American Mirror

(Doubleday & Co., 1982)

"W.C. Heinz is a writer for everybody who admires American writing at its clean, clear best. " - Budd Schulberg

"These are among the finest pieces I have ever read-quite simply, classics of modern journalism. " -Roger Kahn

"There has always been a cleanness and purity about Heinz 's writing, to use his own metaphor, he keeps crowding in on the subject always trying to discover, it seems, some connection between ability and character. " - Ed Linn

In beautiful and evocative prose W.C. Heinz pays tribute to heroism. Here he portrays ordinary people, in extreme situations, who performed with courage under pressure. The author spent time with each of those chronicled here - with a thoracic surgeon whose competence and compassion emerge both in the operating room and in the waiting room; with Pete Reiser, a Brooklyn Dodger who overcame injury time and again; with Earl Rudder, who led a troop of Rangers up a near-vertical cliff in the D-Day assault; with Lew Jenkins, who disgraced the lightweight boxing championship of the world but found meaning in the comradeship of war that he had never found in peace, and went on to win the Silver Star; with civil rights marchers who endured pain, fear, and abuse; and with many other exemplars of tenacity. The execution of three spies, the untimely death of a racehorse, the eyes of a woman whose husband will fight for the world championship—each of these is an opening for Heinz to explore what it is that gives people courage. With a pitch-perfect ear and remarkable perception, Heinz has put together an inspirational book that brings new life to a world with too few heroes.