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The Confederate General Rides North: A Novel

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Title The Confederate General Rides North: A Novel
Author Amanda C Gable
Rating ****1/2
Tags 1960s, childhood, mother-daughter relationship, mental illness


Upfront disclaimer: I know the author of this book, and like her quite a bit though it has been a few years since I've seen her. She is a bright woman and a kind person. So I was quite excited to hear she has published a novel, and was prepared to be kind to it even if it turned out to not be my kind of book.

Happily, that isn't necessary. It is indeed a fine novel. The narrator is Katherine, an 11 year old girl who is obsessed with the idea of being a Confederate general. It is the late 1960s. One summer morning her mother announces that the two of them are going to take a long trip from their home in Marietta, Georgia up to Maine, buying antiques for the store they are going to open.

Katherine knows her Mother has her rocky days, but the trip sounds exciting. The farther they go, the more disturbing the plans. For one thing, her mother reveals that they are going to live in Maine and open the store there. Katherine hurts at the idea she will not see her father and grandparents for a long time. Along the way, Katherine gets to visit some of the major Civil War battle sites, and learns that war is not the noble thing she had thought.

On the surface, there's not a lot of action in the novel. Yet it is a marvelous book, an excellent exploration of character. This will be one of my favorite books of 2009.


Publication Scribner (2009), Hardcover, 288 pages
Publication date 2009
ISBN 1416598391 / 9781416598398

"The Confederate General Rides North" is a vivid and genuine story of a young girl's inner life and imagination as she navigates her family's changes and the world around her during the south in the late 1960s. Gable's a terrific writer, and this is an engaging novel.

Katherine and her capricious mother take off suddenly for an unplanned antique buying trip, telling no one else in the family. As they travel up the Atlantic coast, Katherine imagines herself a general in the Civil War, always concerned for the safety of her troops. The leadership decisions Katherine must make as a general parallel those she needs to make on this road trip. Ms. Gable deftly moves between Katherine's fantasies and her current life.

Although there is little action in the usual sense, I turned pages with delicious anticipation, wanting to know what Mother would do and what choices Katherine would make.

I look forward to more from the talented Ms. Gable.

Book Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "Get up, baby," Mother says. "We're going on an adventure."

It's the 1960s, and eleven-year-old Katherine McConnell's mother is most definitely taking her daughter on an adventure. Without a word of good-bye to anyone, Kat's mother has her pack a bag and then they hop in the car for a road trip north to Boston and Cape Cod, where Margaret McConnell grew up. Margaret plans to open an antique shop, and they're going to make stops along the way to buy merchandise for the store.

Kat is dragging her feet a bit, especially when she's told that she can't say good-bye to her father or grandparents, so to sweeten the deal, her mother tells her that Kat can be in charge of the itinerary. This makes Kat's eyes shine because she daydreams of being a Confederate general in a spotless uniform riding a beautiful horse. If Kat plans the itinerary, she's going to make sure they stop at as many Civil War battlefields as they possibly can.

Mother and daughter haven't gone many miles down the road before the reader has a very strong feeling that something's up... and that Katherine McConnell is a very special eleven-year-old girl. Her obsession with the Civil War isn't the run-of-the-mill obsession of a horse-crazed tomboy. Kat uses her knowledge of the Civil War and its generals as a coping mechanism:

"The Confederate general often feels very alone; after all, everything is up to her. Even if she gets advice from her staff, the decisions are hers. She can't reveal her uncertainties to anyone. Her men and her staff need to be confident in her, confident in her abilities; it wouldn't be good for them to know about the times that she is unsure and confused. To know that she questions her own resolve."



The farther the road trip progressed, the more foreboding I felt. Would an eleven-year-old be able to deal with what I felt was coming? It's been a while since I've been this involved with characters in a book, but Kat and her mother had me wound up tighter than an eight-day clock. By the end of The Confederate General Rides North, I wanted to hug the stuffin' out of Kat McConnell-- and author Amanda C. Gable. Gable's debut novel had me very emotionally involved from beginning to end, and that doesn't happen very often. I'm looking forward with great anticipation to her next book.

I had never heard of this book before attending the Southern Festival of Books in nearby Nashville last October. I love my yearly trek to Tennessee's capital to discover new authors each year, and Amanda Gable is quite a discovery, indeed. I found it very easy to relate with protagonist Katherine McConnell since I also grew up in the South as a fairly dorky, history buff kinda kid who had some conflicting emotions about the South's checkered past in the areas of slavery and civil rights. This book tackles these subjects and more with aplomb.

As Katherine and her mother travel further North and Katherine begins to sense that something is not quite right, Katherine uses her love of Civil War history to cope with her personal difficulties and misgivings. The author conveys this in italicized sections where Katherine pretends to be a general fighting her own war, which is what Katherine is essentially doing. Katherine is fighting a personal war over her ideas about what it means to be a Southerner, but she is also fighting a familial war with her mother who has been overtaken with her mental illness. Also going on in the novel, which is set in 1968, are the political and cultural events surrounding civil rights that seemed to reach a fever pitch that year.

One aspect of the novel I particularly loved were Katherine's love of books, especially the biographies of famous people in American history. There is one particular set that I read as a child; my favorite was the biography of Florence Nightingale.

For fans of Southern fiction, as well as those interested in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the effects of mental illness on families.

After the 2nd page, I wanted Kat to be my BFF! You can't help but to see where this charming young girl takes us! I hate to put it down to go to sleep and to work:( Wonderful book from a wonderful writer. Can't wait to see what Amanda does next!

This a brilliantly written novel about a southern, narcissistic mother who runs away with her 11 year old daughter in tow and the adventures they share in their travels. Ms. Gable has used a clever style of writing whereby young Katherine McConnell copes with her Mother's eccentricities and histrionics by imagining and implementing strategies as a Civil War General. Without hitting a boring note, the reader is treated to a page-turner story, while learning (or relearning) accurate civil war facts. Young Katherine as the General rides right into your heart! I highly-recommend this book!

In "The Confederate General Rides North," 11-year-old Katherine McConnell and her moody mother strike out on a road trip from Georgia to Maine. Because of her fascination with the Civil War, Kat plans their route so that she can visit historic sites and battlefields along the way. As her mother's behavior becomes increasingly disturbed, Kat takes refuge in her fantasies of being a Confederate general, even as the journey ends abruptly in Gettysburg. where Kat is forced to make adult decisions. Kat's voice rings true on every page in a wonderful novel that will appeal to both adults and teens.

Set in the late 1960s, Amanda C. Gable's debut novel centers around eleven-year old Kat and her somewhat unstable mother as they embark on a sudden road trip from their home in Georgia to the mother's dream destination: New England. At first, the trip is first sold to Kat as an adventure. But as Kat gets farther from her Marietta, Georgia home and the relatives they left behind, she discovers that the trip might be much more than she had anticipated. By the time she realizes this, however, she has already taken over the trip planning and has navigated a route through some of the major battlefields of the Civil War, from Appomattox to Gettysburg. While part of her yearns for home, she is thrilled to finally visit the places she has read about, even obsessed about, with her Aunt Laura. Kat creates a fantasy that she is a Confederate General leading her troops toward victory, even though she knows all too well the result of that war. She cannot derail this journey, even as she begins to sense that her loyalty to her mother might jeopardize them both.

Gable avoids most traps encountered when writing for an adult readership through the point-of-view of a child by allowing Kat to observe and to sense off-kilter moments, thus giving readers the opportunity to see the truth when she cannot. Still, Kat is intelligent enough to discover what we dread and hope for her: the truth. While the Confederate general imaginings don't add much, Kat's visits to the battlefields do, providing an intriguing backdrop to the mother/daughter journey where the power shifts from one side to the other, both dividing and uniting them.

I recommend this coming-of-age book for teenagers through adults, particularly for those who are interested in mother-daughter relationships, dysfunctional families, the Civil War, and the Sixties.

-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

This is a wonderful book, and a great read. Gable is really good at capturing the details that an 11-year old child would notice (some of the various descriptions are of things I myself remember observing back when I was a 11 year old!) In fact, Gable's so good at imitating the voice of this 12-year old that you don't notice at first how complicated her world is. The book put me in mind of what I liked so much about A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY - the same delicate way of writing that allows the reader to understand exactly what's going on, while the narrator telling the story is still missing pieces of the puzzle.

The risk you run with a child narrator is that s/he can border on irritatingly precocious, but not in this case - what came out of Kat's mouth made sense to me, i.e. wasn't there just to advance the plot. I had trouble putting the book down.