Battling Against Success

By Neil Davis

Alaska at midcentury offered great opportunities to the restless and ambitious people who had survived the Great Depression and World War II. Some of those who came North succeeded; some came and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0963259660
• ISBN13: 9780963259660
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: McRoy & Blackburn, Publishers
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

1943 Alaskan teenager motivated back to more formal learning

World War II is happening, but there isn't much war rationing in Fairbanks. Davis's lean description of people, including himself, his family, the people and characters of Fairbanks, makes what they do and say interesting. I won't easily forget Davis's descriptions of the lives of two old timers, friends, who lived in separate wall tents, heated when it was minus 40 degrees by wooden stoves, who cut and sold firewood to stay alive. Were they really stranded by the war related government shut down of gold mining? What was it that kept them in Alaska away from their farms and families thousands of miles away? Through the telling of these and other stories, the interesting but understated thread that evolves shows how Davis grew out of the boom-bust, success-failure cycle he saw limit the lives of others.