n nOne must go back to All Quiet on the Western Front to find another novel as charged as this one! -- Philadelphia Inquirern nNATIONAL BESTSELLERn nThey were our husbands, our fathers, our lovers, our sons. They were Americans and Marines. And this is their story: The Big War, Anton Myrers panoramic novel of Marines in the Pacific in World War II. n nThis is the story of Alan Newcombe, the Boston society Harvard man; Danny Kantaylis, the natural-born leader; Jay ONeill, the barroom scrapper. Myrer does not glorify war; he does not flinch from describing what the actual experience of warfare was like for a desperate group of Marines trapped in some of the worst fighting conditions of the war. We learn about their lives at home and their fates on the battlefield. nn