A Separate Country
Jun 24, 2009
Author: Robert Hicks
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: September, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-58164-6
Robert Hicks wrote one of the first books I ever reviewed - Widow of the South. An excellent book that I still recommend if you haven't yet read it.
He continues to bring great storytelling into his newest book, A Separate Country.
This is the story of John Bell Hood, a well known Confederate General that gave much of himself and his body to the cause. As with all war heroes, after the battles are done, they find themselves wandering lost, with people loving them, loathing them, or ignoring their presence in polite society as being a little too hardened and ruthless.
John Hood was definitely hardened. He was also very rough around the edges and missing a few body parts from the war - namely one arm and one leg.
But a lovely part of this story is the Creole Beauty from the best of families who was a wild child on the inside and saw something in John that would let her live a life she wanted as opposed to what was proper. She wooed him relentlessly.
The story starts when John is in his final hours of life. He had maintained his marriage successfully, had 11 children, gone from riches to abject poverty and was now going to meet his maker.
But first he calls upon a man who had been under his command in the war and gives him one final task. There are biographies out there in the world about John and his victories during the fighting and he states that these stories are not true. He has written the truth down on pieces of paper scattered throughout his house.
He tasks this soldier with not only putting together the true story of his life and making sure it's published for the world to see, but also to destroy the stories and manuscripts from other sources, which do not show the truth.
As the soldier attempts to follow the General's orders, we follow along and ......................
we get the real story of his life.
