Drury, Bob

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Drury, Bob

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and foreign correspondent. Men's Health, contributing editor and foreign correspondent; Fox television network, reporter; New York Newsday, former staff reporter.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Pulitzer Prize nomination; recipient of several national journalism awards.

WRITINGS:

(With Ryne Duren) The Comeback, Lorenz Press (Dayton, OH), 1978.

(With Arthur J. Donovan) Fatso: Football When Men Were Really Men, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Charles J. Hynes) Incident at Howard Beach: The Case for Murder, Putnam (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Lou Eppolito) Mafia Cop, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with Carolyn Beauchamp) Joseph "Jo Dogs" Iannuzzi, The Mafia Cookbook, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

The Rescue Season: The Heroic Story of Parajumpers on the Edge of the World, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Tom Clavin) Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Men's Journal, Gentleman's Quarterly, Vanity Fair, New York Times, New York Post, and Sports Illustrated.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Rescue Season was made into a documentary film and broadcast on the History Channel.

SIDELIGHTS:

As a magazine journalist and foreign correspondent for Men's Health magazine, Bob Drury has reported from overseas locations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Belfast, Haiti, Sarajevo, and Liberia. A Pulitzer Prize nominee, Drury has contributed to all four major New York newspapers, and is a regular contributor to national periodicals and magazines.

In Incident at Howard Beach: The Case for Murder, Drury and coauthor Charles J. Hynes report on a notorious modern-day incident of deadly racial violence. In 1986, in the middle-class neighborhood of Howard Beach, Queens, a group of twelve white teenagers brutally attacked three black men who had entered the area, leaving one dead, killed by a car while fleeing his attackers, and the other two severely beaten. Hynes and Drury's account of the attacks and their aftermath "is the story of that ignoble episode and of how Howard Beach became a part of our language of racial despair," commented Linda Wolfe in the New York Times. The authors relate the shameful behavior of the authorities in the wake of the attack, during which police treated the victims as though they were criminals themselves. They detail how coauthor Hynes, now the District Attorney for Brooklyn, was appointed special prosecutor in the case, and how he struggled to build an effective case against the attackers. The authors offer behind-the-scenes details of the legal maneuvering, political machinations, trial techniques, and investigative procedures that offered the victims justice, with Hynes eventually winning manslaughter convictions against three of the twelve attackers. Hynes and Drury do not spare criticism of those they found to be at fault, including Mayor Edward Koch, Queens District Attorney John Santucci, and Al Sharpton, who they believe used the attacks to further his own political cause. Genevieve Stuttaford, writing in Publishers Weekly, called the book a "brisk, evenhanded, modestly told procedural."

The Rescue Season: The Heroic Story of Parajumpers on the Edge of the World chronicles the time Drury spent with the 210th Alaska Pararescue Squadron during the 1999 rescue season. A unit of the U.S. Air Force, the 210th is one of only three parajumper units in the United States authorized to conduct rescue operations for both civilians and military personnel. Drury provides a detailed account of the daily lives of the rescuers, including their rigorous training and dedication to the mission. In the harsh environment of mountaintops and deep valleys, the members of the 210th regularly pit their wits and strength against natural forces, risking their lives willingly and bravely to save those who should perhaps have known better than to challenge nature's power. Drury avoids excessively romanticizing the parajumpers in his account; instead, "he shows us that they are real people who just happen to do an incredibly difficult job," remarked Booklist reviewer David Pitt. Drury "displays a good tactical understanding of alpine rescue methods and convincingly relates the thoughts and motivations of the individual parajumpers," stated a Publishers Weekly contributor. "Truly lovely passages emerge from his accounts of the unit's most memorable rescues," as the parajumpers traverse breathtakingly beautiful but deceptive lethal terrain to help those who have been injured, abandoned, or otherwise hard pressed by the unyielding force of nature, noted Louise Jarvis in the New York Times Book Review. Library Journal reviewer Jo-Anne Mary Benson called the book a "revealing examination of a remarkable profession."

Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue, written with Tom Clavin, uses newly declassified material to describe one of the major maritime events of World War II, one which had gone largely unreported for decades. The famed Admiral William Halsey was partly responsible for losing three destroyers and eight hundred men when he put his fleet in the path of a 1944 typhoon. The authors recount the pressured decision-making that led to this maritime disaster, as well as the heroic efforts to save fellow sailors in the aftermath. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that the book is "a vivid tale of tragedy and gallantry at sea." A Kirkus Reviews critic faulted the work for weak characterization, but concluded: "The inherent drama of the events compensates for the sometimes lackluster storytelling." However, Roland Green, writing in Booklist, had no such critical reservations, terming Halsey's Typhoon "an entirely gripping account and a guaranteed hit with maritime buffs."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2000, David Pitt, review of The Rescue Season: The Heroic Story of Para-jumpers on the Edge of the World, p. 765; November 15, 2006, Roland Green, review of Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue, p. 20.

Internet Bookwatch, March 1, 2007, review of Halsey's Typhoon.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2006, review of Halsey's Typhoon, p. 998.

Library Journal, December, 2000, Jo-Anne Mary Benson, review of The Rescue Season, p. 168.

Men's Health, September 1, 2006, Erin Hobday, biography of Bob Drury, p. 24.

New York Times, February 11, 1990, Linda Wolfe, "One Night in Queens," review of Incident at Howard Beach: The Case for Murder.

New York Times Book Review, February 18, 2001, Louise Jarvis, "Saving Fools Gladly: Air Force Parajumpers in Alaska Often Come to the Rescue of Weekend Warriors," review of The Rescue Season, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, January 5, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Incident at Howard Beach, p. 58; April 20, 1992, review of Mafia Cop, p. 44; November 20, 2000, review of The Rescue Season, p. 54; October 9, 2006, review of Halsey's Typhoon, p. 47.

Washington Monthly, February 1, 1990, Patricia Cohen, review of Incident at Howard Beach, p. 60.