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intense, complex and grim look at the Reconstruction Era Lee's surrender at Appomattox impacts all Americans, but especially those in the south, the border states and even out west. Everywhere people struggle to adjust to the new world order as lives and relationships have changed. In this post war era, on their Stratford plantation, family patriarch Samuel Gatewoods seems in shock as he adjusts. His son Duncan comes home having lost an arm and suffering from battle fatigue syndrome compounded by his fighting as an officer for the losing side. Instead of working the plantation, Duncan builds railroads for former Confederate General Mahone while Samuel supplies them with crossties. Mahone's financer northern carpetbagger Eben Barnwell audaciously courts Samuel's granddaughter Pauline. Samuel's freed slave Jesse gives up on his dream of reuniting with his wife Maggie sold by Samuel when he owned both of them. Instead he is elected a Virginia Assemblyman. Out west, Lakota woman She Goes Before talks about her father's hanging and her rape as she travels to Montana to marry a former slave, Union Sergeant, Ratcliff. As the years go by, Custer is in Montana along with some of those easterners like Eben who left his wife Pauline to seek a new fortune and Ratcliff returning to his military glory days. Though a lot is packed in this profound fascinating look at the grim Reconstruction Era, historical fiction fans will want to read Donald McCaig's CANAAN, the sequel to JACOB'S LADDER. Give yourself plenty of time as the back and forth action can turn complex and convoluted though always intense. The story line focuses on these harassed characters representing three races as each tries to survive a world no longer remotely what it was before the war. Americana readers will appreciate this strong look at what happened in the east, south and west from the day after Appomattox until Custer's Last Stand. Harriet Klausner this could be the historical novel of the year McCaig is at the top his game here. He couldn't get much better. This sequel to JACOB's LADDER reprises some of the same characters but this book is smoking with energy and brilliantly drawn scenes. It seems clear that his ex-slave Private Ratcliffe aka Plenty Cuts aka Top has simply wrested the book away from McCaig. And oh, what a sweet abduction. Set in the dozen years following the close of the Civil War, CANAAN takes readers from Virginia to Montana to New York City and other points south, east, and west. The action is fast and filled with stunning imagery. The carpetbaggers are treacherous. The freed slaves range from bootlickers to insubordinate. And the Indians, Oh the Indians are so well done that McCaig might single-handedly bring back the WESTERN. (Larry McMurtry, take heed). As I mentioned, Ratcliffe steals the show from the ranks of the Union Army as it musters down to the banks of the Little Big Horn and the climactic demise of the Custer boys. I can't give away any more. Read the book. A masterpiece! A Complex Tale, Well Told This book is a sequel to McCaig's award-winning novel, "Jacob's Ladder," but enough background is given in this book to make it understandable for those readers who missed "J.L." McCaig gives us a surprisingly vivid, honest, and complex vision of Virginia, and especially Richmond, during Reconstruction. He does not mince words, accurately depicting the struggles faced by both whites and blacks in the aftermath of war, how each were exploited by the government as well as individuals, and how Northern policies, particularly with respect to railroad development, eventually led to economic ruin. Some of the scenes he paints are not particularly "politically correct," but McCaig has the courage to to tell the truth. This is not a drily told tale -- readers will empathize both with Jesse Burns, the ex-slave turned Virginia assemblyman, and Duncan Gatewood, the son of Jesse's former master, who becomes disillusioned and decides to seek his fortune out West. There a parallel tale unfolds, of similar greed and exploitative policies, this time of the Native Americans. McCaig offers an occasional first-person narrative by a Santee Sioux woman, She Goes Before, narratives that are lyrical and poetic, and speak simply of Sioux beliefs and ways. The story culminates in the battle of Little Big Horn, a "massacre" that might have been avoided, had the government kept its promises and allowed the Native Americans to retain their cultural identity and live a decent life. This is a solid, well-written effort, and my only complaint with it is the same one I had with "Jacob's Ladder": the last quarter of the book feels rushed and isn't told with the same pacing and detail as the first 300 or so pages. As a result, the greed, arrogance, and attitude of entitlement that culminated in Custer's massacre are not as well portrayed, and not as well understood by the reader, as the similar forces that drove Reconstruction policies in the South. But my quibble is a relatively small one. This is a complex story that could have completely imploded in less skilled hands, but McCaig has done an admirable job of researching and writing this cautionary tale about Paradise: how it's defined by different groups of people, the lengths to which people will go to attain it, and the fallacy of seeking it elsewhere, rather than creating your own where you are. This is a terrific historical novel, even better than "Jacob's Ladder." A journey worth your time In much the same vein as Charles Fraziers historic tales, COLD MOUNTAIN (Vintage, 2003) and 13 MOONS (Random House, 2006), another Appalachian native, Donald McCaig, exhibits a similarknack for human warmth. Both have steeped themselves in the essential minutiae of historical fiction, the detail needed to bring old times into clear focus: the tools, the food, the conflict, the gender roles and the primitivism that let a reader visit another century and then provide characters whose fates seem worth following through a 400 page slog. not as good as Jacob's Ladder This was not as good as Jacob's Ladder but it was still great. This authors characters are so vivid you have to keep reading. See also:
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