, City of Lost Souls, is also populated by real people. The Author’s note at the end of The Restless Wave tells what became of many of the real personalities Scott James interacts with on the pages of this novel.
In his dedication, Admiral Stavridis pays special tribute to James Hornfischer, whose books on the Navy in World War II are outstanding. Admiral Stavridis mentions Neptune’s Inferno, an account of the Navy at Guadalcanal; The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, the Navy at the invasion of the Philippines in 1944; and the Fleet at Flood Tide, the Navy in the Pacific 1944-45. These are among several books Admiral Stavridis drew on for his novel and recommends for those of us who want to know more. I have read them all and they are excellent. If he let me, I would add Hornfischer’s Ship of Ghosts, the incredible story of the sinking of the USS Houston and the aftermath, and Ian Toll’s excellent Pacific War trilogy on the US Navy in the Pacific in World War II.
I hope reading and enjoying The Restless Wave encourages readers to follow Admiral Stavridis’s advice and sample some of his recommendations.
The Restless Wave earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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