BREAKFAST AT THE HERMITAGE

This trilogy (or will there be a ""luncheon book""?) has a unique, almost old school charm, and while Breakfast at the Hermitage may not have quite the historic importance of Dinner at Belmont (Civil War) or Supper at the Nawell House (Reconstruction period) -- this latest addition somehow links the past with the fringes of our own times, recalling almost remembered things (the last horse-drawn street cars, the first Chicago World's Fair, the bringing back to life The Hermitage as General Jackson would have wished it, etc.). And it has a charm all its own, sincerity, a real love for rebuilding beauty into Nashville, a notalgic reverence for the old beauties, heritage of South and North. A thread of romance and the story of the rise of a young architect provide the human link between old ways and new.