Review excerpt:
The memoir tends to meander, but that's the result of its strange conception. Lilley's son Jeffrey initiated the project more than five years ago to learn more about his father's idealistic, superachieving brother, Frank, who committed suicide at the age of 26 while posted in Japan as a detachment commander during the U.S. military occupation. A pacifist, Frank was crushed by the destruction he saw in Japan and felt conflicted by his belief that military might was America's way forward, which he expressed to his younger brother in a good-bye letter. Frank, a world-record swimmer and president of his class at Exeter, figures prominently, and the two brothers become a study in contrasts: the disillusioned idealist vs. the studied, realistic, flexible bureaucrat. James Lilley is the brother who survived--and he believes that only through pragmatism will the U.S.-China relationship survive, as well.
