具体描述
Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive.
For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated—and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
It begins in 1932, when Indianapolis is christened and launched as the ship of state for President Franklin Roosevelt. After Pearl Harbor, Indianapolis leads the charge to the Pacific Islands, notching an unbroken string of victories in an uncharted theater of war. Then, under orders from President Harry Truman, the ship takes aboard a superspy and embarks on her final world-changing mission: delivering the core of the atomic bomb to the Pacific for the strike on Hiroshima. Vincent and Vladic provide a visceral, moment-by-moment account of the disaster that unfolds days later after the Japanese torpedo attack, from the chaos on board the sinking ship to the first moments of shock as the crew plunge into the remote waters of the Philippine Sea, to the long days and nights during which terror and hunger morph into delusion and desperation, and the men must band together to survive.
Then, for the first time, the authors go beyond the men’s rescue to chronicle Indianapolis’s extraordinary final mission: the survivors’ fifty-year fight for justice on behalf of their skipper, Captain Charles McVay III, who is wrongly court-martialed for the sinking. What follows is a captivating courtroom drama that weaves through generations of American presidents, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and forever entwines the lives of three captains—McVay, whose life and career are never the same after the scandal; Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese sub commander who sinks Indianapolis but later joins the battle to exonerate McVay; and William Toti, the captain of the modern-day submarine Indianapolis, who helps the survivors fight to vindicate their captain.
A sweeping saga of survival, sacrifice, justice, and love, Indianapolis stands as both groundbreaking naval history and spellbinding narrative—and brings the ship and her heroic crew back to full, vivid, unforgettable life. It is the definitive account of one of the most remarkable episodes in American history.
作者简介
Lynn Vincent is the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Same Kind of Different as Me, the story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy white art dealer and a homeless African-American man; and Going Rogue: An American Life, the memoir of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The author or coauthor of nine books, Vincent worked for eleven years as senior writer, then features editor, at the national news biweekly WORLD Magazine where she covered politics, culture, and current events. A U.S. Navy veteran, Lynn is also a lecturer in writing at the World Journalism Institute and at The King's College in New York City. She lives in San Diego, California.
Sara Vladic, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker, is one of the world's leading experts on the USS Indianapolis, having become obsessed with the story at the age of thirteen. Over the next two decades, Vladic met and interviewed 107 of the ship's survivors, and in 2016 she released an award-winning documentary film on the disaster, USS Indianapolis: The Legacy. She has published new research on Indianapolis in Proceedings, the official journal of the US Navy, and appeared as an expert commentator on PBS's USS Indianapolis: Live from the Deep, which explored the ship's wreckage. She and her husband, Ben, live in San Marcos, California.
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如果要用一个词来形容这本书的阅读体验，我会选择“酣畅淋漓的智力探险”。这不是一本可以被快速浏览的书，它更像是一部需要反复研读的学术论著，但其内核却包裹在引人入胜的虚构故事之中。作者似乎对逻辑和结构有着近乎偏执的迷恋，每一个场景的设置、每一次对话的安排，都像是在精密计算后的结果，为后续的某个关键转折埋下了伏笔。我尤其佩服作者对于“信息不对称”的运用，在某些关键情节中，读者对事件的了解程度甚至一度落后于故事中的某些次要人物，这种被“蒙在鼓里”的感觉，极大地增强了阅读的紧张感和参与性。书中对某些复杂的社会现象或历史事件的解读，也展现出一种颠覆性的观点，作者似乎在挑战既有的主流认知，并用严密的推理将自己的论点支撑起来。对于那些喜欢解谜、喜欢在文字迷宫中寻找出口的读者来说，这本书无疑是上乘之作。它不仅仅提供了故事，更提供了一种思考的框架和方法。
这本书的封面设计极具吸引力，那种复古的字体搭配上磨砂质感的纸张，立刻就让人联想到一部厚重的历史画卷。我翻开扉页，就被作者那种娓娓道来的叙事风格所吸引。他似乎不仅仅是在讲述故事，更像是在邀请你走进一个逝去的时代，去感受那些尘封的记忆。故事的主线围绕着一个家族在特定历史时期的挣扎与变迁展开，人物的塑造非常立体，每一个角色都有其鲜明的个性和复杂的内心世界。特别是主角的成长线，那种从迷茫到坚定的转变，处理得细腻而真实，让人感同身受。书中对环境和场景的描绘达到了令人赞叹的地步，仿佛能闻到空气中弥漫的旧家具和潮湿泥土的气息。作者的遣词造句功力深厚，偶尔穿插的历史典故和地方风情，都为这部作品增添了浓厚的文化底蕴。读完合上书本时，心里留下的是一种沉甸甸的满足感，仿佛自己也参与了那段漫长而富有戏剧性的旅程。这本书的节奏把握得恰到好处，高潮迭起又不失韵味，是一次值得细细品味的阅读体验。
初读此书，我最大的感受是作者对细节的偏执近乎苛刻的追求。它不像许多流水账式的叙事那样急于推进情节，而是将笔墨大量倾注于描绘日常生活的微小瞬间。比如，关于一顿早饭的准备过程，作者可以花费数页篇幅，详细刻画光线如何透过窗棂洒在餐桌上，食物的香气如何在家中弥漫，以及人物之间一个眼神的交流所蕴含的复杂情感。这种处理方式初看可能略显拖沓，但深入下去，你会发现正是这些看似无关紧要的“闲笔”，构筑起了人物关系的坚实基础和时代背景的真实肌理。书中涉及到的专业领域知识，比如某个时期的建筑风格或是某个传统手工艺的流程，都经过了细致的考证，体现了作者扎实的学术功底。虽然故事情节本身可能并不属于那种惊天动地的宏大叙事，但它以一种近乎纪录片的方式，忠实地记录了一段不为人知的社会侧面。我特别欣赏作者在处理道德困境时的那种克制与客观，他从不急于给出评判，而是将选择的重量完全交给了读者自己去衡量。
这本书给我带来了一种强烈的、近乎生理上的共鸣，主要源于它对“失去”这一主题的深刻挖掘。它并没有用煽情的语言去堆砌悲伤，而是通过对物是人非的场景描摹，以及人物面对无法挽回的过往时那种不动声色的处理，将失落感渗透到每一个角落。书中的某一个章节，描绘了一座被时间遗忘的建筑，那里的一砖一瓦都承载着旧日欢声笑语的余烬。作者通过对这些“物证”的细致刻画，不动声色地完成了对时间无情流逝的控诉。我读到某个角色面对自己曾经的决定，那种悔恨已经超越了言语可以表达的范畴，只剩下沉默和对往事的回望，那种深沉的寂静比任何呐喊都更具穿透力。整本书的色调是略微阴郁的，即便是描写喜悦的片段，也总有一层薄薄的忧伤笼罩其上。这并不是一本读完会让人心情愉悦的书，但它提供了一种面对人生缺憾的勇气和理解，让人愿意去直视那些深埋心底的不完美。
这部作品读起来更像是一场酣畅淋漓的智力挑战，而不是轻松的消遣。它的结构非常精巧，采用了多视角叙事和非线性时间线的手法，信息密度极高。读者需要时刻保持警惕，将散落在不同章节、不同人物回忆中的碎片信息拼凑起来，才能逐渐还原出事件的全貌。坦白说，在阅读过半程时，我曾一度感到有些迷失，角色的名字和他们之间错综复杂的关系网让人头晕目眩。但这恰恰是本书的魅力所在——它不迎合读者，而是要求读者主动投入心力去解码。一旦关键的线索被串联起来，那种“原来如此”的豁然开朗感是其他小说难以比拟的。作者的语言风格偏向于冷峻和哲思，句式多变，充满了一种后现代主义的疏离感，使得故事虽然发生在具体的时空，却又带着一种普世的、关于人性本质的探讨意味。对于习惯于传统线性叙事的读者来说，这可能需要一些耐心和毅力，但最终的回报是丰厚的。
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行文流畅，非常扎实。读到好几处几欲落泪，结尾实在是难以想象。美国的非虚构真的太强了。
作者做了大量的研究和调查，才写出这么一部细节丰富的纪实文学。不仅仅是军舰的沉没，更多的文笔着重在沉没之后漂浮在海洋上的人，以及后面军事法庭的戏剧性的表现，当然，还有那些幸存者的余生的故事。朗读者也非常棒，将近600多页的大部头，由别人读来，更加觉得故事好听。很敬佩两位作者的勤劳，才有了还以历史真相的这本书。
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作者用详实的史料，还原军舰最后一次任务，着重强调造成可避免的悲剧的原因。并再现了战后军事法庭的相关情节，读来让人不禁浮想，个人面对集体性的不作为，是多么脆弱无力。
