Although Hemingway's influence is also apparent in the short stories of Soldier Boy, especially in the compact ness of their dialogue, they also have a distinctly Nietzschean flavor — not the popularized and misread Nietzsche who claimed "God is dead," but the Nietzsche who celebrated the birth of tragedy in the equilibrium between man's rationality and his powerful emotional drives, and the Nietzsche who rejoiced in the belief that modern men could be "overcome," by abandoning pride and foolishness and stupidity and grow into greater beings, the sons of men to come. In The Broken Place, Shaara's autobiographical hero voiced his paradoxical view of the human condition today: "In all this world there are no signs and no miracles and nobody watching over and nobody caring. But I believe anyway."

Throughout his work, Shaara's stubborn, wounded heroes go on believing anyway, an affirmation of the humanity...