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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2005, 432 pages
Paperback:
Sep 2006, 448 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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A brilliant debut novel that captures the end of an era, the vast madness of war, and the courage of a remarkable woman to claim life from the grasp of death itself.
In 1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman who has only her former slave to keep
her company…and the almost 1,500 soldiers buried in her backyard. Years
before, rather than let someone plow over the field where these young men had
been buried, Carrie dug them up and reburied them in her own personal cemetery.
Now, as she walks the rows of the dead, an old soldier appears. It is the man
she met on the day of the battle that changed everything. The man who came to
her house as a wounded soldier and left with her heart. He asks if the cemetery
has room for one more.
In an extraordinary debut novel, based on a remarkable true story, Robert
Hicks draws an unforgettable, panoramic portrait of a woman who, through love
and loss, found a cause. Known throughout the country as "the Widow of the
South," Carrie McGavock gave her heart first to a stranger, then to a tract
of hallowed ground - and became a symbol of a nation's soul.
The novel flashes back thirty years to the afternoon of the Battle of
Franklin, five of the bloodiest hours of the Civil War. There were 9,200
casualties that fateful day. Carrie's home - the Carnton plantation - was taken over
by the Confederate army and turned into a hospital; four generals lay dead on
her back porch; the pile of amputated limbs rose as tall as the smoke house. And
when a wounded soldier named Zachariah Cashwell arrived and awakened feelings
she had thought long dead, Carrie found herself inexplicably drawn to him
despite the boundaries of class and decorum. The story that ensues between
Carrie and Cashwell is just as unforgettable as the battle from which it is
drawn.
The Widow of The South is a brilliant novel that captures the end of an era,
the vast madness of war, and the courage of a remarkable woman to claim life
from the grasp of death itself.
Also available as a Time Warner Audiobook, in a Large Print Edition and as an
eBook.
excerpt from the Prologue
1894
Carrie watched him go and then turned to Mariah, whom she had once owned, a
gift to her from her father. She was a gift, whatever the meaning and
implications of that word. Mariah had been her tether to the earth when things
had spun away, when Carrie wasn't sure if there remained a real and true life for
her, and then when she wasn't sure if she wanted that life even if it existed.
Things had been different once. She couldn't believe that she had ever been so .
. . what? Weak? No, that wasn't it. She'd never been weak. She'd been
buffeted and knocked down, like grass bent to the ground by the wind preceding a
thunderstorm. She'd been slow to get up. But she did get up, eventually. There
had been no choice. She was not afraid of much, and she especially wasn't afraid
of God. Not anymore, not for a long time.
"Mariah, what do you see?"
A mockingbird chased a hawk across the width of the ...
Hicks' first novel blends historical fact with fiction.
The story centers on Carrie McGavock, known as 'the widow of the south' - a
Confederate woman whose house was commandeered as a field hospital following the
Battle of Franklin (fought in November 1864 close to Nashville, Tennessee) -
one of the bloodiest battles of the war with 9,200 casualties, mostly
Confederate soldiers. The novel opens 30 years after the battle and then
flashes back to the day of the battle - a day when four generals lay dead on
Carrie's back porch, the pile of amputated limbs rose as tall as the smoke
house, and a wounded soldier named Zachariah Cashwell arrived who would shake
Carrie out of her stupor allowing her to find new purpose in her life.
The story is told from alternating points of view, including Mariah, Carrie's
slave-turned friend; Carrie's husband, who returns to his plantation after the
war; various soldiers from both sides; Carrie's neighbors; and Confederate general, Nathan Forrest. This
allows Hicks to write about the small human stories from various points of view,
as well as the epic catastrophe of the Civil War itself.
..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Anne Rivers Siddons
A memorable, many-faceted account of one of the definitive events of
our history. To read this thrilling story is to encounter and recognize
something essential of the worst and best about ourselves. What a wonderful story Robert Hicks has told. It speaks powerfully to us
today. Kevin Baker, author of Dreamland and Paradise Alley
A poignant, evocative account of one of the last bursts of fury in our
terrible Civil War, and what came after. It is a fine story of love, war,
regret, and reconciliation. Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring
A wonderful novel...Hicks has perfected the art of mixing fact and fiction, and turned the book into a sustained, profound meditation on what it means to live, to love, and to die. Congratulations to Robert Hicks - he has written a moving and magnificent novel.Robert Hicks was born and raised in South Florida. In 1974 he moved to Tennessee where he now lives in an eighteenth-century log cabin near Leiper's Fork. His day job is music publishing and artist management but his passion is collecting - including 18th century maps of Tennessee, Tennesseana in general and Southern decorative arts. He was the driving force behind, and co-curator of, the Art of Tennessee exhibition in Nashville which opened in September 2003 and has served on the boards ...
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