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The End of My Life (first published 1947) - Simon - 12-16-2025
Vance Bourjaily's classic novel of World War II dramatizes an entire generation's loss of innocence.
When Thomas "Skinner" Galt leaves Greenwich Village to volunteer as an ambulance driver with the British Army, he anticipates the adventure of a lifetime. What he fails to understand is that no matter where he comes from or how many books he has read, once he dons a military uniform, his life will cease to be his own.
Stationed first in the Middle East and then in Italy, Skinner and his fellow American volunteers, Rod, Freak, and Benny, endure boredom, fear, and the exquisite frustration of following orders. They seek solace in their friendship with one another and in the debauched diversions available to men during wartime. But as the days and nights drag on, Skinner begins to drift away from his comrades—and from himself. Too late, he discovers that the path he has chosen leads only to tragedy.
Quote: Published the same year as John Horne Burns' "The Gallery", "The End of My Life" is also a novel about World War II and its effects on the men who served. Bourjaily's narrative is structured around four young men who aren't in the military but instead join up with an ambulance crew for the British military in Syria and Lebanon before the U.S. had joined the war. Each has his own reasons for serving, running toward something, running away from something, or simply trying to understand how to live in a world that is seemingly falling apart.
Freak is the most 'normal guy' of the bunch and has joined the ambulance crew to do his part after failing to pass the medical exam for entry into the military. Benny, a Jewish communist understands the importance of the war and what it means for the future of the world, but particularly the future of the Jewish people and himself. Rod is a night club musician who doesn't stay in one place for long and doesn't seem to make lasting connections. Finally, Skinner Galt is the main character through whose eyes we see the action of the novel and feel the struggle of the characters.
Homosexuality is frankly acknowledged by all of the characters and it is understood that there are plenty of gay men in the military. Although it happens away from the action of the novel, Rod's relationship with one of the gay men in the ambulance outfit is offered in all its complexity. Rod isn't comfortable with what it means for him, particularly what it means for his mental health but at the same time he describes his feelings as love. So while the characters follow the gayness as illness paradigm of the time, they are also allowing for the relationship to be based on an emotional connection, not simply a physical or sexual one.
At its core, this novel is an exploration of what it means to be human. We like to think that we are all acting as individuals so what we do only affects ourselves. We don't like to acknowledge that our collective actions reflect on humanity as a whole. In Skinner's case, he doesn't get to separate himself from the consequences of war just because he drove an ambulance instead of firing a gun. As Benny points out toward the end of the novel, no human being is an exception to humanity.