Hiroshima

This is a must-read.

It was given to me about 20 years ago by a friend cleaning out his bookshelves. I’ve put off reading it, sensing that it would rock my world — kind of like the Holocaust lit class I took in high school, and still remember. I wanted to be ready.

I was right.

John Hersey’s Hiroshima traces the story of six survivors of this devastating day. It’s written simply and clearly, the narrative unclouded by emotional language or preaching or argument. The effect is to make it all the more powerful, removing all distractions from the events themselves.

In an instant, thousands of lives were snuffed out, thousands more doomed to terrible suffering. No one in Japan knew what kind of bomb it was. No one, including those who dropped it, knew what to expect in the aftermath. Yet these six human guinea pigs — two physicians, a widow, a personnel clerk, a priest, and a Methodist pastor — live out their days suffering its effects with courage and grace.

It’s a relatively short book, weighing in at 150 pages. The first four chapters recount the events of the few days surrounding the explosion. The fifth, final chapter relates what Hersey learned about the fates of his six main characters when he revisited Hiroshima forty years later.

This is a vital book for anyone living in the nuclear age, anyone considering the efficacy of war, anyone wanting to keep their sense of history honest. It shouldn’t be the only read. But it should definitely be in the mix.