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Two Medicine Country #8
The Eleventh Man
Driven by the memory of a fallen teammate, TSU’s 1941 starting lineup went down as legend in Montana football history, charging through the season undefeated. Two years later, the "Supreme Team" is caught up in World War II. Ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war’s various lonely and dangerous theaters. The eleventh man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine hungry for heroes. He is to chronicle the adventures of his teammates, man by man, for publication in small-town newspapers across the country like the one his father edits. Ready for action, he chafes at the assignment, not knowing that it will bring him love from an unexpected quarter and test the law of averages, which holds that all but one of his teammates should come through the conflict unscathed. A deeply American story, The Eleventh Man is Ivan Doig’s most powerful novel to date.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 4, 2008
397 people are currently reading
1014 people want to read
About the author
Ivan Doig
41 books793 followersIvan Doig was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana to a family of homesteaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother Berneta, on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles "Charlie" Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to herd sheep close to the Rocky Mountain Front.
After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He lived with his wife Carol Doig, née Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.
Before Ivan Doig became a novelist, he wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service.
Much of his fiction is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner.
Bibliography
His works includes both fictional and non-fictional writings. They can be divided into four groups:
Early Works
News: A Consumer's Guide (1972) - a media textbook coauthored by Carol Doig
Streets We Have Come Down: Literature of the City (1975) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig
Utopian America: Dreams and Realities (1976) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig
Autobiographical Books
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind (1979) - memoirs based on the author's life with his father and grandmother (nominated for National Book Award)
Heart Earth (1993) - memoirs based on his mother's letters to her brother Wally
Regional Works
Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America (1980) - an essayistic dialog with James G. Swan
The Sea Runners (1982) - an adventure novel about four Swedes escaping from New Archangel, today's Sitka, Alaska
Historical Novels
English Creek (1984)
Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987)
Ride with Me, Mariah Montana (1990)
Bucking the Sun: A Novel (1996)
Mountain Time: A Novel (1999)
Prairie Nocturne: A Novel (2003)
The Whistling Season: A Novel (2006)
The Eleventh Man: A Novel (2008)
The first three Montana novels form the so-called McCaskill trilogy, covering the first centennial of Montana's statehood from 1889 to 1989.
from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Doig"
After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He lived with his wife Carol Doig, née Muller, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington.
Before Ivan Doig became a novelist, he wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service.
Much of his fiction is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner.
Bibliography
His works includes both fictional and non-fictional writings. They can be divided into four groups:
Early Works
News: A Consumer's Guide (1972) - a media textbook coauthored by Carol Doig
Streets We Have Come Down: Literature of the City (1975) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig
Utopian America: Dreams and Realities (1976) - an anthology edited by Ivan Doig
Autobiographical Books
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind (1979) - memoirs based on the author's life with his father and grandmother (nominated for National Book Award)
Heart Earth (1993) - memoirs based on his mother's letters to her brother Wally
Regional Works
Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America (1980) - an essayistic dialog with James G. Swan
The Sea Runners (1982) - an adventure novel about four Swedes escaping from New Archangel, today's Sitka, Alaska
Historical Novels
English Creek (1984)
Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987)
Ride with Me, Mariah Montana (1990)
Bucking the Sun: A Novel (1996)
Mountain Time: A Novel (1999)
Prairie Nocturne: A Novel (2003)
The Whistling Season: A Novel (2006)
The Eleventh Man: A Novel (2008)
The first three Montana novels form the so-called McCaskill trilogy, covering the first centennial of Montana's statehood from 1889 to 1989.
from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Doig"
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 343 reviews
February 8, 2024
Somehow this book didn't capture me quite like others of Ivan Doig's. However there were moments. For instance, this quote caught my attention:
"It was not a Spam Thanksgiving as she had warned Ben in his last-minute phone call that it might need to be, but it was venison pot roast, dry and gamy, procured by Bill in some manner that he would not divulge."
When I think of Spam I think of the Monty Python song. Sometime last year, we were in Costco and we were offered a taste of smoked Spam. We were truly intrigued and ventured to try some. It was really quite tasty.
Further details of the Thanksgiving meal reveal that "The guests' dishes similarly tasted of improvisation: Carnelia Muniz's tomato-soup-and-olives aspic, without the olives; Mae Vennaman's dried apple pie, craftily achieved with saved sugar coupons."
I am fascinated by the ways people improvise and come up with creative solutions when hard pressed. Simon reminds me that food rationing in England went well beyond the end of World War II into the 1950s.
War brings so much suffering and anxiety on all fronts. The talk at the Thanksgiving table "kept coming back to whether the war would be over by the end of the year. "Sure," Ben had replied, "I just don't know what year." It had drawn a laugh from everyone except his parents."
"It was not a Spam Thanksgiving as she had warned Ben in his last-minute phone call that it might need to be, but it was venison pot roast, dry and gamy, procured by Bill in some manner that he would not divulge."
When I think of Spam I think of the Monty Python song. Sometime last year, we were in Costco and we were offered a taste of smoked Spam. We were truly intrigued and ventured to try some. It was really quite tasty.
Further details of the Thanksgiving meal reveal that "The guests' dishes similarly tasted of improvisation: Carnelia Muniz's tomato-soup-and-olives aspic, without the olives; Mae Vennaman's dried apple pie, craftily achieved with saved sugar coupons."
I am fascinated by the ways people improvise and come up with creative solutions when hard pressed. Simon reminds me that food rationing in England went well beyond the end of World War II into the 1950s.
War brings so much suffering and anxiety on all fronts. The talk at the Thanksgiving table "kept coming back to whether the war would be over by the end of the year. "Sure," Ben had replied, "I just don't know what year." It had drawn a laugh from everyone except his parents."
November 15, 2024
A little slow to start and too much football for my taste, but then the story really started cranking up. Doig gives us insights into multiple aspects of the US war efforts in the years 1943 and '44 through the work of a young and specially commissioned military journalist. Lots to appreciate in the pages of the book.
February 16, 2022
Feb 15, 1130am ~~ Review asap.
10pm ~~ I was awake all last night reading this book, so I am a little fuzzy-brained at the moment.
The GR blurb gives an excellent plot review, but only hints at the emotions the reader will feel while absorbing the story of 1941's 'Supreme Team' football players from a Montana University and what happens to each of them during World War II.
As usual, Doig takes facts and weaves a complexly imagined story from them. There were eleven football players who went from an actual Montana University to war. There were camps for conscientious objectors in Montana. There were women pilots who ferried new planes in the Air Transport Command. The U.S. Coast Guard did patrol the Pacific coast with dogs, on the alert for both submarines and balloon bombs. There were more deaths in the ranks of soldiers from Montana than any other state except New Mexico.
We travel the globe with Ben Reinking, who thought he would be a pilot but at the last minute was assigned instead to write regular reports about the other members of the Supreme Team. In this way we get to know them, cheer for them, pray for them, just as Ben does. And we wonder along with Ben who was responsible for this little publicity stunt. Because isn't that exactly what his assignment is?
The Seattle Times says on the back cover of my edition:
"Trembles with the weariness of the modern age toward carnage ~~ a war novel with an anti-war heart."
Read this book and be prepared to wonder forever after about every military headline you ever see.
10pm ~~ I was awake all last night reading this book, so I am a little fuzzy-brained at the moment.
The GR blurb gives an excellent plot review, but only hints at the emotions the reader will feel while absorbing the story of 1941's 'Supreme Team' football players from a Montana University and what happens to each of them during World War II.
As usual, Doig takes facts and weaves a complexly imagined story from them. There were eleven football players who went from an actual Montana University to war. There were camps for conscientious objectors in Montana. There were women pilots who ferried new planes in the Air Transport Command. The U.S. Coast Guard did patrol the Pacific coast with dogs, on the alert for both submarines and balloon bombs. There were more deaths in the ranks of soldiers from Montana than any other state except New Mexico.
We travel the globe with Ben Reinking, who thought he would be a pilot but at the last minute was assigned instead to write regular reports about the other members of the Supreme Team. In this way we get to know them, cheer for them, pray for them, just as Ben does. And we wonder along with Ben who was responsible for this little publicity stunt. Because isn't that exactly what his assignment is?
The Seattle Times says on the back cover of my edition:
"Trembles with the weariness of the modern age toward carnage ~~ a war novel with an anti-war heart."
Read this book and be prepared to wonder forever after about every military headline you ever see.
October 14, 2009
"Sure, you could believe for all you were worth that you were too young and fit and lucky to be chased down by death, but all of accumulated history yawns back, 'Why not you?'" — from "The Eleventh Man"
Ivan Doig's previous novel, the terrific "The Whistling Season" (2006) casts a long shadow, and "The Eleventh Man" never escapes from it to soak up some sun, but that doesn't make this World War II tale a bad one. It's Doig, so of course it's good. In the "The Eleventh Man" the starting 11 from a legendary (fictional) Montana college football team (!) are upset — big time — by the law of averages on the homefront and in war-torn areas of the globe. The U.S. military propaganda machine picks Ben Reinking, son of a newspaper editor, to chronicle the wartime exploits of his 10 former teammates in puff pieces designed to appear in small-town newspapers across the country, an effort to boost morale. The odds say the vast majority of these men will make it through alive, but there are no oddsmakers at the end of a gun or flying a plane or on a ship when a kamikaze pilot attacks. Ben chafes against his superiors as he travels forth and back to his former teammates: on the U.S. West Coast patrolling for Japanese submarine crews seeking fresh water; in battles in Guam and the Battle of the Bulge; flying ships from Montana to Alaska to hand over to the Russians. All the while Ben pursues a relationship with a female pilot — a WASP — married to a soldier serving overseas.
Like nearly all of Doig's work, Montana is central to the tale. And although there are several exciting battle scenes, this isn't an action/adventure book at its heart. Doig goes small instead of big; Ben's struggles of conscience and the gut-punch horror of these men's deaths, one by one, are the focus, not battle-hero stuff. Ben thinks, "The damned odds again. Why can't the numbers just behave and quit giving out coincidences like card tricks?" And the deaths of so many men with one common tie does seem like a tremendous stretch, the dramatic license of a novelist. But in the acknowledgements at the back of the book Doig reveals that 11 starting players from a Montana college apparently did, in fact, die in World War II! Truth as strange as fiction.
Doig's writing here, while of course good, doesn't seem as evocative as it was in "The Whistling Season." And "The Eleventh Man" suffers a bit from the bouncing around from man to man as Ben follows the teammates at home and abroad. At just over 400 pages, and with 11 players and a host of other characters, we simply don't have enough time to get to know everyone. The novel would have worked better much longer, more detailed. A more epic treatment with the same real-person tone would have been more moving. But, hell, Doig's 70 years old! He probably just wants to make sure he finishes!
Ivan Doig's previous novel, the terrific "The Whistling Season" (2006) casts a long shadow, and "The Eleventh Man" never escapes from it to soak up some sun, but that doesn't make this World War II tale a bad one. It's Doig, so of course it's good. In the "The Eleventh Man" the starting 11 from a legendary (fictional) Montana college football team (!) are upset — big time — by the law of averages on the homefront and in war-torn areas of the globe. The U.S. military propaganda machine picks Ben Reinking, son of a newspaper editor, to chronicle the wartime exploits of his 10 former teammates in puff pieces designed to appear in small-town newspapers across the country, an effort to boost morale. The odds say the vast majority of these men will make it through alive, but there are no oddsmakers at the end of a gun or flying a plane or on a ship when a kamikaze pilot attacks. Ben chafes against his superiors as he travels forth and back to his former teammates: on the U.S. West Coast patrolling for Japanese submarine crews seeking fresh water; in battles in Guam and the Battle of the Bulge; flying ships from Montana to Alaska to hand over to the Russians. All the while Ben pursues a relationship with a female pilot — a WASP — married to a soldier serving overseas.
Like nearly all of Doig's work, Montana is central to the tale. And although there are several exciting battle scenes, this isn't an action/adventure book at its heart. Doig goes small instead of big; Ben's struggles of conscience and the gut-punch horror of these men's deaths, one by one, are the focus, not battle-hero stuff. Ben thinks, "The damned odds again. Why can't the numbers just behave and quit giving out coincidences like card tricks?" And the deaths of so many men with one common tie does seem like a tremendous stretch, the dramatic license of a novelist. But in the acknowledgements at the back of the book Doig reveals that 11 starting players from a Montana college apparently did, in fact, die in World War II! Truth as strange as fiction.
Doig's writing here, while of course good, doesn't seem as evocative as it was in "The Whistling Season." And "The Eleventh Man" suffers a bit from the bouncing around from man to man as Ben follows the teammates at home and abroad. At just over 400 pages, and with 11 players and a host of other characters, we simply don't have enough time to get to know everyone. The novel would have worked better much longer, more detailed. A more epic treatment with the same real-person tone would have been more moving. But, hell, Doig's 70 years old! He probably just wants to make sure he finishes!
February 6, 2009
Sometimes, I know exactly how I'll review a book and can hardly wait to get my thoughts down. Other times, like, this time in particular, a book is so lost in that foggy middle between good and bad, that my thoughts never seem articulate. I've avoided writing about The Eleventh Man, by Ivan Doig, for over a month now. I've got eight books dammed up behind it, waiting their turn for review.
I grew up looking at Ivan Doig titles in my parent's living room. Surprisingly, it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally read the first of his Montana trilogy, Dancing At The Rascal Fair. That experience taught me that Doig is in no hurry to entertain his readers. Rather, a lot like growing up in Montana, he rewards those who endure.
With this in mind, I began The Eleventh Man, Doig's latest novel. Ben Reinking grew up understanding how the world of journalism worked as his father owned the local paper in Gros Ventre, Montana. With a degree in journalism from Treasure State University, where he was also a member of "The Supreme Team" 1941 championship football team, he enlists in the armed forces as a pilot. Before he is finished with his training, however, he is given an assignment a war correspondent for the Threshold Press War Project. When the war department learns that the entire eleven members of "The Supreme Team" are enlisted in the war, they propagandize the situation into a opportunity to create war heroes. Ben travels around, visiting his old teammates where they are serving and writes a regular column, spinning tales of bravery and American pride. While waiting for his different travel assignments, he spends his time at East Base outside of Great Falls, Montana. There, he falls in love with Cass Standish, a married female pilot in the Women's Airforce Service Pilot (WASP. There really were female pilots. I had no idea!)
When his columns turn into obituaries as teammate after teammate falls, Ben is forced into understanding that nothing is fair in love and war.
An interesting enough look at WWII, but there is something almost too planned about this book to make it satisfying. It's almost as if I could see his brainstorm page lying somewhere on a table - "I'll have one guy serving in Italy. This guy in the Pacific. Another one in London and another storming Normandy. I need a few to be stuck in the states to highlight what went on here, though. I know...I'll put one guy in the coast guard and another will be stuck flying back and forth to Alaska where I can write up the Russia angle. To tie them all together, I'll make them all old friends....no...teammates! Even better. And one will know what's going on with everyone else and he'll mainly be in Montana so I can still write about the area I know best!" A jaded opinion, but it felt that way.
If you love all things WWII, then you'd probably enjoy this book as well. If not, then read Doig's other books instead. They're better.
I grew up looking at Ivan Doig titles in my parent's living room. Surprisingly, it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally read the first of his Montana trilogy, Dancing At The Rascal Fair. That experience taught me that Doig is in no hurry to entertain his readers. Rather, a lot like growing up in Montana, he rewards those who endure.
With this in mind, I began The Eleventh Man, Doig's latest novel. Ben Reinking grew up understanding how the world of journalism worked as his father owned the local paper in Gros Ventre, Montana. With a degree in journalism from Treasure State University, where he was also a member of "The Supreme Team" 1941 championship football team, he enlists in the armed forces as a pilot. Before he is finished with his training, however, he is given an assignment a war correspondent for the Threshold Press War Project. When the war department learns that the entire eleven members of "The Supreme Team" are enlisted in the war, they propagandize the situation into a opportunity to create war heroes. Ben travels around, visiting his old teammates where they are serving and writes a regular column, spinning tales of bravery and American pride. While waiting for his different travel assignments, he spends his time at East Base outside of Great Falls, Montana. There, he falls in love with Cass Standish, a married female pilot in the Women's Airforce Service Pilot (WASP. There really were female pilots. I had no idea!)
When his columns turn into obituaries as teammate after teammate falls, Ben is forced into understanding that nothing is fair in love and war.
An interesting enough look at WWII, but there is something almost too planned about this book to make it satisfying. It's almost as if I could see his brainstorm page lying somewhere on a table - "I'll have one guy serving in Italy. This guy in the Pacific. Another one in London and another storming Normandy. I need a few to be stuck in the states to highlight what went on here, though. I know...I'll put one guy in the coast guard and another will be stuck flying back and forth to Alaska where I can write up the Russia angle. To tie them all together, I'll make them all old friends....no...teammates! Even better. And one will know what's going on with everyone else and he'll mainly be in Montana so I can still write about the area I know best!" A jaded opinion, but it felt that way.
If you love all things WWII, then you'd probably enjoy this book as well. If not, then read Doig's other books instead. They're better.
August 3, 2019
5/5 stars!
“Wondering how many more times this could happen in one lifetime, early that afternoon he had stepped out into the familiar blowy weather of Great Falls and pointed himself toward the same old tired school bus that again and again had taken him to college and from college, to the war and from the war.”
“Wondering how many more times this could happen in one lifetime, early that afternoon he had stepped out into the familiar blowy weather of Great Falls and pointed himself toward the same old tired school bus that again and again had taken him to college and from college, to the war and from the war.”
November 10, 2017
Update 11/10/17 - Bumping this up to 4 stars. As I guessed in my review, this book really had stuck with me over the past year. I still often think of Ben and his teammates.
3.5 stars
In the fall of 1941 a Montana university football team goes undefeated. Within the year, all 11 starters will have become involved in World War II. A couple will already have been killed. Dubbed the "Supreme Team," it becomes Ben Reinking's military job to chronicle what happens to his gridiron buddies for a Pentagon propaganda unit. According to the law averages, most of the men should find their way home to Montana safe at the end of the war. If you believe in the law averages. Ben sees enough to make him doubt it. By the end of the book, I too was questioning the hand of fate.
I liked this book, despite being somewhat overwritten. I think it's going to be one of those types of stories that stays with me for a long time. I liked Ben and the emotions he has to go through. It's tough to remember these guys were only in their early 20s.
3.5 stars
In the fall of 1941 a Montana university football team goes undefeated. Within the year, all 11 starters will have become involved in World War II. A couple will already have been killed. Dubbed the "Supreme Team," it becomes Ben Reinking's military job to chronicle what happens to his gridiron buddies for a Pentagon propaganda unit. According to the law averages, most of the men should find their way home to Montana safe at the end of the war. If you believe in the law averages. Ben sees enough to make him doubt it. By the end of the book, I too was questioning the hand of fate.
I liked this book, despite being somewhat overwritten. I think it's going to be one of those types of stories that stays with me for a long time. I liked Ben and the emotions he has to go through. It's tough to remember these guys were only in their early 20s.
October 20, 2020
As always, Ivan Doig has written a book that touches the heart. It’s both heartfelt and heart wrenching. It’s a WWII story told from the perspective of a reluctant war correspondent. If you read the book blurb or the reviews you will have a good idea of what the story is. I can’t improve on the book blurb except to say that I loved this book. I’m only going to add the following comment and excerpt.
I’ve always found the expression ‘forth and back’ to be backwards – it should be ‘back and forth’ but the New Zealander in this book explained it so logically. “One cannot, Ben, go back before one goes forth…” Quite logical of course!
I’ve always found the expression ‘forth and back’ to be backwards – it should be ‘back and forth’ but the New Zealander in this book explained it so logically. “One cannot, Ben, go back before one goes forth…” Quite logical of course!
October 14, 2020
Number 8 in Doig’s Two Medicine Country Series. I’ve liked the first three books in the series and this one is as good as the others. His portrayal of small town life makes the prosaic interesting.
The War Correspondent here spends considerable time in an illicit affair with a married female pilot. In flashback we follow more sports football than I’d prefer.
The only thing worse that parachuting out of perfectly good plane is doing so out of one about to crash. War is weeks of anxious waiting followed by hours of sheer terror. The shark that simulated a submarine attack brought an entire destroyer to battle stations. The other constant is orders from on high that make no sense.
There are many characters to keep track of here:
Ben Reinking
His newspsperman father and his mother
His ten teammates and their families
Their old coach and his side-kick announcer
Cass and her team of female pilots
The Senator, his wife and daughter
Grady the East Base Commander
The Unnamed boses at Teepee Weepy including the Colonel.
Sgt Jones, Ben’s Clerk
Add in his ten teammates spread across the home front and two theatres of war.
As the book winds down only 3 of the original 11 survive. That’s a lot of obits.
The War Correspondent here spends considerable time in an illicit affair with a married female pilot. In flashback we follow more sports football than I’d prefer.
The only thing worse that parachuting out of perfectly good plane is doing so out of one about to crash. War is weeks of anxious waiting followed by hours of sheer terror. The shark that simulated a submarine attack brought an entire destroyer to battle stations. The other constant is orders from on high that make no sense.
There are many characters to keep track of here:
Ben Reinking
His newspsperman father and his mother
His ten teammates and their families
Their old coach and his side-kick announcer
Cass and her team of female pilots
The Senator, his wife and daughter
Grady the East Base Commander
The Unnamed boses at Teepee Weepy including the Colonel.
Sgt Jones, Ben’s Clerk
Add in his ten teammates spread across the home front and two theatres of war.
As the book winds down only 3 of the original 11 survive. That’s a lot of obits.
March 14, 2022
This is yet another amazing novel by a great author. All the more surprising is that it is a story set against the backdrop of WWII; a genre I typically avoid. I marvel once again over how many storylines Ivan Doig is able to weave together, making each one something I could easily read about in another book as the main subject/character. I love also how he weaves in characters and locales from previous books in the Two Medicine Country series as they are like dear friends that I delight in catching up with again. The best compliment I can give is that the minute I read the final sentence of this book, all I wanted to do was turn to the first page and begin the journey all over again. Heartily recommend this one to one and all.
September 7, 2020
A very good book, sad but believable. I was not completely happy with the ending, but that's purely a personal feeling. It's a story set during WWII, of one man tracking down what happened to his old football teammates and how they were manipulated for the glory of a story, and tragedies and love during the war.
June 9, 2021
After 100 pages of struggled reading, I decided the subject matter wasn’t of interest to me!
December 17, 2017
This book was selected by my book club to begin our theme of Montana authors. I found myself struggling to get into the story (I didn't even start highlighting passages until the second half!), but it was just compelling enough to keep me reading. The writing was well done, but I found both the military and football jargon along with changing scenes and narratives hard to follow. I did appreciate the myriad references to the Montana landscape and way of life as it related to my local knowledge. Set in WWII, it was a unique plot angle on what sometimes is an overworked era for novels. The main character's love interest was a refreshingly strong, independent woman who was a pilot with the Women's Air Force Program (WASP). The insights into the toll of war combined with the institution of war are worth further deliberation and make it a worthwhile read.
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April 28, 2021the archive 299
January 30, 2009
After absolutely loving The Whistling Season, I was anxious to read Ivan Doig's latest book. It sounded interesting: After a championship season in the 1940's, eleven college football players enlist in the service following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of them is chosen to be a war correspondent and is assigned to follow the stories of each of his teammates throughout the war.
I almost quit this book I don't know how many times. I just kept thinking it was a dud. Too much war and football--subjects I'm not that interested in anyway. (I don't know what I was thinking... isn't that what I knew it was about?) But I just kept reading a few chapters at a time, I guess mainly because I've got to keep my foot up following surgery anyway...
Doig really hit the mark on taking you back to the forties. (So much so even that there was lots of lingo used that I didn't know.)I learned a lot about the war I didn't know, and even some things I didn't want to know. I did enjoy learning about the WASPs (women pilots who flew planes for the US military in non-combat roles) who took such pride in being excellent pilots, but when the war was over, went back to being housewives because the pilot jobs were needed for the men coming home.
In the end, the reason I think I had a hard time reading it is because Doig depicts wartime during World War Two SO accurately. And the reality of war is hard and heartbreaking and pointless and incredibly sad, and this book was all of that. And so I'm giving it 3 stars not because it isn't remarkably written, but because it depressed me so much...
I almost quit this book I don't know how many times. I just kept thinking it was a dud. Too much war and football--subjects I'm not that interested in anyway. (I don't know what I was thinking... isn't that what I knew it was about?) But I just kept reading a few chapters at a time, I guess mainly because I've got to keep my foot up following surgery anyway...
Doig really hit the mark on taking you back to the forties. (So much so even that there was lots of lingo used that I didn't know.)I learned a lot about the war I didn't know, and even some things I didn't want to know. I did enjoy learning about the WASPs (women pilots who flew planes for the US military in non-combat roles) who took such pride in being excellent pilots, but when the war was over, went back to being housewives because the pilot jobs were needed for the men coming home.
In the end, the reason I think I had a hard time reading it is because Doig depicts wartime during World War Two SO accurately. And the reality of war is hard and heartbreaking and pointless and incredibly sad, and this book was all of that. And so I'm giving it 3 stars not because it isn't remarkably written, but because it depressed me so much...
December 11, 2008
The Eleventh Man, by Ivan Doig (finalist for 1979 National Book Award and nominee for 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), was heartbreaking. Mr. Doig tells the (fictional) story of the eleven starting members of the 1941-season undefeated football team of the (fictional) Treasure State University of Montana. Each and every one of them volunteered for service in WWII in some form or another, and the best writer among them, Ben Reinking, is plucked from his pilot duty to become war propagandist extraordinaire, drafted into the service of writing about his former teammates' war service. Ben senses an invisible hand behind his assignment, and, indeed, behind the orders that each of his teammates must obey.
I can't help but compare this book to the others I've recently read, namely, (snigger) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, and two of John Updike's Rabbit books (sigh). Unlike Ms. Meyer's book, Mr. Doig's characters and plot are believable, as are the all-too-human relationships he depicts. And Mr. Doig's writing is infinitely more erudite and interesting than Ms. Meyer's. While Mr. Updike's books fired up in me the same degree of heartbreaking emotion that Mr. Doig's did, the feeling that Mr. Updike inspired was despair while Mr. Doig inspired hope -- albeit hope shining through my tears for all those brave young men and women who died in WWII. Rabbit Angstrom is simply such an empty-souled, despicable man that he can do nothing more than drive me to despair, while Ben Reinking has a noble heart, flawed hero that he is.
I can't help but compare this book to the others I've recently read, namely, (snigger) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, and two of John Updike's Rabbit books (sigh). Unlike Ms. Meyer's book, Mr. Doig's characters and plot are believable, as are the all-too-human relationships he depicts. And Mr. Doig's writing is infinitely more erudite and interesting than Ms. Meyer's. While Mr. Updike's books fired up in me the same degree of heartbreaking emotion that Mr. Doig's did, the feeling that Mr. Updike inspired was despair while Mr. Doig inspired hope -- albeit hope shining through my tears for all those brave young men and women who died in WWII. Rabbit Angstrom is simply such an empty-souled, despicable man that he can do nothing more than drive me to despair, while Ben Reinking has a noble heart, flawed hero that he is.
December 22, 2024
This book is read by the same reader who read Bucking the Sun, and I also had trouble staying interested in this one. I don't know if it's the reader or if it's the fact that this one, like Bucking the Sun, doesn't really have much to do with the Two Medicine country. This one does mention a number of characters from other novels, such as Carnelia Craig from The Whistling Season, Tom Harry from Bucking the Sun, and who, I understand is the focus of the next book, and Alex McCaskill, from English Creek, but none is essential. Little treats for readers of the other books. The story is, I believe, based on the true story of an entire college football team who enlisted for WWII and died there, all but one. That's an interesting premise, but in reading this book, you know what's coming, and we end up with a whole series of stories about how each one died, one after the other. A little on the grim side!
Reread 2024--hard copy this time. Enjoyed it again. I am an Ivan Doig fan.
Reread 2024--hard copy this time. Enjoyed it again. I am an Ivan Doig fan.
April 9, 2015
This World War II novel is set in the late (he died today) Ivan Doig's fictional Gros Ventre, Montana community; the location and characters appear in other novels like *Bartender's Tale*. The novel's premise is that all eleven members of a football team that won a championship in 1941 volunteer for service in the war. Ben Reinking, the central POV character, and captain of the team, goes to flight school for the AAF but then is assigned as a war correspondent who will follow the angle of reporting on all the other members of the team in their various locations in combat and non-combat postings: nice premise for an episodic novel. Ben learns the ropes of wartime reporting, uncovers some truths about his teammates, and has a wartime romance into the bargain. Doig writes straightforward narrative with a few flashbacks. The novel would convert well into a long-form (8 episodes would do) cable TV series for people who liked *Band of Brothers* and who will learn again that war is hell.
April 27, 2014
Once again, one of my favorite authors uses his considerable skills to craft together a story unlike others he has written. This tale follows a group of young men off to war as told by one of their team members - the Eleventh Man. This book has a haunting about it as each man's story is unfolding, connecting past with present where there is no future!
Often as one reads they hope for a different outcome, we are even given glimpses of what they might be, but alas the author has a different meaning for us. Well researched, we are taken to many different venues of World War II, each well researched, each with outcomes that should not be, but that is where reality comes into play in this novel. Disturbing as war is thes novel leaves you with even more to think about.
Often as one reads they hope for a different outcome, we are even given glimpses of what they might be, but alas the author has a different meaning for us. Well researched, we are taken to many different venues of World War II, each well researched, each with outcomes that should not be, but that is where reality comes into play in this novel. Disturbing as war is thes novel leaves you with even more to think about.
October 17, 2012
Very nice writing, but it just didn't suck me in. I did not finish it.
I mean, it starts with a bus ride in which the main character spends the entire time musing. And while I'm on this bus with him, I'm thinking of all the things I could be doing on a long bus ride OTHER than musing.
Not a good start.
I gave it about 40 pages. That's all I could do. Every time I looked at the book I'd think of something else I'd rather be or should be doing.
Not a good sign.
I chalk it up to a lack of in-depth characterization and too much time spent by the characters musing while they're traveling or doing other things, rather than acting to move the story forward.
I mean, it starts with a bus ride in which the main character spends the entire time musing. And while I'm on this bus with him, I'm thinking of all the things I could be doing on a long bus ride OTHER than musing.
Not a good start.
I gave it about 40 pages. That's all I could do. Every time I looked at the book I'd think of something else I'd rather be or should be doing.
Not a good sign.
I chalk it up to a lack of in-depth characterization and too much time spent by the characters musing while they're traveling or doing other things, rather than acting to move the story forward.
May 1, 2024
Ivan Doig really is my favorite. This one really isn't my favorite among his books, but his writing always wins me over. It's an ambitious story, and I think it's well told.
2024 udpate: I just listened to the audio after first reading this in 2009. It's still not my favorite Doig novel (I think 3.5 on re-reading), and I still love his writing.
2024 udpate: I just listened to the audio after first reading this in 2009. It's still not my favorite Doig novel (I think 3.5 on re-reading), and I still love his writing.
October 7, 2015
Football hero tracks 10 teammates through service during World War II. Doig is a masterful story-teller. I don't often enjoy books written by men but Doig is an exception as is Wallace Stegner. I'll ready anything they wrote. I'm reading this one aloud to John while we travel so it will take awhile to finish . . .
October 30, 2023
This book literally blew me away. It wasn't at all what I expected or anything like any books that I've read before. Ivan Doig wrote this book in 2008, and it's been sitting on my TBR shelf for at least 3 years. Only because I am making a conscious effort to read my books that I've had around for awhile, did I happen to land on this one. What a book this was! If you are not a fan of true to life WWII stories, and if you don't care to visit some key battles and sites from this war, or if you don't like graphic war scenes, you probably will not enjoy this book. This book of Ivan Doig's is the most gripping and emotional fiction I've ever read about WWII. It is all tied around an all-American university football team that was readying itself for the finals when Pearl Harbour was bombed. All eleven team members from Montana enlisted immediately. All elven team members were posted in different parts of the world to fight their own war. One, the team captain, Ben Reinking, finds himself being posted as a war correspondent chronicling the heroics and the lives of all the various members of his former team and where each is serving in the war. Ben is following in his father's footsteps as a journalist. His father owns and runs the local paper in Ben's hometown. Ben's assignment takes him to various well-known battlefields around the world such as Guam, Nome, Alaska, and Antwerp where the book comes to an end. Right from the very beginning of the story where we meet a young football hopeful by the name of Purcell, who would give is all for a chance to play on this dream team to the final pages in Antwerp and the Battle of the Bulge, where yet another teammate meets his end, I didn't dare breathe.. By the time, I shut the book, I had to take a deep breath and try to come back to reality. I really couldn't put this book down. It left me guessing and hanging right up until the very last two pages. And by the end of the book, only one of the famous and doomed Montana Eleven was left standing. Highly recommend! Fabulous book! It will go near the top of my special favourites list.
March 11, 2020
I thought I had read just about every perspective on World War II but this powerful story of a (reluctant; he was plucked from pilot training) war correspondent charged with covering the service of his teammates from the unbeaten 1941 (fictional) Treasure State University football team presented yet another angle.
I got a bit of a slow start on this book; it took me a while to sort out the characters and understand where the story was headed. But once I did, I was compelled to keep reading, even though I anticipated how the story would continue to unfold. Intertwined with the story of Ben’s correspondent duties is his very passionate affair with a married female pilot (Women's Airforce Service Pilot – WASP), how politics played into the time, and his writing of a screenplay to expose the dirty secrets of the TSU football coach and sportscaster.
The late Doig was born and raised in Montana; this area has inspired much of his writing and this book is set partially in Montana. In the acknowledgments, Doig says that although the book is fictional, he did base it on the fate that a disproportionate number of young men from Montana and also who played football together experienced. Also, Ben receives his orders from the fictional Threshold Press War Project (often referred to as Teepee Weepee), although it is based on The Office of War Information, created for the dissemination of domestic war information.
Four stars because of my slow start and also because I am not a football fan; there was a section that delved into great detail about the football team and I just glossed over it while retaining enough of the background to stick with the story. I also thought some of the characters needed a bit more in-depth character development to make them more relatable. In reading other reviews, many thought this was not Doig’s best work (I liked his last book, “The Last Bus to Wisdom”, much more) but I liked it enough to want to read more of his books.
I got a bit of a slow start on this book; it took me a while to sort out the characters and understand where the story was headed. But once I did, I was compelled to keep reading, even though I anticipated how the story would continue to unfold. Intertwined with the story of Ben’s correspondent duties is his very passionate affair with a married female pilot (Women's Airforce Service Pilot – WASP), how politics played into the time, and his writing of a screenplay to expose the dirty secrets of the TSU football coach and sportscaster.
The late Doig was born and raised in Montana; this area has inspired much of his writing and this book is set partially in Montana. In the acknowledgments, Doig says that although the book is fictional, he did base it on the fate that a disproportionate number of young men from Montana and also who played football together experienced. Also, Ben receives his orders from the fictional Threshold Press War Project (often referred to as Teepee Weepee), although it is based on The Office of War Information, created for the dissemination of domestic war information.
Four stars because of my slow start and also because I am not a football fan; there was a section that delved into great detail about the football team and I just glossed over it while retaining enough of the background to stick with the story. I also thought some of the characters needed a bit more in-depth character development to make them more relatable. In reading other reviews, many thought this was not Doig’s best work (I liked his last book, “The Last Bus to Wisdom”, much more) but I liked it enough to want to read more of his books.
August 24, 2018
This was a tough read. Every so often I try authors I've never heard of, or that someone might recommend. I got this off the Library book sale shelf as I had never read anything by Doig before. And as a fan of historical fiction set in WWII, I chose this particular one of his books that were available. Sadly.
I've now gone in and read other reviews and have to concur with many of them that this book is just not all that. It was so hard to get into. Doig does not describe anything concisely and drones on and on. It was like slogging through knee deep mud. And the character development is sorely lacking. I found myself speed reading (skipping through) those sections where detail (about football and war) was gotten into ad nauseum and needlessly. About halfway in I was going to throw in the towel, but was invested enough at that point that I wanted to know how things ended. Though it was fairly predictable until the very few last pages, I'm glad I finished it. Not because it was worth my time, but I really do hate giving up on a book.
From the reviews this was not one of Doig's better novels, but I am so turned off by his style of writing that it is doubtful I will ever read anything else he has done.
I've now gone in and read other reviews and have to concur with many of them that this book is just not all that. It was so hard to get into. Doig does not describe anything concisely and drones on and on. It was like slogging through knee deep mud. And the character development is sorely lacking. I found myself speed reading (skipping through) those sections where detail (about football and war) was gotten into ad nauseum and needlessly. About halfway in I was going to throw in the towel, but was invested enough at that point that I wanted to know how things ended. Though it was fairly predictable until the very few last pages, I'm glad I finished it. Not because it was worth my time, but I really do hate giving up on a book.
From the reviews this was not one of Doig's better novels, but I am so turned off by his style of writing that it is doubtful I will ever read anything else he has done.
August 18, 2017
This is another absolutely marvelous book by one of the greatest American writers of the past 50 years, the late Ivan Doig. He had the ability of telling stories that would keep the reader glued to the pages until the very end, and would make the reader feel that he personally knew the characters he wrote about. Frequently while reading, I would encounter sentences so powerful, so good at conveying images, whether of landscapes or of events or of people, that I would pause and reread those sentences.
This book involves a journalist who was a member of the Supreme Team, the undefeated football team of Treasure State University in the 1941 season. The starting 11 members of that team all entered into service at the beginning of the US involvement in WWII. One of the team members was an already-accomplished journalist, and was assigned by a military publicity agency to cover the activities of the other 10 team members through the war. The book follows those activities and the lives of the principal players through that period. Altogether, this book is one of the best I've read in the last several years. Unfortunately, there is only one of Doig's novels that I have yet to read.
This book involves a journalist who was a member of the Supreme Team, the undefeated football team of Treasure State University in the 1941 season. The starting 11 members of that team all entered into service at the beginning of the US involvement in WWII. One of the team members was an already-accomplished journalist, and was assigned by a military publicity agency to cover the activities of the other 10 team members through the war. The book follows those activities and the lives of the principal players through that period. Altogether, this book is one of the best I've read in the last several years. Unfortunately, there is only one of Doig's novels that I have yet to read.
May 16, 2019
If the first 320 pages of THE ELEVENTH MAN had been as compelling as the final 80, it would have been a slam-dunk five-star read. As it was, only Ivan Doig's exquisite prose kept the novel from being a three-star tome.
At least for me, there was too much "exquisite prose" in the book, and not enough propellant for the overall story line that, in reality, seemed more like a series of anecdotes set in WWII. Many of the "main" characters seemed to make little more than cameo appearances. Yes, there was an adulterous romance that ran through the entirety of the novel, but it never truly grabbed me. I found myself, despite Doig's fine writing, skipping over sections of the book steeped in what I felt was an overabundance of self-reflection and interior dialogue.
If that's more your cup of tea, I would highly recommend THE ELEVENTH MAN. But personally, for a novel set against WWII events, I was hoping for more narrative drive. The novel is by no means bad, it just wasn't in my wheelhouse.
At least for me, there was too much "exquisite prose" in the book, and not enough propellant for the overall story line that, in reality, seemed more like a series of anecdotes set in WWII. Many of the "main" characters seemed to make little more than cameo appearances. Yes, there was an adulterous romance that ran through the entirety of the novel, but it never truly grabbed me. I found myself, despite Doig's fine writing, skipping over sections of the book steeped in what I felt was an overabundance of self-reflection and interior dialogue.
If that's more your cup of tea, I would highly recommend THE ELEVENTH MAN. But personally, for a novel set against WWII events, I was hoping for more narrative drive. The novel is by no means bad, it just wasn't in my wheelhouse.
September 14, 2022
Finishing The Eleventh Man is bittersweet to me as it was the last of Ivan Doig's historical fiction books for me to read. Ivan Doig has done it again with this book.
The Eleventh Man is the story of TSU's 1941 football team. The football team ends the season undefeated after losing a teammate and now the remaining eleven team members, referred to as the "Supreme Team," are enlisted in the military and serving their country in the middle of the Second World War. Ben Reinking has been snatched out of pilot training school by the Threshold Press War Project (TPWP) to tell a hero's story about each of his teammates. Ben has a hard time writing these stories as he wants to give an honest portrayal of each of his teammates but he also has to comply with what the TPWP wants and what the TPWP wants is stories about heroes...small-town HEROES and not necessarily the truth.
It seems their fallen football teammate escaped the horrors of war that the rest of the "Supreme Team" did not.
The Eleventh Man is the story of TSU's 1941 football team. The football team ends the season undefeated after losing a teammate and now the remaining eleven team members, referred to as the "Supreme Team," are enlisted in the military and serving their country in the middle of the Second World War. Ben Reinking has been snatched out of pilot training school by the Threshold Press War Project (TPWP) to tell a hero's story about each of his teammates. Ben has a hard time writing these stories as he wants to give an honest portrayal of each of his teammates but he also has to comply with what the TPWP wants and what the TPWP wants is stories about heroes...small-town HEROES and not necessarily the truth.
It seems their fallen football teammate escaped the horrors of war that the rest of the "Supreme Team" did not.
July 9, 2025
A WWII story and a football story in the same novel? Yes, and for the most part it works beautifully. This one feels different from other Doig novels I have read, but retains the same good storytelling, well drawn characters, and the spirit of Montana, despite the fact that the setting is all over both theaters of the war. Doig tells the story of an undefeated football team whose members join up in every branch of the military and then uses this structure to tell a WWII story. Of singular importance to the book is the Threshold Press War Project, a fictional public relations arm of the military, but based on the Office of Information. Ben Reinking is a correspondent for this group and is sent all over to write about the fates of that undefeated team. The censors do not print the full picture of what is happening, and as the war continues, Ben is increasingly disturbed, angered and saddened by what he is under orders to do. There are a few contrivances that bothered me, but mostly it was a good read. And I'm a step closer to being a Doig completist!
June 13, 2017
In this historical novel which takes place in 1943, Ben Reinking is in the air force, serving as a war correspondent during World War 2. Two years prior in 1941 Ben played left end on the undefeated Treasure State University football team in Montana. All eleven members of the starting team joined the armed forces and saw action in the war zones of the Pacific and Europe. Ben's job was to write about what each teammate was doing during the war, publicizing the transformation of football heroes to war time heroes to improve national morale. But while doing this, Ben was still haunted by the death of one of the non-starting teammates who met an untimely death during football practice, and sought to find out what actually happened. This book was able to reveal just how terrible the war was, and the effect it had on young men.
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