[.ca] The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War (ISBN 0312280696)

From Amazon.com:
Midway through Howard Bahr's gripping, evocative second novel, Colonel Burduck sums up the Civil War with this rueful conclusion: "Too much had happened, was still happening, and enough remained for generations to wallow in bitterness, making charge and countercharge, revising and accusing and apologizing long after the smoke had drifted away on the wind, and those who had walked through the smoke were dust." The Year of Jubilo, set in Cumberland, Mississippi, in the summer of 1865, is the account of some who passed through that smoke. A reluctant soldier, Gawain Harper was goaded into joining the Confederate forces in 1862 by the rabid secessionist Judge Rhea, father of the woman Harper loves. After three years of fighting the Union, the former professor of literature is now trudging home defeated and confused, weighed down by the thought that he is "walking through someone else's memory." The South of his past has indeed vanished, and the town Harper returns to is now governed by the victorious (but wary) soldiers of the North and overflowing with vengeful planters, opportunistic spies, and the fear and ingrained attitudes of its vanquished citizens. These characters are larger than life, as only those who live in such a land and time--one of Queen Anne's lace and poisonous snakes, of Victorian manners and the human indignity of slavery--can be. There's "King" Solomon Gault, the ruthless captain of a band of insurrectionists, plotting an attack on the ruling army; Colonel Burduck, the battle-worn commander who captured slave ships off the African coast in his youth and must now maintain order in a region that once supported slavery; Molochi Fish, a grotesque semi-being who lurks on the edges of humanity, scarred by brutality and meting it out in return; and of course Harper, who, spurred on by the meddling but ebullient Harry Stribling, dives back into this mess to create a life and retrieve a love. Time is as enveloping in The Year of Jubilo as the lingering smoke of war and the sudden downpours that drench Cumberland's burned landscape. Bahr weaves his characters in and out of one another's lives, creating an almost smothering net. Harper notes, "they were spared of death, so must once again pay the tally for living; free, so they were indentured to tomorrow." In a fascinating narrative of epic proportion and intricate detail, Bahr intertwines life, love, loyalty (or the lack thereof), freedom, slavery, and death. --S. Ketchum

Simply Gorgeous:
I'd give it 10 stars if I could! Only one other book in the last five years has been able to match the literary prose of this novel. This is a gem for lovers of words and stories!

Master Story Teller:
Howard Bahr has a way of bringing the reader into the landscape of his story. With rich text and description he makes the process of visualizing the scene very clear and rewarding. Whether describing the shadow of leaves on a face or the rheumy eyes of Molochi Fish you have a clear vision as the story unfolds. Bahr has a way of gently weaving the tale through the eyes of the characters and the landscape that they inhabit. Mr. Bahr evokes a real feeling of the ghosts, the grief and the loss every character brings to the story in a palpable way. There is a distinct sense of what losses are brought about by war and hate. This book was a pleasure to read and I will look forward to Mr. Bahr's next book.

Harry S. is so cool!!:
You can smell the gunpowder(sort of). This provides you with an excellent snapshot of the post-civil war south. You've got free slaves, ex-rebles, a crazy grave digger and an ex slave catcher. The story is extremly solid but it does tend to go into the descriptive narative just a little too much. You will like this book if you like an above par civil war novel. In other words this book is not in the same leauge as "North and South". The only reason I don't give 5 stars is because of the ending, I didn't get it.

After the war came the fighting:
In The Year of Jubilo, Howard Bahr tells the story of Gawain Harper's return to his home in Cumberland, Miss. after the end of the War Between the States. Waiting for him are his father, his Aunt Vassar, while Morgan Rhea, the woman he loves, believes him dead. As he nears home, he begins meeting up with strange characters: some he knew before, others are strangers, all of them will figure in his life for the next few days. Returning home was rarely easy for Confederate soldiers. Like most, Gawain finds things much changed. His family home is run down. His father is ill. Many homes and businesses lie in ruins. And Union soldiers are camped within the town. Still, he hopes to settle back into civilian life, a life he wants to share with Morgan. However, King Solomon Gault, a self-styled officer and guerilla leader, has other plans for Cumberland and those who live in the area. For him and his followers, the war is far from over, and there are neighbors who deserve punishment at his hands. Gawain deals with Gault and his own demons as best he can and with the help of strange bedfellows. Bahr has created believable characters and events. His prose style makes for a beautiful reading experience and, although superb, never gets in the way of the story. It spans only a few days, is a quick read, and one that the reader will dwell on for a while.

A Novel That Lingers On A Reader's Palate:
I suspect that Howard Bahr took this book's title from an Old Testament precept, the "year of jubilee," in which old debts and constraints were to be forgiven, leading to the promise of a new start for all concerned. If so, you may find yourself -- at first -- wondering if there isn't a certain sense of irony to his choice of title. And yes, I believe there is: So many of this novel's characters find themselves mired in the traditions and mores of their recently-vanquished society that it's tempting to wonder how they'll ever find their way into the future. And yet, Bahr holds out the promise that they (or at least some of them) just may manage to do it. In a way, ghosts pervade this novel, in the way that so many of its characters struggle to reconcile the overlapping layers of pre- and post-Civil War society. People and places once known and perceived in a certain way have to be reevaluated in the light of the current moment. This sense of ghostliness is emphasized through a wise choice of settings and circumstance: for example, a chance encounter with a murky mirror, a murderer's nocturnal movements . . . More than one character seems to fear that he'll encounter his old self coming round the bend at any given moment. Bahr has crafted his characters with care, compassion, and, above all, affection. It is because of this that the reader comes to feel an almost personal stake in what happens to them; it also doesn't hurt that the novel's setting and its events are delineated with equal care. The characters, and their actions, tend to remain in a reader's subconscious long after the final page has been turned. Ultimately, of course, "The Year of Jubilo" serves as a parable for each of us: Clothed in the events of more than a century ago, it still serves to remind us that life -- or, at least, any life worth leading -- is a process of adapting to (and, hopefully, triumphing over) change. For the majority of us, thankfully, the catalyst for much of those changes will most likely not be so traumatic as a civil war and its resultant upheaval. We may not face the challenges of Gawain Harper or Morgan Rhea, to cite but two examples from this novel; but our own lives can be illuminated -- and enlightened -- by their actions, as by those of many others in this novel. And this illumination and enlightenment, cloaked within solid entertainment, is the ultimate mission of any good work of literature. "The Year of Jubilo" certainly qualifies in both categories. Resoundingly!