I've been a fan of Mark Harris for 20 years or more, ever since I saw the film, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY, with Robert DeNiro as a rather dim-witted major league catcher. Narrator Henry 'Author' Wiggen was the other half of the battery, with the fictional New York Mammoths. Bought Harris's book of the same title soon after, devoured it, and over the years have read the other three books of his baseball tetralogy: The Southpaw; Ticket for a Seamstitch; and It Looked Like Forever. And then a few years later I found Harris's little-known novel of the WWII era, Something about a Soldier, a sensitive story of a misfit Jewish soldier.

I loved all five of the above books, so when I discovered this novel, TRUMPET TO THE WORLD, which was Harris's very first book, published in 1946, I was curious. I found it to be an absolutely fascinating book, something about a different kind of soldier this time - but maybe not so different after all. Because this is a book about racial hatred and predjudice, both before and during the war, set mostly in the south. And it is told from the point of view of Willy Jim, a black man who grew up dirt poor and unschooled, but through his own native ambition and the love and support of a good woman - a white woman - he educates himself and becomes a writer, who is published and read. Because of racial hatred - and the fact that there's a war on - he ends up in the army, where he finds more of the same, but also finds brotherhood with other black soldiers, and a very few whites, in the segregated ranks.

This is a book that is difficult to describe or pigeonhole. There is a youthful earnestness and idealism reflected throughout, both in the protagonist, and also in the writing style of the very young Mark Harris, who was just 21 when he wrote the book. This is a book that will make you think, because it's more than just an archaic record of the way America used to be. It's a kind of Pilgrim's Progress - about hope and striving and one man's desperate struggle to be the best kind of man he can be, and to help others do the same. Willy Jim is an admirable fictional creation, especially remarkable when one considers the youth of his creator. I couldn't help but wonder if Harris might have patterned him at least a little on Mark Twain's character, "Nigger Jim" - a character much in the news recently, apparently because there are a few politically correct morons who would choose to expunge that descriptive n-word from Twain's masterpiece. There's no Huck in Harris's book, but his modern version of Jim, as personified in 'Willy Jim,' will resonate for a long time in the minds of any readers lucky enough to 'rediscover' this little gem of fiction writing. Trumpet to the World is still relevant, a simply amazing accomplishment. I'm so glad I found it. ( )