Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and 
Its Aftermath

By Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009)

       For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America’s first major land battle of WWII, the battle for the tiny peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the largest single defeat in U.S. history.
       But this was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make clear in this compelling narrative history. The prisoners-of-war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: 41 months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, disease, and torture.
       The book juxtaposes the story of Ben Steele, a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world, and the sobering tale of the death march and its aftermath.
       Michael Norman teaches narrative journalism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; Elizabeth M. Norman is a professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.