Eugene Bullard's life could have inspired many shelves of books and more than one motion picture, yet he has remained largely unknown until now. His father, born in slavery, raised him on tales of France as a land free from the racist animus of his native United States. As a young teen, he ran away from his home in Georgia and embarked on a journey that would eventually take him there. Bullard made a living as a jockey, an entertainer and a boxer, and had already lived a life of adventure before the Great War broke out. He then enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, where he would eventually become the first African American combat pilot. In the interwar years, Bullard played in and eventually managed a jazz club, where he employed such future celebrities as Josephine Baker and Langston Hughes--and also spied on Nazi officers.
In All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard--Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy, Phil Keith (Stay the Rising Sun) and Tom Clavin (Wild Bill, The Dimaggios) take great care to examine any discrepancies in differing sources, and they build the intrigue with cinematic detail. In one case, a night at Bullard's club involved Nazis, members of the French resistance who couldn't know his motives in entertaining them, and Dooley Wilson, who would go on to play Sam in Casablanca. This is a fascinating look at a life that, if it were fiction, would be too amazing to be believed. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library