As Always, Jack
by Emma Sweeney
Overview
From the Publisher
At the tail end of WWII, a young navy pilot named Jack Sweeney fell crazy in love with a California girl named Beebe -just before he was shipped off to the Pacific with his squadron. From stations around the Pacific, he wooed her with letters full of teasing charm, hokey jokes, and sincere affection. When Jack returned to the States and asked her to marry him, Beebe said yes. Emma Sweeney never knew her father, Jack. He died in a plane crash just months before she was born, and her mother remarried soon after. It was only years later, after her mother's death, that Emma found a package of letters tied in a pink ribbon. In those touching, warm, and funny letters, she met her father for the first time. AS ALWAYS, JACK is both a real life love story and a daughter's account of her search for the father she never knew. For Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day-this book is an instant classic.
My Thoughts
This is a nice book. It's just plain nice.
The author starts with the personal story of not knowing her father who was shot down in WWII before her birth. After her mother's death, she finds a box of letters written to her mother from her father while he was in the service. The book is a compilation of the letters.
When the letters first start, Jack and Beebe have spent a couple of weeks together and have fallen in love. The early letters are introductory letters as they get to know more about each other. Soon they fall in love, and when Jack comes home on leave they marry.
I read this book a month after listening to Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation Speaks on audio cassette. I could almost hear the narrator reading these stories, and many of the emotions I had while listening to the other book fed into these stories, as they were very similar.
I enjoyed this book. It was very sweet, though it has its bittersweet end.
Favorite Passage
I don't have a favorite passage, so I'll just open the book and share the first thing I find:
Dearest Beatrice Marie Bernadette Jennifer Beebe, Honeychile,
Just got back from Shanghai after a two-day visit. Asked the boys at squadron headquarters where all my mail was and they said they'd just sent it up to Tsingtao the day before. On arrival back here, I found it all piled up on my desk -- one single solitary letter, of Feb. 14 vintage -- but it was from you (No. 4 - still no No. 1), so I'm not complaining at all.
I'm so proud of yo for working that whole day as a real live secretary. Is there no limit to your versatility? Red Crosser, knitter, cook, golfer, and now secretary! (Did I leave anything out?)
If you have any more dreams as crazy as the one about me being in Coronado without calling you, you better see a doctor.
