Larry Stillman

Peter MacDonald, Sr., President of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, writes "The only other writer that I know of who wrote this beautifully about Navajo life and culture was the late Tony Hillerman. . . I take my hat off to you, Larry, for a book well written."

“Suppose one day you actually get what you’ve wished for … what happens then?” That question permeates a satisfying historical novel by Larry Stillman, a story that delves into a little discussed era to draw out struggles and concerns common to the human experience, and particularly significant to a group of people who helped end a war that tore apart the world.

The Rope Catcher draws on other powerful themes, such as finding your place in the world, especially when the world doesn’t want to accept you. It’s about the American Indian experience and soldiers returning from war. It’s about giving it all you’ve got and still struggling. And it’s the story of the fight between tradition and change.

In Stillman’s tale, Navajo Jimmie Goodluck longs to escape the reservation, a place that offers little hope or purpose. It is World War II, so he joins the marines. They assign him and other young Navajos to help develop a top-secret communications code based on the Navajo language after all other codes have been broken. “The cavalry finally has sense to bring in the Indians,” he quips. Jimmie and others create the mission-essential code, risk their lives in valiant battle, and ultimately help win the war. Eager to leave those horrors behind, but not the military brotherhood, Jimmie returns home. Now he must find himself again, discover a new purpose, and regain the acceptance he once knew. And he must also bring positive change to his people, starting with the reservation. For “there are always wars to fight.” But with a people hesitant to abandon their traditions, this mission may be his hardest yet.

The story offers a clear, compelling narrator’s voice and makes the Navaho experience and viewpoint understandable. The writing is strong, with a crisp narrative style that presents historical insights seamlessly. Although that voice takes a few pages to get used to, the plot brings vivid action filled with strong characters. And while jumps in time occasionally make things a little choppy, this is easily overlooked. This book presents an insider’s look at a fascinating part of history.

Fans of historical fiction will enjoy this book, as will anyone interested in World War II, the Native American experience, or the code talkers themselves. For anyone else who loves good fiction, it’s simply a likeable read. Along the way, it’ll make readers think about their own dreams and about the lebnghts they might go to fight for them and make a difference. After all, as the author writes, “What happens after your dream comes true? … You fight to keep that dream alive. You don’t let anything—or anyone—take it away from you.”

--ForeWord Review, Feb. 2, 2013

REVIEWS FOR THE AWARD-WINNING A MATCH MADE IN HELL

"’I can remember crawling out from beneath my father's lifeless body.’ From the first line, this Holocaust memoir grips you with its searing action. At the same time, it raises crucial moral issues. In 1943, in southern Poland, Morris Goldner, 16, was rescued by Jan Kopec, a notorious criminal who trained the small, quiet Jewish kid as a ruthless accomplice in armed robberies and sold the boy's services to the partisans. Now Goldner lives in Chicago, haunted forever by what he saw and what he did. Stillman allows the survivor to tell his story in a riveting first-person narrative. On the one hand, it reads like a fast-paced Bonnie-and-Clyde outlaw adventure. But there's absolutely no romanticism either about the Holocaust horror the boy witnesses (including the roundup and massacre of his own family) or about his own role as robber, saboteur, and killer. The outlaw brutalizes the boy; did the boy humanize Kopec? When is killing justified? Discussion groups will want this one.”

“Rarely has the old saw about war making strange bedfellows been more appropriate than in this story of a small 16-year-old Jewish boy and one of rural Poland’s most notorious criminals, Jan Kopec.
Stillman has found a very different kind of Holocaust story, full of drama and adventure. When Hitler’s army invaded Poland in 1939, Goldner and his rural Jewish family were spared from immediate roundup. But by 1943, he had witnessed his mother and sister being headed onto a train and had been left for dead beneath his father’s body, both of them shot and bayoneted by a collaborator who had been one of his father’s friends. After Kopec, Goldner’s unlikely rescuer, nursed him back to health, the pair began an 18-month partnership in which Kopec received money from partisans for having Goldner carry out acts of sabotage against the Nazis. His small size, courage and ability to learn--Kopec trained his young charge in marksmanship, a renegade German soldier taught him fluent German, and a Gypsy trained him in hand-to-hand combat--resulted in impressive victories for area partisans. Goldner blew up trains and bridges used by the Nazi army and photographed Jews arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stillman has done a remarkable job tracking down what little documentation exists in order to corroborate Goldner’s unique story, making a trip to the region, meeting with former neighbors and with the children and grandchildren of Jan Kopec.”

“Morris Goldner was often lucky in his friendships. And in Larry Stillman, Goldner has found a perfect Boswell. Stillman’s impeccable sense of narrative turns Goldner’s amazing story into a breathtaking and heartbreaking drama of deep moral complexity.”

“One of the most thrilling reads I’ve come upon in years. It’s simply written, even when dealing with such complex issues as the political underground in wartime Poland, and such difficult subjects as the ethics of war...It has the narrative propulsion of a best selling novel. Scenes are dramatic and action oriented, the narrator himself comes alive and changes before the reader, and minor characters leap into existence...Adults and teenagers alike will go for it. It’s a winner.”

"Unlike many 'mediated' memoirs, Stillman does not turn this important story into a simple tale of heroism and courage, although there are elements of both. Stillman's telling of Goldner's story explores the moral complexities of survival as well as the ambiguity of this strange wartime relationship."

"An exceptional memoir of the Holocaust: it chronicles the personal and symbiotic relationship between a Christian and a Jew in an era of unfathomable hatred."

--Foreword