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As Always, Jack: A Wartime Love Story
by
Emma Sweeney
A touching, true love story that captures the spirit of a generation and a love that endures, as a daughter learns about her lost father through the love letters he wrote her mother while at war.
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
April 4th 2003
by Back Bay Books
(first published April 10th 2002)
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A beautiful memoir and letters. Emma Sweeney meets the father she never knew via his love letters to her mother written in 1946. A navy pilot, Jack Sweeney left for an undetermined length of time for duty in the Pacific two weeks after he met the woman he would marry. Ten years later, while stationed in the Caribbean, Jack's plane goes into the Atlantic while on a mission, there were no suvivors. Emma is born several months later. Emma grew up knowing next to nothing about her father; her mother...more
Emma Sweeney has spent her life wondering what her real father must have been like. From time to time, she could gather moments in time from her mother of what their courtship and marriage must have been like because he died before she was born. Her mother didn't like to talk about Jack much but when she did, Emma could tell she had fond memories of him. Yet somehow it still seemed like something was missing, a part of him she couldn't know until when her mother died from complications of heart...more
Four months after her father was lost in the waters south of Bermuda on what was supposed to have been a routine Navy flight, Emma Sweeney was born. By the time she was old enough to start wondering about the father she'd never known, Emma's mother had remarried. And with a reticence to revisit the past, perhaps characteristic of her mother's generation, information about her father was slow to come over the years, when at all. But following her mother's passing, Emma discovered her final gift -...more
As Always, Jack by Emma Sweeney is an epistolary memoir in that letters from Sweeney’s father to her mother are shared with several sections of explanation from Sweeney, herself. After just 11 days together, Jack and her mother corresponded for a year and a half through letters as he went off to help stabilize the Pacific following WWII. He wrote 45 letters to her mother over seven months in a oddball courtship that showcase her father’s wit and humor as well as his constant devotion.
In many way...more
In many way...more
Book summary: Emma Sweeney finally meets her father, 40 years later, through letters her father wrote as a World War II aviator tragically killed in action before he ever met his only daughter.
Great quote: "I thought possibly when I first left you, way back in January, that the reason I thought of nothing but you was that it was the most recent happening in my life; but the longer I'm away, the better perspective I seem to get and the more I realize that you're the most wonderful girl I've know...more
Great quote: "I thought possibly when I first left you, way back in January, that the reason I thought of nothing but you was that it was the most recent happening in my life; but the longer I'm away, the better perspective I seem to get and the more I realize that you're the most wonderful girl I've know...more
I read this in a couple hours tonight. Phenomenal book told by letters from the author's late father. A navy pilot who eventually was lost in the Bermuda Triangle, the letters he wrote the woman who would later become his bride are a glimpse into the world of WWII America... They knew each other a mere two weeks but through letters learned about each and fell in love...A ten year marriage and five children were the result.., the author often wondered if her father knew she even existed since her...more
There is great depth in this collection of letters from a young US Navy pilot to the girl he had known for only ten days before leaving for duty in the Pacific after WW2. They reawaken an awareness of what one might call old fashioned values and abiding love. Given that there was no committal at the outset a wonderful story evolves in this correspondence. The outcome, and the future of the couple is related by Jack's daughter, completing a rather surprising story that lingers in one's mind. The...more
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This is a beautiful and sweet biography about the author's father whom she never got to meet. Her mother and father met at the end of World War II and got married when he returned home. The author's mother was pregnant with her when her father's plane was lost at sea. She found a bunch of love letters written to her mother from her father and this is how she finally got to know her father.
Loved this book. I've rediscovered how much I love epistolary stories and reading handwritten correspondence. It makes me long for the days when we still communicated via handwritten letter. A beautiful love story told through a young man's letters. I won't give the ending away, but the last letter is especially poignant.
This is a collection of letters a woman's father, a navy pilot in 1946 wrote to her mother before they were married. He died near Bermuda when his plane exploded. At the time he died, her mother was pregnant with her fifth child, this daughter.
If you like wartime romance, this is a short but touching read.
If you like wartime romance, this is a short but touching read.
A series of letters written by a navy pilot stationed overseas and sent to his sweetheart in California make up the bulk of this book. The letters are entertaining, sweet, and humorous. They make it easy to see why the girl fell in love with this guy during their correspondence. I love that it's a true story!
As Always, Jack: A World War II Love Story: Emma Sweeney:a collection of love letters written at the end the of World War II by a lieutenant to the girl he just met. enjoyable in a voyeuristic way and certainly a time capsule of that era. I wanted much more info about the couple. 198 pages
This is the kind of book that you save to read on a snowy night when you are the only one at home, can light a fire in the fireplace, put on your fuzzy slippers and settle into a comfortable chair with hot chocolate, which is the main reason you read books, anyway.
This was an amazing read, both for the romantic aspect of the letters this man wrote to his girlfriend who became his wife and for the aspect of a daughter learning about her father through the letters he sent her mother before she was born. His letters are wonderfully witty and romantic and it definitely speaks to a time when there was romance and love and connections between people that were shared in letters. I just so absolutely enjoyed this.
Delightful sweet book. Author finds letters of her deceased navy pilot father to her mother after her mother's death. She is finally able to understand who her father was. Simple but moving book. Good for a quiet afternoon.
Mar 31, 2009
Jennifer
added it
i loved this dear, sweet book. just wonderful. a girl who's father died before she was born, and how she found the letters he wrote to her mother before they married. Great!
Quick, good read. It's a true "story" composed mainly of the letters of Jack Sweeney to his soon-to-be bride after World War II. Funny, sweet, and very touching.
This book is a quick read and kinda fun, reading letters from a war-time Lieutenant to the girl of his dreams back home, who he's only known for two weeks.
Really sweet story. I seem to be on a kick lately with books that are a series of letters. And I'm always up for a good love story, especially when it's a true story.
Borrowed from public library.
Wonderful. Letters from he to her mom in 1946. Clean writing. Navy pilot. Sweet story.
Wonderful. Letters from he to her mom in 1946. Clean writing. Navy pilot. Sweet story.
Emma Sweeney never knew her father, Jack, who shared a whirlwind romance with her mother via letters while stationed in the Pacific just after WWII. Jack died during a Navy flight before Emma was born. So as an adult Emma sought to learn more about the father she had never met. Here she shares his love letters to her mother, written after they had briefly met and were then separated for many months before marrying.
Not a book to take the world by storm, but the letters are terribly sweet! And the...more
Not a book to take the world by storm, but the letters are terribly sweet! And the...more
I wish there were some of the mom's letters in their too, but was a great story!
Sweet book about the love letters between and WWII pilot and his wife.
Fast read and very entertaining!
Really cute book!
Will review on my blog 7/16.
A really really good non-fiction love story. Emma Sweeney's father is a really good letter writer. It has a tragic end but reading letters made me feel happy and loved. If this guy was alive at this time, at whatever age, I'll probably fall in love with him. His witty, funny, faithful, sure and sweet. Its hard to look for that kind of man nowadays. If you want an easy and happy read then pick this book up. :)
This is a short read. The story is read -- a collection of letters from a serviceman at the end of WWII to his girlfriend who later becomes his wife. Edited by the daughter he never knew. He was killed in the 1950s in a plane accident while she was in utero. It was very moving, real and funny too.
A sweet little packet of letters written by a long gone father.
One of my favorites! Reading for the second time.
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