Irwin Shaw (1913 – 1984)
American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author, best known for his novels The Young Lions and Rich Man, Poor Man.
Act of Faith was written in 1946, and first published in The New Yorker on February 2nd in the same year. It was later included in the short story compilation Act of Faith and Other Stories also in 1946.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find a free copy to read online.
This is the sixth of eight stories in the volume Points of View to be given the style classification by Moffett and McElheny of Biography, or Anonymous Narration – Single Character Point of View. Their introduction continues: “What the stories have in common is the presentation of the inner life of a single character rather than of several or of none.”
Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read the story yet and want to before you read the summary of it below, stop now!
Act of Faith
The Second World War is over, but American soldiers are still stationed in Europe. Olson, Welch and Seeger survived Omaha Beach and are now considering their post-war futures. They’re not far from Paris and who can resist visiting the French capital? But none of them has been paid for three months. What can you do in Paris without money? Olson and Welch decide to ask their commanding officer, Captain Taney for a loan, but they delegate Seeger to do the negotiations. Why not? He can only say no.
In fact Taney says yes but can only muster up 200 francs – the equivalent of four dollars. That’s not going to get them very far. But Welch remembers that Seeger has a Lüger, taken from the body of a German he killed. He can get sixty-five dollars for that. That would certainly buy them a night on the town.
Seeger, meanwhile, has received a letter from home. In it, his father pours his heart out to his son about how life is now in America. Seeger’s brother Leonard was killed in action, and his brother Jacob is home but suffering badly with what we now know to be PTSD. Even harder to bear is the fact that the antisemitism rife in Europe has reached the States and the family – who are Jewish – realise that life is no longer the safe comfortable existence they always knew. Even their friends are turning against them.
Seeger doesn’t know what to think. Is all this sacrifice of war in vain? Would it not have been better if, like Leonard, he hadn’t survived the war so that he would not have to see the suffering of his parents? At that point Olson and Welch tell him that they know his Lüger is very important to him and ask him not to part with it if he isn’t completely sure. There are other ways of spending time in Paris. Seeger asks them directly, “what do you guys think of the Jews?” To which they reply that they have no idea what he means and that they’ve never heard of the Jews, and maybe he should ask them an easier question. Filled with hope and the confidence to tackle the prejudice at home head-on, Seeger agrees to sell the Lüger: “What could I use it for in America?”
A fascinating short story, notable for the fact that the action takes place in one continent but the substance of what it’s all about takes place in another. On one hand, it reveals the evil of antisemitism – indeed all prejudice – as it quietly grows all around you, and if you do nothing to prevent its growth, you’re part of the problem. It also shows that a simple expression of kindness and positivity may be all that’s needed to make the future optimistic; Olson and Welch’s flat-out refusal to participate in any antisemitic comments make Seeger feel safe and supported.
Shaw really gets to the heart of his characters in this story; you can sense the likeable laddishness of Olson, the earnest decency of Seeger and the keen practicality of Welch. Although they are of different levels of superiority, there’s no division between them. Shaw’s writing even invites us in to understand the characterisations of the minor characters, such as Taney speaking “like a man who has never quite got the hang of army regulations”, or describing Seeger’s father’s letter as “on the stiff white stationery with the University letterhead in polite engraving at the top of each page”.
The most powerful aspect of this story is the mental journey that Seeger undertakes, over a very short space of time, from being a confident, skilful soldier, to wading through a sea of self-doubt and second-hand grief, and then going back to a positive frame of mind again. A very satisfying and also thought-provoking piece.
The next story in the anthology is the seventh to be classified by Moffett and McElheny as Biography, or Anonymous Narration – Single Character Point of View, The Five-Forty-Eight by John Cheever.