In “American Daredevil,” author Cathryn Prince quotes writer
Joe David Brown who said, “If Richard Halliburton had not actually lived, no
novelist or satirist would dare have invented him. Any fictional character who
had the time, ability, or inclination to do all the exciting, grueling, and
often ridiculous things he did simply would not be believable.” This was
written in Sports Illustrated twenty-four years after Halliburton disappeared
at sea in 1939 while trying to sail a Chinese junk from Hong Kong to San
Francisco.
Halliburton was the first adventure travel writer. Travel
writing was an unconventional if not unheard of career when he graduated from
Princeton University in 1921. Halliburton really pioneered the field of
adventure journalism. He documented adventures during the 1920s and 30s, like
retracing the path of the Spanish Conquistador Cortex, climbing Mount Fuji, or
swimming the Panama Canal. He was dashing. He was handsome. He wrote books and
gave lectures. The media of the day covered his exploits. Travel writers like
Charles Kuralt and Paul Theroux read his work when they were young. And
although he is all but unknown today, he influenced a generation.
When Chicago Review Press offered me a copy of “American
Daredevil” to review, I readily accepted because Cathryn Prince is not only a Facebook
friend, but also the author of the excellent book “Death in the Baltic.” I
have to admit my ignorance in that I had never heard of Richard Halliburton before reading about his life in this outstanding book.
However, once I started reading about this guy I was hooked. The book is well written
of course and reads at the same comfortable pace and author's voice as “Death in the Baltic.” The
reader feels like they are on the adventures with Dick Halliburton, a man who “seized
the day.” One reason that you also feel close to the action is that Cathryn
spins the tale of both Halliburton’s professional persona as well as his
private life. This book gets two thumbs up for making history interesting and
providing a look at what was popular culture for our society in the first half
of the twentieth century, before television and the Internet. I plan on sharing
the life of Richard Halliburton with my US History class and adding “American Daredevil” to our classroom library.
