Once Two Heroes: A Novel

by Calvin Baker

Once Two Heroes is the story of America in the aftermath of World War II. Two men go off to serve their country and ideals in the war against tyranny and return home Mather, a black man who grew up in France, and Lewis, from a genteel, old, white Mississippi family. On the battlefield they fought as equals, each proving himself a man to be reckoned with. But back home Mather and Lewis learn, each in his own way, that what has happened in war was no preparation for the brutal violence of peace. Tragic circumstances - a murder in Mississippi, a police chase, and a desperate bid for freedom - bring these two men face-to-face one night. Their strangely sympathetic lives intertwine once more in a way that changes both of them forever.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 27, 2003

About the author

Calvin Baker is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Naming the New World, Once Two Heroes and Dominion, which was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award, a New York Magazine Critics’ Pick and New York Daily News Best Book of the Year. His long-awaited fourth novel, Grace, will be published in July.

Calvin Baker grew up in Chicago and currently lives in New York.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise was interesting but that's where my engagement with this book stopped. I raced to the end and was just disappointed. I found it difficult to find rhythm with the prose and it seemed to me that the author just got lost in thought a lot, which led to confusion and a lot of rereading sentences. This about the differences of two men. Long story short, character study with not enough lesson.

[Deborah Frazier Gibson]

Calvin Baker is an amazing author who should've been paid attention to long before now. His brutal honesty about how people regarded one another in terms of racism in the 1940's was physically shocking for me. But sadly enough, true. I hope to read more from this young man.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was really choppy.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a compelling story, and the ending is fucking horrifying, but the writer keeps getting poetic, maybe to show us all he went to college. It kept taking me out of the story.