A KOREAN WAR ODYSSEY

An American family searches for a relative who went missing in action during the Korean War in this investigative nonfiction history.

In his debut, Gormley offers an easy-to-digest play-by-play of the Korean War in an authentic, easygoing style. He contrasts two historical figures: his uncle-in-law, U.S. Army Cpl. Donald Matney, and Woo Kyu-Chul, a refugee fleeing south from the advancing North Korean People’s Army during the summer of 1950. The final third of the book incorporates Gormley’s contemporary quest to disinter and identify Matney’s remains. The author guides readers through the maze of bureaucratic acronyms and official military documents that families of MIA soldiers often face. Along the way, he includes some references and footnotes, but his bibliographic sourcing is wanting at times; some key photos—such as one of the infamous Tiger Death March—are left entirely unsourced. The account also sometimes devolves into a litany of facts and events with little to no narrative structure. At its best, however, this book provides a clear picture of how the early months of the Korean War looked and felt for two very different people. Readers will feel the wide-eyed fear of the young American enlistee departing Seymour, Missouri, for Beppu, Japan, at the conclusion of World War II and experience the vulnerability of the Korean farmer when he and his family were robbed at gunpoint: “there wasn’t much he could do. There were three of them with a gun and just him with a kal (knife)….After they left, Kyu leaned against the cart and sobbed quietly.” When the author veers into political editorializing, though, he opts for the pejorative “Reds” to describe communists and uses the outdated term “Negro” to describe African American soldiers.

A sometimes-engaging but unevenly executed chronicle of a long-ago conflict.