About book Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (2001)
Quoting excerpts from this extraordinary book: "11 days after the fire comes the afternoon of leaving. Children make extra-secret jaunts to the woods. Like going to a zoo, or visiting some charming friend in jail. How strange the furnishings look resting out here, half under tarps. The Brookside glade makes treasures seem more valuable and perfect. A test for beautiful furniture: Does it still look beautiful in a beautiful woods?" Gurganus' descriptions are vivid, almost liquid! You can breathe the same air as his humbled or tortured characters. Always had a fixation almost for Civil War history. This is my second novel on the subject I have ever read, however. When I don't know an author I just like to open a book I haven't yet read to some point & start reading there--to hear the writer's voice. That's why I shared the above amazing excerpt; these are the spoken speech of slaves only just being freed..."Children coax canvas aside. They bounce on upholstery. Inlaid drawers they fill with pinecones. For kids, it all seems some ghosty tea party they've finally been invited to. A red velvet footstool rests beside an even greener velvet moss. Evidence has hung 60 apple-green Spode teacups by their handles from one thorn tree's briars. Honey a breeze convenes a banquet of clinking. Doubled Oriental rugs fly from boughs, patterned bold as flags from Africa.The coveted ham now soaked, cooked, prepared has now disappeared from out the smokehouse. "Bet It got it," Zelia nodded towards a silent one. "And don't play dumb with me, you. I onto your tricks!..." Excerpt p. 347.
I had a hard time deciding between two and three stars. This book is very, very long, and it jumps back and forth between the interview process and the widow's telling of her own story. I had hoped for more insight into the two main characters than I got from the movie, based on comments a friend made to me about the book, but I didn't really find it in the male character's story. The widow is very much like in the movie, though you do get more of an in-depth look at her ornery personality, which led her to a May-December marriage with an unstable and very troubled man. She's very funny at times, and amazingly strong to have dealt with jumping into adulthood as ill-prepared for it as she was.There's a lot of engaging day-to-day life details about post-Civil War life. The relationship between the child bride and the housekeeper in charge of the older husband's home is an interesting one, and I enjoyed the development of it. This book is definitely worth reading, but it is long and I didn't find it to be an intense page-turner.
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I'm going to tell you the biggest drawbacks of this book right up front. First - I had tried to read it several years ago and abandoned it. Almost abandoned it this time too. I had to read past the obligatory 100 pages before it engaged me. And believe the title when it says "tells all". My copy was 875 pages long. Which is plenty long. But this book had a way of not letting you seem to be making any progress. I'd be one inch into the book. Read for a week. And still be only one inch into the book. The pages are so thin and the words are crammed onto the paper -I'd say it translates into a 2,000 page book. Ok, all my silly things are done. The book has plenty of 5 star moments. Lucy is a peach. It's humorous and heartfelt. Informative and thought provoking. A treasure really. But not for every single page. Which is a lot to ask of a book I grant you. I love her mothering moments with her 9 children. I love her story-treasures about the civil war and the transitioning of the south after the war. I'd say definitely read this one. But I just can't make myself give it another star.
—Melody
Several of my favorite novels, I have discovered, were written by people who had no business writing a novel like that. This is one of them.Allan Gurganus managed to write a novel about the past hundred and fifty years in the deep south, in the voice of a woman, while keeping it sincere, engaging, realistic, and entertaining. The characters feel real. Even the people who only inhabit the book for a page. This book takes an historical time and makes it a breathing place; if that distinction makes any sense.It's sad and funny and a little weird. It's so sincere and unflinching that sometimes it is hard to look at, but you have to. You have to know what happens next. At least, I did.
—Jen3n
Officially, what I consider a tome, Gurganus' masterpiece, is one of the finest examples of historical fiction, and particularly the Civil War.Forget the dreadful made-for-television movie, forget 'Gone With The Wind'. There is a langorous chapter midway into the story that depicts Sherman's March to the sea, told by the plantation owners and slaves who watched the plumes of smoke from distant homes, knowing their lives would be burned out from under them very soon. The images evoked in this chapter still resonate with me.I've been a fan of Mr. Gurganus ever since.
—Timothy Juhl
