Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman

496 Pages·2004·3.55 MB·English

by  Neal Thompson

Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Praise
Foreword
Prologue
Part I - BEFORE SPACE
1 - “Alan was really kind of a loner”
2 - “I think I love you”
3 - “The kamikazes raised hell last night”
4 - “UNSAFE FOR SOLO” in Zoom Town
5 - A perfectly charming son of a bitch
6 - Shepard should be court-martialed
7 - “Do you wish to declare an emergency?”
8 - “That little rascal”
Part II - INTO SPACE
9 - “We made them heroes, the first day they were picked”
10 - Eyeballs in, eyeballs out
11 - “A harlot of a town”
12 - “I think I got myself in trouble”
13 - “We had ’em by the short hairs, and we gave it away”
14 - “Light this candle!”
15 - “I believe we should go to the moon”
16 - “I’m sick . . . should I just hang it up?”
17 - How to succeed in business without really fllying—much
18 - “Captain Shepard? I’m Charles Lindbergh”
19 - “What’s wrong with this ship?”
Part III - AFTER SPACE
20 - “When you’ve been to the moon, where else are you going to go?”
21 - “I saw a different Alan Shepard, completely different”
22 - “This is the toughest man I’ve ever met”
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Page
For Mary
Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for
only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
—SOCRATES, 500 B.C.
Praise for Neal Thompson’s
LIGHT THIS CANDLE
“Alan Shepard captured the imagination of America perhaps more than any
other astronaut. I was so proud he was our friend, and even more proud of the
example of courage that he set for so many people around the world. He was a
good man, and Barbara and I loved him.”
—President George H. W. Bush
“Just a wonderful and gripping biography . . . meticulously reported in the best
tradition of David Halberstam. It is written with eloquent grace. Most satisfying
of all, Light This Candle is the can’t-put-it-down story of a modern swashbuckler
determined to conquer the universe whatever the risk. In Thompson’s hands, an
amazing life, the ultimate American life, comes alive so exquisitely.”
—Buzz Bissinger,
New York Times bestselling author of Friday Night Lights
“Just what a biography should be: sharp, evocative, and brisk.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Shepard was a very complicated individual. He had all the attributes to be
successful, but he always lived on the edge. He had the perseverance to live
through his medical problems to finally fly to the moon, but he didn’t always
follow the rules. Light This Candle captures the many facets of Alan Shepard.”
—Captain James A. Lovell
“Thompson shows that Shepard was an immensely complicated and conflicted
man whose many passions drove him to feats of extraordinary bravery and
accomplishment, but also to dangerous flirtations with self-destructions.”
—Smithsonian Air & Space
“Story-telling at its best . . . Every page is alive.”
—David Hartman,
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
“Tough to say what’s cooler: that Alan Shepard was the first American in space,
or that he hit a golf ball on the moon. Light This Candle chronicles the amazing
life of the brashest, funniest astronaut ever.”
— Men’s Health
“The fullest portrait [of Shepard] yet. Does much to illuminate the life and
personality of perhaps the most private and complex member of the Mercury
Seven.”
—Library Journal
“The thoroughness of his research is impressive, and his fast-paced narrative
keeps the pages turning.”
—Paul Stillwell,
director, History Division, U.S. Naval Institute
“Journalist Thompson reveals another side of this all-American navy pilot with
the right stuff. A snappily written, factual counterbalance to Tom Wolfe’s
sometimes poetic renderings of the heroes of the early space program.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Neal Thompson has taken a larger-than-life figure about whom we thought we
knew all we needed to know, subjected him to rigorous investigative reporting
and dogged shoe-leather research, and produced a gripping, highly readable tale
that makes Alan Shepard, one of the iconic figures of the past half century, even
more fascinating without diminishing his heroic dimensions.”
—Robert Timberg,
author of The Nightingale’s Song and State of Grace: A Memoir of Twilight Time
“A valuable addition to the library of books on the space program.”
— The Houston Chronicle
“Thompson has thoroughly researched Shepard. . . . [The] first full-dress
biography of a complex space pioneer.”
—Booklist
“A quick and thoroughly captivating read.”
—Leatherneck magazine
“A fine book that depicts Shepard vividly. [The] prose crackles with the kind of
energy Americans remember from those first broadcasts from space itself.
Thompson’s persistence in interviewing Shepard’s surviving colleagues has
bared Shepard’s soul in ways the man himself seemed incapable of doing. Light
This Candle, in contrast to the swagger of Wolfe’s Right Stuff, exposes Shepard
as a complex individual who had to battle his own ambition and ego to become a
better man.”
—Kansas City Star
“An illuminating look at America’s first spaceman. [Thompson] writes with
eloquent grace. This is one of the finest books ever written about our space
program. The thoroughness of the author’s research is impressive.”
— The Indianapolis Star
“An extremely readable account of the life of a Navy pilot and America’s first
astronaut hero.”
—Dallas Morning News
“A highly readable effort to explain this remarkable American.”
—The Charlotte Observer
“The story remains irresistible, no matter how often it’s told. . . . Thompson’s