A Midnight Clear by William Wharton

First published: 1982

Subjects: Coming-of-age, friendship, and war

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical fiction and moral tale

Time of work: December, 1944

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Ardennes Forest, France

Principal Characters:

• William Knott, (aka Won’t), a nineteen-year-old sergeant in charge of six soldiers sent into enemy territory who is responsible for determining German military intentions
• Vance Wilkins, (aka Mother), a twenty-six-year-old soldier suffering from battle fatigue, one of Knott’s closest friends in the squad
• Paul Mundy, (aka Father), also twenty-six, and a former seminarian who has banned obscenities among his colleagues and who brings a strong sense of moral seriousness to their endeavors
• Mel Gordon, a colonel who is obsessed with his own health and that of his comrades
• Stan Shutzer, the only Jew in the group and the lone soldier who approaches the war with any zeal
• Bud Miller, a poet and mechanical genius
• Major Love, a mortician and the group’s commanding officer, who carelessly sends them off into danger

Form and Content

A Midnight Clear is a warm, large-hearted novel about a gruesome subject—warfare—and the ways in which that experience transcends time and indelibly marks its participants. There is no question that the work is a serious attempt at the demystification of heroism and a demonstration of the futility of killing. Nevertheless, the novel also asserts the saving grace of the human spirit and the ways in which true heroism emerges from unselfish, caring concern for others.

The book is divided into six chapters that trace the experiences of a group of soldiers on a reconnaissance mission in the Ardennes Forest in December, 1944. The events are conveyed through the perspective of a subjective narrator, the protagonist Will Knott, who gives the reader a privileged view into his mind and heart and those of his five compatriots. Knott is a born storyteller, although he is unaware of his abilities and claims that he has “a penchant for telling true stories no one can believe,” thus preparing the reader for a sensational tale. Knott punctuates his recounting with brief asides to the audience and glimpses into events that transpire after the central ones of the narrative.

Knott and his colleagues are the survivors of a squad that was attacked in Saarbrücken, Germany. These young men were abruptly dropped at the front although they were originally recruited to be educated at universities because of their superior intelligence. Their division leader, Major Love, is an officious coward who cavalierly sends his men into danger on the pretext that they uncover information about enemy activities in the Ardennes Forest.

The six set up camp in an abandoned château and before long make inadvertent contact with a German platoon that engaged them in a gentle snowball fight and then presents them with a makeshift Christmas tree and gifts. Through awkward translations, the Americans learn that a major offensive is in the offing and that the Germans wish to surrender but only if they can manufacture a false skirmish to disguise their intentions. Five of the Americans decide to hide the plans from their only married comrade, Vance Wilkins, in order to tell their superiors that he was a hero and earn for him a return home to his wife, whom he desperately misses. Unfortunately, however, Wilkins misinterprets the gunfire, kills a couple of Germans, and inaugurates an actual engagement that results in the death of all but one German and the death of Paul Mundy and the grave wounding of Shutzer.

Major Love appears briefly and leaves with Shutzer and the surviving German, and the remaining four Americans flee an advancing column of German soldiers. Both of their Jeeps crash, their communication with headquarters is severed, and they use the blood of their dead friend to create medical insignias that gain for them safe passage back to their unit. Wilkins is decorated and later disappears, Mel Gordon becomes a doctor, and Knott becomes a street painter in Paris, each fulfilling his deepest desire rather than those of parents or other authority figures.

Critical Context

The critical reception of A Midnight Clear was decidedly mixed; some reviewers criticized it as stereotypical and overwritten, while others claimed that it is “destined to become a classic” by “one of the finest writers in English today.” Such divergent points of view actually reveal differing notions about adolescent experience. William Wharton’s accomplishment, among many others, is his ability to penetrate the thoughts and emotions of the young. In his two preceding novels, Birdy (1978) and Dad (1981), Wharton also explores the effects of war, family life, and insanity, and each book is characterized by a compelling voice yearning desperately to communicate the intense emotional lives of its characters. Each work demonstrates that compassion, understanding, and love are the most potent palliatives to an individual’s sense of isolation and desperation. A Midnight Clear is an important addition to such modern antiwar fiction as Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Western nichts Neues (1929; All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929), Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929), Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).

Sources for Further Study

The Atlantic. CCL, October, 1982, p. 105.

Commonweal. CX, March 11, 1983, p. 155.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. October 24, 1982, p. 3.

New Statesman. CIV, October 22, 1982, p. 29.

The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVII, September 12, 1982, p. 13.

Newsweek. C, September 13, 1982, p. 77.

Time. CXX, September, 27, 1982, p. 82.

Times Literary Supplement. October 29, 1982, p. 1189.