Beyond Peleliu by
Peter Baird (Ravenhawk Books-June 2006) is a powerful book that follows
the
McQuade family through the years since World War II to the present.
Though Tom,
who served as the prime story teller through the eyes of his son, faced
a lot
of adversity from early in his life, he demonstrated that not only
could he
overcome the adversity but that it helped shape him. Helped him to be
the
person he wanted to become. We saw his daily challenges—from
questioning the
safety of vaccines to dealing with loss. And right from the title you
see the
effects of the War on the family—it’s not just Peleliu, it goes beyond
that.
It’s their life.
However this story was not just Tom’s tale. It
showed how
the experiences of one person can filter through and have ramifications
for
their family and friends for generations to come. At the same time we
were able
to see David’s curiosity as he learnt more about his father’s life—what
made
his father the man he was. This was key in light of his father’s
current
struggles—the dementia might have made it hard for David to see his
father as
this man who went through and saw so much. It may have helped David to
see that
he wasn’t as different from his father as he might seem. When he got
the call
from Dr. Roberts, he knew something was up but he accepted it in a
realistic
way—he needed to do things on his own time. He couldn’t rush but at the
same
time, he knew he didn’t have forever.
The writing was tight and that served this story well—it allowed us to ‘hear’ each story as a separate section of the elder McQuade’s life, which was what I believe the author intended. Each chapter could have stood alone as a short story of what Tom had gone through, however, this didn’t keep the stories from being viewed as parts of one long life story. It was easy to see how these stories built upon one another and taught the family in a way no school book ever could.
By the time I finished the book, just a short time after I’d started it, I felt as if I knew the McQuade family.