At Home with Ernie Pyle ed. by Ernie Pyle (review)

For the majority of Americans, Ernie Pyle is most synonymous with the achingly poignant columns he wrote while embedded as a war correspondent with the common GI during World War II. But with his delightfully appealing and folksy columns written during the 1930s, Pyle enjoyed a celebrated career and a devoted following long before the war broke out. Indeed, it is arguable that the real Ernie Pyle emerged in the columns he wrote about his home state of Indiana and its people. Therefore, At Home with Ernie Pyle is a gift for those of us who have only known Ernie Pyle the war correspondent.

Edited by Owen V. Johnson and divided into twelve sections, this collection of Pyle's columns focuses exclusively on various aspects of Indiana and its residents. Pyle wrote about common, ordinary situations, which in turn endeared him to his reading public. He penned columns about his family's farm near the small town of Dana; Hoosiers he encountered on his travels; connections with his alma mater Indiana University; the way war transformed the landscape in in the Midwest; and, of course, Indiana sports. He was a huge fan of the Indianapolis 500 and said in 1936, "I would rather win that race than anything in the world" (19).

What made Pyle's columns popular was his down-to-earth, storytelling style. Pyle edited and rewrote his work, taking great pains to use simple, concise language to make it accessible to the average reader. But he took it a step further, exposing himself in a way few others did by inserting himself into his stories, unafraid to be transparent. He is at his most vulnerable when discussing his family, particularly when his mother suffered a stroke and died a few years later; yet Pyle was a straight shooter, refusing to sugar-coat life's more troubling aspects.

His World War II columns were most notable for their stark depiction of war and what the average soldier had to endure, but Pyle did the same with his Indiana-focused pieces. He wrote what he saw. His columns documented how Indiana, slower to grow than other states, continued to progress from its rural, agrarian-based economy to a more urbanized, industrial state while simultaneously producing highly creative artists and writers. No subject was too grand or too small. Pyle wrote about it all.

Pyle was the epitome of a true midwesterner, a boy who grew up on an Indiana farm who left that simple life to make something of himself in the wider world. But his writing never lost that farm boy mentality. His columns were about everyday people and everyday occurrences, and in a sense, Pyle never lost the ability to see each person and each situation as unique and worthy of his pen.

Johnson has done us an incredible favor in compiling this collection. At Home with Ernie Pyle shows us just how formative the Midwest was in shaping Ernie Pyle's character and personality, ultimately giving us one of the most beloved correspondents in American history.