Summarize the book Unbroken

Summary of the book Unbroken:

‘UNBROKEN’ (2010) by Laura Hillenbrand is a non-fictional account of survival, resilience and redemption.  It was on the New York Times best seller list for four years.  The story revolves around the main protagonist Louie Zamperini, how he re-finds his faith and wins a battle against alcohol, forgiving the wrongdoers.

In the beginning of the story, as a boy he is a menace, stealing food from the neighbors and running away all the time. His elder brother encourages him to develop his interest of running further and we see him participating in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

Then begins the World War II and he enlists himself in the United States Army Air Corps. He becomes a bombardier and fights many battles along with his crew courageously in his unrelenting ‘super-man’. However, it is replaced with the ‘Green Hornet’, which crashes immediately killing 11 aboard. Three survive, including Louie. Other two were Mac and Phil. They devise ways to survive on the life raft. Mac dies.

Phil and Louie are captured by the Japanese, abused and tortured till the war ends. Louie reunites with his family, marries Cynthia Apple white. He suffers from flashbacks from the war, tries to escape reality, loses interest and direction and turns into an alcoholic. He especially remembers the torture by ‘the Bird’, a sadistic guard. He wants to kill him.

Circumstances worsen to the extent that Cynthia files a divorce. Billy Graham’s revivals serve a savior. On the insistence of Cynthia to at least attend one, Louie attends and is reminded of his bargain with God. He leaves his bad habits, and his marriage and his life experience a revival.

He forgives ‘the Bird’ and rekindles his love for running, carrying the Olympic torch past a place where he was once imprisoned.

Answer:

Unbroken is a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war in three brutal Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.