With his last two works of non-fiction (Faith of Our Sons and AWOL) Frank Schaeffer established a thematic root note of sorts: The vast majority of the Baby Boomer generation is wantonly ignorant of the military and devoid the impulse to serve a higher calling, something bigger than themselves. And so when I first heard the basic premise of his new novel Baby Jack, I figured it was simply a fictionalized version of this thesis. Early in reading the book, I realized that I was right ... and very wrong. Baby Jack is not a derivative of Schaeffer's earlier work; in many ways his earlier work was simply prelude to this literary tour de force.

As a writer, Schaeffer goes out on a stylistic limb with Baby Jack, most notably by shifting first person points of view between a handful of characters -- an element that would be a distraction in the hands of a lesser talent but one that is fundamental here. The book opens in the home of Todd Ogden, Jack's father. Todd is an artist, an old money New Englander for whom the sum total of the tragedy of 9-11 is that several of his paintings were destroyed as the towers fell. Todd is put off that Jack has invited a Marine Corps recruiter into the family home:

The recruiter brought these little pack of plastic cards with him, the sort of prop a second-rate child psychologist might use to coerce evidence from an eight-year-old in a molestation case. The cards had words like “motivation” and “discipline” stamped on them. They reminded me of the bible memorization cards may father used to leave by my beside in his effort to interest me in the “things of the Lord.”

Todd thinks of those who might choose to join the military as a “collection of victims” and wonders how someone like his son could even entertain the impulse to join. He challenges the recruiter:

I asked the recruiter what Jack would have after they were done with him.

“Have? I don't understand you, sir.”

“Please call me Todd. What I mean is what benefits will Jack gain?”

“He'll be a United States Marine, sir.”

“Todd. The name is T-o-d-d!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Todd!”

“Yes, si—Todd.”

“Will Jack get to call everyone he meets ‘sir'? Is that the benefit?”

Todd is beyond reconciliation when Jack enlists, a time he refers to as “when everything went to hell.” The rift between father and son grows to the point that Todd refuses to communicate with Jack while he's at boot camp, and doesn't attend the graduation ceremony with the rest of the family (Jack's mother, Sarah, and sister, Amanda). Jack's time in boot camp is also captured from his point of view and through letters he writes to the family and his girlfriend. Schaeffer deftly captures the nuance of a young man's transformation from prep schooler to Marine, evinced in both Jack's attitudes and diction. The transformation of the other characters is also real. At the graduation ceremony his sardonic sister Amanda -- city-wise and callous -- has an epiphany of sorts as she watches her brother's platoon march by the bleachers during the pass and review:

The big surprise was the overwhelming feeling of pride I had. When I saw him march past with his platoon I was on my feet screaming. I felt as I'd explode. I can't explain it, but it was a bigger emotional moment than my own graduation from NYU, by far. Mother didn't yell but she did clap furiously. They looked so young and so beautiful .

Jack ships off to war with his father's anger unresolved. A week later Jack is killed in action. Baby Jack is again poetically unorthodox, this time in how it announces his passing: Part III of the book opens with an article from the Parris Island base paper that is at once sanguine and matter of fact in its reporting of Jack's death -- more evidence of the author's uncanny understanding of the subtleties at work here.

But that Jack dies is not the point of Baby Jack; in fact, his death is not even a surprise to the reader. The back cover copy foretells of it. The story lies in how the rest of Jack's family (and his girlfriend who is pregnant with his son) reacts to his death. His sister Amanda, who works at the New York Times (apt metaphor for the “liberal media” in general), becomes a zealot of sorts who demands that her co-workers come to grips with their distance from the military experience and its associated sacrifices. In the face of mutual sorrow, his mother Sarah completes her emotional journey away from her husband and finds solace in the arms of numerous younger men -- a most unexpected meltdown for the well-heeled wife of a prominent and respected artist. And in his absolute agony, consumed with regret, Todd writes none other than the Commandant of the Marine Corps:

Dear Sir,

One year ago my son Jack Ogden was killed while serving in the USMC. When my son volunteered after high school I was angry with him. I was shocked when Jack came home one day saying he had stopped to see a recruiter. At first I thought he was joking. Then I took it for some kind of teen rebellion. We stopped speaking. We never spoke again before he was killed.

You are probably about to put this letter down and despise the “father” who would stop speaking to his son. Each and every action I took is now a cut in my heart. I would trade all the experiences of this life for the chance to go back to the day my son left for boot camp if I could say goodbye. I am asking that you please have mercy on me and allow me to visit Parris Island. I realize that this request is unusual. But I'm asking you to help the father of a Marine. Please let me stand on the ground he stood on. Sir, help me find my son.

Yours sincerely, Todd Ogden

In time Todd's request is granted, and his trip to Parris Island becomes an otherworldly trip through the hell of his psyche, permanently damaged by the words left unspoken between father and son. He emerges both scarred and healed by the experience -- more evidence of a book with the courage to be very real.

Frank Schaeffer has done what only the likes of Stephen Crane have managed before him, capturing atmospheres in ways his pedigree would suggest impossible. Baby Jack 's pathos is matched only by its originality, sincerity, and attention to the details of human emotion. This work reveals a writer who understands service, sacrifice, family, war, love, hate -- life -- in ways that transcend the here and now. He even brings God into the mix. (I won't wreck it; let's just say Schaeffer pulls it off with aplomb.)

Baby Jack is a triumph and a modern masterpiece. Read it and be moved.