Here was another audio book which I picked up during a library visit. Something about it just caught my eye. It was probably the cover, because I remember it making an impression on me. Must have paid something like 50 cents or so for it.
Money well spent, trust me.
This one follows a young man of 19 years named Summerfield Hayes. He has enlisted and is a soldier who enlists for the Army during the Civil War. Perhaps he thought he would do his country a service. Or perhaps he had visions of heroics and glory. Maybe it was even to escape some of the demons that he was enduring in a difficult situation back home, where he has developed certain inappropriate feelings - perhaps an infatuation, or an unhealthy form of love between brother and sister - which makes him feel more than a little uncomfortable.
Now it should be noted that I wanted to review this one without too many spoilers. However, the description of the feelings which he develops for his sister Sarah were on the description right on the back cover, so it did not seem like a big secret or anything. Additionally, we learn this fact fairly early in the book. So it hardly felt like this qualified as some kind of a spoiler.
Anyway, back to the story. We find him lost in the wilderness, literally, somewhere in the woods of Virginia. He is trying to stay on a northeastern course, in order to get back to his home in Brooklyn, to see his sister again (or so he hopes). Clearly, he wants to be able to enjoy the comforts of home again. Play a little baseball, which we quickly learn he is very good at (a standout at the professional level), and which seems to give him a certain joy and sense of belonging in the world.
However, he has been wounded. At first, everything about his condition is a mystery. He himself does not even know the full extent of what is wrong with him, and barely seems to remember much about his own experiences. Indeed, the early part of this book reminded me a bit - sometimes quite a bit - of Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun." This impression probably holds true for portions of the book, particularly in the early part, mostly because it occurs in a much earlier (and possibly more innocent) time in American history, and with the soldier feeling clearly disoriented, not even sure of the nature or extent of his injuries, both internal and external.
Of course, there are differences between the two books. And whatever similarities exist between the two books are largely gone before too long anyway, as this story begins to veer in a very different direction. While the boy in Trumbo's classic is actually lying helpless in some kind of a hospital bed in some unknown location (to the soldier and to the reader both), Summerfield basically gets lost in the Virginia woods.
Before I go to far now with possible spoilers, let me just sum up that I really enjoyed this book. Dennis McFarland does an incredible job of creating a believable setting in a much more rural America back in the days of the Civil War. Each of the characters - including and especially Summerfield Hayes, the main character and the one who we get the overall perspectives of events and other characters throughout the book - are believable and very human. Thus, they are relatable, as are the events. We feel the doubts that there actually will be a war, even while we the reader of course know that there indeed will be a very real and quite brutal war between the states.
This book does not pretend to provide a factual record of the war, nor does it proceed in anything resembling chronological order. Nevertheless, it is written so well that you almost feel like you are living through these events, even though the story takes place in a chapter of American history that occured well over a century and a half ago.
So I would highly recommend this book, particularly for history buffs, or really for anyone who enjoys a solid work of fiction.
Here is the point where I should warn about spoilers, because in reviewing more details, there will be spoilers.
*****SPOILERS*****
*****SPOILERS*****
*****SPOILERS*****
Okay, so by now, if you are still reading, I have to assume that for whatever the reason, you do not mind any spoilers coming up. So let me proceed.
Ultimately, just as Hayes seems about to resign himself to his injuries and to death, he instead is saved, waking up in a hospital bed. There is the sense that quite some time has passed. Summerfield senses that his wounds (which were on his back and the back of his thigh, in places which he could not physically see) have now largely healed. He is sure that he is free from the bandages that the wounds were dressed in. Also, we keep hearing others talking about how he is perfectly healthy, yet occupying a bed needed by really injured soldiers in an overcrowded hospital.
The hospital itself almost feels like a character in this book. It is right by a canal which reeks of sewage, and the open windows allow this foul stench in. The beds are numbered, showing just how many people are in the particular ward which Hayes now finds himself in (I think it was about 30 or more). Of course, most of the soldiers occupying the beds have very serious conditions. Even fatal conditions, in many cases. We quickly learn that Hayes is pretty much the healthiest man in there. Yet, he has lost his ability to speak, or even to communicate by writing, since his hands begin to shake very badly. Thus, he is basically an unknown soldier, and so everyone there refers to him as Mr. X. Meanwhile, he is not entirely sure that actually revealing his identity is such a good idea, especially since there is an officer of the Army who is absolutely convinced that Hayes is milking the system, and that he is a deserter. He poses a real threat to Hayes.
While there is a threat in this sense to Hayes, the hospital offers him not just respite, but allies. This includes Doctor Bliss, who is in charge of the hospital (and thus a powerful ally) and a famous poet by the name of Walt (yes, Walt Whitman, although I am not entirely sure that they ever actually confirm his last name anywhere in the book, although they do on the back cover). Walt visits the injured troops, but takes a special interest in Hayes (known as Mr. X). We later learn that he is quite taken by the silence of Hayes, as he is unable to speak or communicate.
Eventually, we learn the horrific details of Summerfield's experience during one Civil War battle. It lasted only three days, a fact which astonishes him, because it felt much longer to him. This is when this novel really goes in a very different direction than Trumbo's famous anti-war book. We learn the gory details of Summerfield observing his comrades getting their heads blown off and suffering even far more gruesome outcomes. One of the worst happens to a boy Billy) just hours after Summerfield has rationalized with Billy not to desert and head home. So Summerfield feels the full weight of guilt, on top of the trauma of witnessing such things.
We learn in time that Summerfield Hayes has, in fact, not himself received any serious wounds. He has only imagined them. Thus, he wants to "go back to the front," a phrase that he finds a bit absurd. This time, he wants to get real wounds. But both Doctor Bliss and Walt suspect that this would be a very bad idea. Meanwhile, Hayes may be about to get transferred to an insane asylum, even though he really is not suffering from insanity (although he is suffering).
Finally, Summerfield does find his voice. Before long, everyone knows his name. The officer out to get him finally gets a chance to grill Hayes, to try and trip him up. By the end of the interview, it appears that another doctor has succeeded in making his case that Hayes should be brought to his asylum, something that clearly does not please either the officer on one side, nor Walt or Doctor Bliss on the other hand.
Soon, Bliss and Walt come up with a plan that allows Summerfield to escape. He is doubtful, not sure if it is the right thing, or if it will work.
It works. Yet before he goes, he has a conversation - really for the first time - with a Nurse Anne (not to be confused with Nurse Anne from Stephen King's Misery) who has grown kind of sweet on him. There is a mutual attraction there, and the reader is left wanting them to get together. She gives him a note revealing how to reach her once he is gone, and hopes that he will write her.
Next thing Hayes knows, he is back in Brooklyn. But the situation between him and his now engaged sister Sarah is more tense than ever. Eventually, unable to stop himself, he actually kisses his sister in ways that, generally speaking, brothers do not kiss their sisters. Things become awkward between them, but this situation is lightened considerably when, quite unexpectedly, Walt pays he and his sister a visit. Hayes suddenly feels a need to escape, to walk out of the house, and asks Walt to speak to his sister. He does, and this ends the tensions between Summerfield and Sarah considerably.
Meanwhile, Summerfield's experience when he walks away from the house proves strange. He goes to the docks, and sees ships and all sorts of activities. One old man approaches him, and despite Summerfield's hopes that the old man will not discuss the war, it is indeed what he talks about. We learn that the old man has lost both of his sons to the conflict. He believes Summerfield never participated, and is not contradicted by Summerfield in this regard. Hayes then contemplates the permanent, never-ending pattern of ceaseless activity going on here at the pier.
When he returns, the situation between him and Sarah has grown better. Eventually, she breaks off her engagement. Meanwhile, despite some earlier reticence to do so, he rejoins his old baseball team. He is rusty at first, but begins to shake the rust off little by little as the first game wears on. Eventually, he hits a home run, but suddenly remembers all of the horrors of the war that he was recently a part of while he is rounding the bases. When he returns home (fittingly), he bursts out into involuntary tears, an act which astonishes and silences everyone watching. His teammates eventually come and surround him, and he hears different members of the team debating whether or not he was ready to rejoin the team, if it was not too soon. It is reminiscent of how not long ago at the hospital, it seemed that everyone else was discussing his health and fate, while he himself was rendered mute from the horrors of war. A great and symbolic encapsulation.
Then, Hayes notices a blade of grass. At this point, the influence of the poetry of Walt Whitman is obvious. Yet, Summerfield seems to see another vision of permanence, this one revealing a future that anyone of his era cannot possibly have seen, or possibly even imagined.
Again, this was a very good book. Descriptive, and also managing to address some realities of that era which clearly differ from our own, this makes that era, and the Civil War, feel far more relevant than some series of historical events in some distant point in out national story. It makes that era feel alive, while also being an easy and pleasant read.
Highly recommended.
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