An impressive blend of history and fiction in need of additional editing.
Snell’s Civil War novel documents the savage treatment of prisoners of war.
George Corbett joins the 8th Virginia Cavalry in 1861 and reluctantly permits his 15-year-old son, Harley, to follow suit. In 1863, the two are separated in the fog of battle, and Harley is shot in the arm and taken prisoner by Union soldiers. He’s transported to Point Lookout, Maryland, and incarcerated in a prisoners-of-war camp, the conditions of which are ghastly. Prisoners routinely face physical abuse, starvation, and squalid filth. George, tortured by guilt over his son’s fate, becomes hopeful when he learns that Gen. Lee has hatched a covert plan to rescue the 20,000 POWs, a perilously risky venture made all the more dangerous when the Union soldiers discover it and prepare for the attack. The tide of war has turned against the South, and the Confederacy is in desperate need of soldiers. Harley is imprisoned with his Uncle Steve—nicknamed “Devil Steve” for his penchant for brutal violence. Steve undergoes macabre abuse by a former slave, Big Jake Brown, who became a Union soldier and guard at the camp. Jake was once ferociously beaten by Steve before he killed his owners and escaped, and he intends to exact retribution. Debut author Snell’s meticulous research is nothing short of remarkable. He studied official camp inspection reports, period memoirs, and even visited the historical sites in question in order to paint an authentic portrait of the prison’s barbarity. With the exception of Steve’s monstrously deformed character, the author paints a morally nuanced picture of both sides. George’s inner conflict is a good example of this authorial sensitivity. An educated Southerner, he can’t help but find slavery repugnant, but he still practices slavery and chooses to fight for the Confederacy. The novel reads like an uncorrected draft: the dialogue is written in historically appropriate dialect while the narration largely isn’t, though it lapses inexplicably into it occasionally. Also, while the table of contents provides pagination, the pages themselves are left unnumbered.
An impressive blend of history and fiction in need of additional editing.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973267-23-2
Page Count: 431
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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