RAT HELL: A Story of Escape

by Peter Burchard ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 1971

Here is the quintessential escape story, distilled of social theme, probing psychology, historical synopsis, even physical conflict -- any of which would be an intrusion -- and reduced to a sharply realized, forty-page account (based on the actual 1864 escape of some hundred Yankee officers from a Virginia prison) of one prisoner's course from his final digging on the tunnel of escape to his temporary shelter in a Southern home of divided allegiance. The Civil War setting is made tangible in a few deft, integral details; human encounters are acutely drawn but never expanded, never explored. No fine reverberations here or wider implications, as in Jed and Bimby, just an even briefer and more highly concentrated passage through Rat Hell.

Pub Date: May 7, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION