Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
An Adventurous Romp of the Heart, March 29, 2006
The story elements alone draw the eye, mind and heart. Three Midwest servicemen, brothers-in-heart, draw the plum of early 1960s orders - a year in the South Pacific. There, they meet local girls and customs, perform their duties in atolls and islands during the Cold War bomb-testing era, and grow into men in a culture completely alien to the folks back home.
This is where Stephen B. Gladish's novel starts up. From there, Moonlight, Missiles & Moana becomes an adventurous romp that mixes all of the characteristics of good storytelling: compelling characters, a central romance that is alternately sweet as waterfall spray and painful as a sea urchin, pacing that matches the scenes, a backdrop of island life rick in detail, layering and local languaging that would make South Pacific Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy proud, and enough character-fed twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages.
The novel focuses on Chance Chisholm and Luke LaCrosse, best friends whose Army Air Force Sixth Weather Squadron has been transferred to Samoa. Luke has recently broken up with his young sweetheart, Annie, while Chance's heart is untapped and unhurt. Soon after arriving in Samoa, Chance meets Moana, a beautiful orphan whose tantalizing looks are matched by a strength of personality and conviction that drives this story. Chance and Moana embark on a romance that seems forbidden or impossible on all sorts of levels - local Samoan customs, the fact Moana is 16 and Mormon and Chance is 20-ish and a traditional Christian, that nasty heartland belief of the time that people of different colors shall not mix, and the service. Complicating matters is Moana's readiness for marriage and Chance's reluctance to live from his heart or to disappoint the folks back home. While that may sound sophomoric today, it certainly wasn't during the time depicted in this book.
The second half of the book rotates upon this dynamic - and it is full of surprises.
Meanwhile, Luke's old friend from Chicago, Nakia McPherson, arrives in Samoa nursing a brain injury suffered in a tree-cutting accident. Luke and Chance conspire to keep Nakia's condition a secret so he can serve with them. This forms the other character dynamic: brothers-in-arms. Nakia also finds love with a local girl, but his story has a different ending than Chance's. We also fly from island to atoll with Chance and Luke as they're assigned to different weather and test-monitoring outposts. As always, the author lines up adventures and misadventures for both of them.
What makes Moonlight, Missiles & Moana work is its well-mixed combination of real character situations, adventure and the parallel pratfalls of a socially difficult romance and growing into men. The author captures the excruciating inner world of intelligent, resourceful men in their early 20s (both Luke and Chance already keep journals and read 19th century authors). The social, environmental and military conditions of their new lives would be enough to foster change, but throw in an intercultural romance, and it leads to decisions no one in either Chance's or Luke's descendancy ever had to make.
The author skillfully ends the story with Chance and Luke perched on cliffs with different faces - one emotional, the other quite physical. What happens to the boys? Luckily, we will find out when they return later in 2006 with Mustang Fever, the second installment in this captivating trilogy.
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