The Young Lions - Paperback

by Irwin Shaw (Author), James Salter (Foreword by)

A staggering classic of World War II that the New York Times called "the best war novel yet written by an American"

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, countless American writers attempted to use fiction to convey the complicated experience they'd just undergone. Few of the novels that emerged from that period were as ambitious and powerful as The Young Lions, a sweeping, dramatic account of war from the point of view of ordinary solders that depicts the danger, excitement, trauma, and loss of a no-holds-barred global war.
When Irwin Shaw published The Young Lions, he was known solely as a writer of short stories, and his panoramic, detailed, unforgettable account of the war was met with nothing short of awe. Shaw tells his story from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life. Together they enable us to see, decades lateer, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war.

This is a landmark novel that Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley ranked with wartime classics like From Here to Eternity, The Naked and the Dead, and The Caine Mutiny. As James Salter writes in his foreword, "The Second World War was the central event of Shaw's generation. The writers who stand in some glory about its forgotten battlefields and whose novels came from firsthand knowledge--Mailer, heller, James Jones, Michener--include, indomitable in their midst. Irwin Shaw. He need not to have bowed to any of them then, or, if he were still alive, now."

Front Jacket

The Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war.

Author Biography

Irwin Shaw (1913-1984) grew up in New York City and graduated from Brooklyn College in 1934. He is the playwright of Bury the Dead, and the author of twelve novels, among them Rich Man, Poor Man, The Troubled Air, Nightwork, Acceptable Losses, Evening in Byzantium and Short Stories: Five Decades, the last published by the University of Chicago Press.