Band of Angels [Paperback]

Robert Penn Warren (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Signet Books; First Edition edition (1956)
• ASIN: B001GMFJIY
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Scarlett O'Hara Had been a Slave, October 13, 1999

By 

Joel M Sax - See all my reviews

This review is from: Band of Angels (Voices of the South) (Paperback)

This is perhaps the best novel ever written about the Civil War and Reconstruction. Unlike Gone with the Wind, the denizens of Warren's South aren't caricatures but complex human beings. You feel the hurt and disappointment of many people, sucked into the tensions of the antebellum South, the abolitonist North, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. "Little Miss Manty" is one of the most engaging characters in fiction. Warren never patronizes anyone. Each page is filled with rich imagery and points for deep reflection.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Freedom and identity, April 26, 2006

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Band of Angels (Voices of the South) (Paperback)

Set from just prior to the Civil War up to about 1888, this novel explores the concepts of freedom and self-identity. Told in the first person by the main character, Amantha Starr is the daughter of a rich Kentucky planter and one of his slaves. She goes to Cincinnati with her father where under the tutelage of Miss Idell (one of Warren's best character creations in the novel) she is readied for Oberlin College. At Oberlin she meets Seth Parton and learns about abolitionism from him, which she immediately uses against her father to get him to free his slaves. It doesn't work, but it makes her feel powerful for the first time, which Warren makes ironic since after her father dies Amantha learns that he never manumitted her: she is sold into slavery and sent to New Orleans.

Now the property of Hamish Bond, she learns to "protect" herself with self-pity. After New Orleans falls to the Federals, she marries the Union officer Tobias Sears. Sears is a fiery promoter of freedom for the slaves and black rights, but the wealth to be made in Reconstruction contaminates him; he begins drinking heavily and becomes an utter failure, to his cause and to himself. It's with this realization about Sears that Amantha, who has always relied on the men around her (her father, Parton, Bond, Sears) to define and control her, throws off the cloak of self-pity and stands up for herself for the first time.

Warren's message is that if Amantha was looking to others to set her free, she was wasting her time: her freedom can only come from within herself. It's an important idea, worth repeated reminding. Dense with period details, and sometimes melodramatic, the novel is nevertheless compelling. Based on a true story and made into a movie starring Clark Gable as Bond and Yvonne De Carlo as Amantha.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful romantic read by (surprise!) a male writer., January 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Band of Angels (Voices of the South) (Paperback)

This is a wonderful read. You will "get lost" in Warren's evocative recreation of the post civil war period as he follows the fortunes of a young woman who is technically "colored," but was raised in "white" society by her white father. Unsurprisingly, her circumstances undergo a great change once her father dies and she loses his protection and the position that came with it. Read this book and get a nice surprise!