Michael Kiefer

All Jake on the Western Front Michael Kiefer

All Jake on the Western Front A novel by Michael KieferOn his 80th birthday, Webster Major "Jake" Brown sat down with a tape recorder to talk about his service in World War I -and the woman he left behind. In 1918, he was an Army electrician in France building air fields and supply depots with the U. S. Army Air Service. Yette was a 20-year-old French woman working for the YMCA. Jake's commanding officer thought Jake had "pluck," and he put him in harm's way. Jake just called it "luck": The bad luck to get into a jam - the backseat of a biplane over Belleau Wood; "over the top" in the Argonne Forest; AWOL in Alsace to rescue Yette's younger sister - and the good luck to get himself out of it. But he never got over the girl. One hundred years after Jake came home from France, his great-nephew happened upon the tape recordings and a cache of letters from Yette, then traveled to France to piece together a love story with an ending that would surprise even Jake. Michael Kiefer is a long-time journalist and the author of Chasing the Panda; the novels Speaking English, The Lion Hunter, and Another Monk's Tale; and the travel books Into Umbria and Swiss Seasons.