Crofton's Fire [Hardcover]

Keith Coplin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

In 1876, a green second lieutenant named Crofton barely escapes Little Bighorn-where, before Crofton's startled eyes, Custer is killed by his own enraged men-only to find that his life's adventures have just begun. Over the next three years, curiosity, fate, and the schemes of others will take him halfway around the world, from a "whore's war" in Kansas to a rebellion in Cuba to the horrors of the Zulu war in East Africa. Along the way, he will encounter such figures as Grant, Sherman, and Hayes; get shot; find love; endure betrayal-and somehow, through the crucible of blood and fire, arrive at something that might be called wisdom.

Crofton's Fire is a constantly surprising story, replete with lean, sharp writing, vivid characters, and unexpected turns-that rarest of all things: a true discovery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Coplin's debut novel soars well above most humdrum historical fiction, borne aloft by graceful prose, compellingly likable characters and a spirit of heartfelt humanity. West Point graduate (class of 1874) Lt. Michael Crofton begins his military career in earnest at Little Big Horn when he's sent over a nearby ridge to see what's going on with his commanding officer, Gen. George Armstrong Custer, and Custer's 260 troopers. ("We all disliked Custer, a braggart, a malefactor, a hound for glory. But, oh, the man cut a figure on horseback.") After a hairsbreadth escape from Crazy Horse, Crofton, the polar opposite of Custer in all ways except courage, embarks on a life of action and adventure. After being shot in the chest by a French whore he's attempting to rescue, he sees action on the steamy shores of revolutionary Cuba, shoots his way out of a Ku Klux Klan siege, toils behind a desk in Washington, D.C., and ends up fighting alongside gallant British comrades in the East African Zulu War. In combat as in life, Crofton always acquits himself with honor. Along the way he finds love, acquires an unusual bride, meets a gallery of luminaries (Generals Grant and Sherman among them) and lives a full and satisfying life. Author Coplin supplies his unassuming and modest hero with enough self-deprecating humor and honesty to keep him from being too unrelentingly perfect. Readers accustomed to more formulaic shoot 'em ups may find the novel less than riveting, but those who care about fine writing and a satisfying story will find all of that and more in these pages.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Coplin, a 60-year-old first novelist, has roared out of the gate with all cylinders firing. His debut is a soldier's story, part Tim O'Brien, part James Jones, but with the underlying humor of Little Big Man. It begins with a simple sentence, "Something had gone terribly wrong," spoken by Second Lieutenant Michael Crofton, who just misses Little Big Horn but watches in horror as (in this version) Custer's own men turn their guns on their foolhardy commander. As the novel follows Crofton through skirmishes with a sharpshooting prostitute, a gang of frontier KKKers, and on to bigger battles, first in Cuba and then in Africa during the Zulu war, the point of view never swerves from the individual soldier in the chaos of battle, torn between the overpowering impulse to stay alive and the need to do his job and not let down his fellow soldiers. That dilemma is at the heart of all good war novels, of course, but Coplin manages to translate it into terms both utterly fresh yet disarmingly ordinary. The novel isn't quite as sharp when it moves away from the battlefield to Crofton's family life, but even when addressing more subtle relationship issues, Coplin keeps the narrative hurtling forward in overdrive. This rambunctiously entertaining mix of western and war novel is brutally realistic when it needs to be but also has room for humor and a bit of romance. A resounding success. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1St Edition edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399151125
• ISBN-13: 978-0399151125
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,791,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Men will be men ..., May 19, 2004

By 

Herbert D. Safford (Cedar Falls, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crofton's Fire (Hardcover)

The reviewer who expressed concern that Crofton's Fire was light on military detail has a point. That said, the point is moot. Neither Flashman nor Crofton is, essentially, about military history. The contrast between Flashman and Crofton is, though, a very interesting one.

While the action in Crofton's Fire occurs during various exotic and pedestrian military assignments and engagements of the post- Civil War period, this fine novel is really not about the particulars of military history. Although the developing technology of military killing is central to Crofton's experience and reflection, the novel is not centered on battlefield tactics or weaponry and so forth.

The action of Crofton's Fire is centered on the coming into adulthood of Crofton. The theme here is the difficult but real possibility of building a self, a manhood in this case, in a world of death and dying and doing so without being defined by the horrors of one's time or by the pursuit of the opportunities inherent in skirting those horrors.

Flashman, on the other hand, defines his manhood through pursuit of his ambitions, and by doing whatever it takes to realize them. Crofton, quite the opposite, builds his manhood by transcending ambitions or, put another way, by constraining his ambitions in service to what he regards as higher causes: development of a sense of self-worth, humility, loyalty to his comrades, creating a loving family.

The beauty of Crofton's Fire lies in the reader's sense that Crofton's struggle to manhood appears to happen naturally, not easily, but naturally, without the didactic quality of an overt morality play. It is rare that a moral hero avoids being repugnantly good. Crofton does.

Who would deny that Flashman is a marvel, a unique, engaging rogue, illuminating history while manipulating his way through it? His compass points unerringly to money and fame.

Crofton is closer to Everyman. Unlike Flashman, he begins his career with no agenda at all except to do what the army assigns him to do. No guile, no real ambition, no direction, no compass to follow. Thus his journey to a full, adult self is a very different one from Flashman's. By the time Crofton understands his role in life, he finds it to be a moral one. He has found it through experience rather than bringing it TO experience.

The author of Crofton's Fire works in the delicate and difficult territory of the emerging human heart. Here, living and feeling and maturing into adulthood are not planned and not guaranteed. Failure is always an option.

One might say these two gentlemen, Flashman and Crofton, create radically different solutions to the same problem, to wit, becoming an adult. Flashman has a running start because he knows straight off where he is headed, and he forces his way to the self he has defined as his destiny. For Crofton, this is not so. All is in doubt as he lives his unpredictable life, finding out only well along the way who he has become and the special value and gratification in that.

For this reader, it is wonderful to have these alternatives so nicely drawn. Read Flashman and read Crofton, and don't feel compelled to diminish either by denigrating the one or the other. We certainly know our share of [not so clever, it is true] Flashmans, but fewer Croftons. It is ours to choose whom to admire and who to be.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Attention Lonesome Dove Fans..., February 8, 2004

By 

"rdwos" (Lansing, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crofton's Fire (Hardcover)

Imagine a faster-paced version of Lonesome Dove, focusing on one man instead of a group of characters, and you'll have some idea of how good Crofton's Fire is. Crofton, the narrator, has a unique, funny and thoroughly entertaining voice. There's plenty of humor, some social commentary, and several very touching scenes. I was sorry when this book ended!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprise, March 27, 2004

By 

John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crofton's Fire (Hardcover)

At first, the book feels insubstantial, too light. Then the spare, lean language flowing like water drags you along to deeper meaning. At the end genuine emotion appears, surprising the reader that this work could produce the result. A very good book.