Title of the Book:   The Right Stuff
Author:                   Tom Wolfe
# of Pages:              351
Star Rating:            ☆☆☆☆☆

Review:

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly

Through the great spaces in the sky

Be with them always, in the air

In darkening storms and sunlight fair.

Oh hear us when we lift our prayer

For those in peril in the air.^*

Imagine hearing this song so often you know the words by heart. If you were a test pilot or a wife of a test pilot in the 1950s or 60s you probably heard it every week after a fellow pilot, a colleague, a friend died in some type of horrible plane crash. This is the very effective way that Tom Wolfe introduces his concept of “The Right Stuff” and the people who had it. He explains that it is more than courage that makes up the right stuff. For the men who were test pilots it was the courage to risk your life every day while having the confidence in yourself to keep your cool doing it. They knew the risks but made light of them. They didn’t talk about being brave because that very thing would cancel out their right stuff. These were the men that NASA chose to get the new space program under way, our first astronauts. These were the men who would willingly and even eagerly risk their lives sitting on top of massive rockets waiting for someone to ignite them. But the men weren’t the only ones who had “the right stuff”. Wolfe also successfully gets across the idea that, although it was different, their wives had it too. For them, it was standing by their husbands through the fear and stress of wondering if they would come back alive as well as the willingness to be put in the public eye and follow them wherever their jobs would take them.

     So many non-fiction books I have read in the past have been so dry it was very difficult to get through them. That was not the case with The Right Stuff. It is suspenseful and exciting at times and funny at other times. One of the things that made “The Right Stuff” so enjoyable for me is the way that Tom Wolfe gives the reader a glimpse into the minds of so many different characters to give a more complete picture of what it was like in the days of the cold war and the space race. This really gave you an idea of how the different people involved felt. There were even times I could really identify with the characters. Sometimes I felt angry or bad for them. I remember thinking that John Glenn was asking for it when he was acting so “proper” in their first days at NASA instead of being just one of the guys. And when Scott Carpenter kept using fuel to experiment during his flight after he’d been warned to conserve it. I knew there would be trouble for him, too. That proved to be right both times.

     Wolfe’s skillful use of colorful adjectives like “pudknockers” (pilots who thought they were the best but were really unskilled amateurs), as well as well-placed repetitive phrases added to the readability of the book. His writing style included conversation as well as giving you behind the scenes information and back stories. I think this is what made this book so unique. “The Right Stuff” is an excellent and entertaining way to learn about this fascinating time in our country’s history and is well worth the read.

^*-Version evolved from Mary C.D. Hamilton's "Lord Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly" (1915)

The Mercury Astronauts
From Left to Right: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper,
John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra,
Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton