About this item
The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the Fall of Manila during World War II - a saga of love, adventure, and danger.On New Year's Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of a tight community of foreign correspondents with close ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter - the beginning of a tumultuous journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater - two of only a handful of valiant and dedicated journalists reporting from the region.Supported by deep historical research, extensive interviews, and the Jacobys' personal letters, Bill Lascher recreates the Jacobys' thrilling odyssey and their love affair with the Far East and one another. Bringing to light their compelling personal stories and their professional life together, Eve of a Hundred Midnights is a tale of an unquenchable thirst for adventure, of daring reportage at great personal risk, and of an enduring romance that blossomed in the shadow of war.
About the Author
Journalist and author Bill Lascher's work emphasize narratives with a strong sense of place and time, but he never shies away from a good story. A widely-published freelancer, Lascher's work appears in The Guardian, Pacific Standard, High Country News, The Oregonian, Atlas Obscura, Boom: A Journal of California, Gizmodo, Next City, the Portland Monthly and elsewhere. Lascher previously edited the Ventura County Reporter and, before that, covered technology and legal affairs at the Pacific Coast Business Times.
A Summer, 2011 Knight Digital Media Center multimedia and convergence fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, in 2009 Lascher earned a master's degree in Specialized Journalism from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Lascher earned his bachelor's degree in 2002 from Oberlin College, where he was a history and politics major. He also served in various editorial and reporting capacities at the Oberlin Review. Lascher later studied creative nonfiction at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
As of December 31, 2016, Lascher was the world's 2,933rd best pinball player. He hopes to improve in the coming year. He is also an amateur photographer beginning an obsession with film and the darkroom. Lascher will pet any dog that comes his way, and he is a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
