Helpful Score: 1
This historical novel is centered around the marriage and lives of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell. It is wrttten by the author of "Cold Mountain" and I really loved that book. However, this Charles Frazier novel never seems to kick into gear and I found the story only mildly interesting. The bulk of the story takes place after the Confederacy has lost the war and we are mostly shown the toll it takes on Varina. The story flashes back to their earlier lives before the war and we learn that when she married him he was a farmer with no political aspirations. With an almost 30 year age difference between them, they had a strained marriage that did best when they lived apart. Varina was a very intelligent woman who could be the life of the party but she made some poor life choices. I wanted to read this book because I thought the story provided an unusual perspective by being told not from Jefferson Davis' point-of-view but instead from his wife's point-of-view. Unfortunately, it seemed to lack focus, wandering through the events of their lives. However, the story does provide an intimate view of their private lives that may have been previously missing from Civil War histories.
I wanted to like it, I really did...but it just didn't hang together right. It was the structure of the back and forth in time which was not done well and so a big distraction while reading. That said, Charles Frazier has some beautiful writing in it--many phrases, sentences or descriptions of time and place were just beautiful and I found myself staring and reading them over and over again.It reminded me he is a good author, just this book was a dud. But the constant 'head dialogue between Varina and Jimmie' was not done well. You got thoroughly sick of listening to Varina's philsophy on life and daily opium habit. I did take the time to go online and see what the real people looked like--that was interesting. Also the book cover was beautiful, I should mention that.
I enjoy the author, but this book is a dud for me. It is dull and drags. I agree with the previous reviewers heartily. I did not finish it.
I enjoyed this story of the 2nd wife of Jefferson Davis. An imperfect union, to say the least, they spent a lot of time apart. Told as shared memories with an orphan she had cared for, this account covers her life as a young bride with truly awful inlaws, as the wife of a U.S. Congressman/then Senator, then President of the Confederacy, and finally as a fugitive who relocated to Europe and later New York. Often a sad life, she outlived her husband, most of her friends, and all but one of her children.
