Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Bill Lascher charts the career of Melville Jacoby, his equally erudite wife Annalee, and their circle of committed, talented reporter-friends whose combined journalism evokes an era." Paul French, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Peking
Review
"The unforgettable story of Bill Lascher’s cousin, a man he meets through his own reporting to uncover a piece of family history that also belongs in the archives of America’s great war correspondents. This is every bit a book about what drives reporters to the frontlines." Jackie Spinner, author of Tell Them I Didn't Cry
Review
"A gripping, well told, and accurate reconstruction of a very dramatic and romantic time in the life stories of two young journalists caught in the upheavals of World War II Asia. A story of high adventure." Stephen R. MacKinnon, author of China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s
Review
"A gripping... narrative of daring and dedication." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
About the Author
Bill Lascher is a nonfiction writer and journalist anticipating the release by William Morrow & Co. of his debut book, which recounts the true story of two journalists in love in China and the Philippines at the outset of World War II.
Much of Lascher's work features 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, Boom: A Journal of California, Gizmodo, The Magazine, Oregon Public Broadcasting, various National Public Radio member stations, 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. Lascher also developed and coordinated community-focused journalism experiments in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon.
A 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. His master's work at USC consisted of in-depth reporting on the rapid evolution of Southern California's transportation system amid the Great Recession. Lascher's graduate work also included a science writing emphasis and studies in environmental science and policy, global civil society and sustainable cities.
A graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine and Oberlin College, where he studied history with a politics minor, Lascher interned at the daily Elyria Chronicle-Telegram and was a news writer and editor, perspectives editor and world and nation editor at the Oberlin Review.