78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A PULITZER CANDIDATE IF THERE EVER WAS ONE, March 9, 2002
Poet Paulette Jiles opens a chapter of her splendid debut novel, Enemy Women, with an eyewitness account penned in the 1860s: ".....On this same raid they went into the home of two of my uncles and took them out and hung them to their own gatepost. They were big men and were my mother's brothers. My mother was there and saw it all and as long as she lived she never got over the shock. And they called that a civil war. It was the cruelest war we ever had."
Cruel may well be a euphemism for the atrocities suffered during the American Civil War, yet there was also great courage and strength. With deft narrative skills and the story of one young woman, Ms. Jiles has created an unforgettable portrait of a nation riven by mortal strife.
In 1864, the third year of the war, Adair Colley lives with her family on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks. It is Confederate territory but the Colleys remain neutral. Adair has just turned eighteen when the Union Militia gallops onto their property, attempts to burn the house, and strikes her widowed father in the face with a wagon spoke before arresting him. To punctuate their visit the Militia "shot the dogs and took as many chickens and geese and pigs as they could catch."
John, the only Colley son, seeks shelter in nearby hills. While Adair, believing there might be safety to the north, takes her two younger sisters and begins the 120 mile trek to Iron Mountain. They join "the streams of refugees afoot as if they were white trash." Any hope of finding a haven is destroyed when one among the walkers falsely accuses Adair of collaborating with the enemy, and she is taken from her terrified sisters to a women's prison in St. Louis.
Filthy, rank, and cold, the prison is "like the Female Seminary of the netherworld. A ladies' academy in hell." Nonetheless, it is here that she meets her Union interrogator, Major William Neumann. They fall in love. When Adair refuses to sign a confession in order to obtain her freedom, Neumann helps her escape with the promise that he will find her after the war.
However, there are still countless dangers to be faced as Neumann is sent to the Alabama front lines, and Adair braves a perilous solitary trek through uncharted wilderness and enemy territory to find what might be left of her home and family.
Debilitated by her prison stay and a chronic cough which a "steam doctor" diagnoses as consumption she presses on, sometimes forced to steal for food and clothing.
Adair is the embodiment of an innocent victimized by war as well as a reminder of the tensile strength humans summon when there is an intense desire to survive.
With researcher's eye Ms. Jiles has illuminated a little known aspect of Civil War history, the incarceration of women. Her prose is artful, describing a new leaf as "already as large as a squirrel's ear, " or a man with "a pair of jaws like church pews." Painful in its authenticity, poetically rendered, Enemy Women is a book that will not be forgotten.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!, May 3, 2002
I wasn't going to read this novel. I'm not big on the Civil War or history or stories that take place pre-1900, but Anna Quindlen and Kaye Gibbons raved about it so I thought I'd give it a try. Thank Heavens I did. I could not get enough of this novel. Paulette Jiles pulls you right into Missouri and takes you through an exciting journey with Adair Colley. Jiles' writing is so crisp that you can feel the wind and the sunlight she writes about, you can hear the horses galloping in the woods, you will fall in love with the Missouri wilderness (and will Col. Neumann, too!) But this is more than I love story. The history of the Civil War is absolute throughout. I cannot imagine a single soul that would not find this novel to be worth the read.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Southern Woman's Civil War Journey, February 23, 2002
Award-winning poet Paulette Jiles enthralls readers with this, her first novel, a gripping tale of love and survival among the destruction of the Civil War. In southeastern Missouri, Adair Colley and her two young sisters are left alone when the Union Militia arrests their father. Leaving their partially burnt home, the girls set out on foot to search for their father.
But Missouri is a state divided, with renegade rebels led by Colonel Tim Reeves, and the Union Militia destroying all in the name of martial law. When Adair is arrested on false charges of aiding the confederate "enemy", she is taken to a prison in St. Louis and must leave her sisters behind. Crafty and resourceful, Adair manages to survive amongst the female population of the General Ward, despite threats from other inmates and the evil-doings of the matron.
While in prison, Adair attracts the attention of Major William Neumann, who promises to request her release in return for a signed confession. As the frequency of their meetings increases, their clever banter gradually changes into a union of like souls, amidst the horrors of the war. When they must each go their different ways, time will tell if love is strong enough to withstand their separation.
Lyrical prose capturing both the beauty of the Ozarks and the destruction of human life all around forms the framework in this alluring read. The texture is further enhanced by the snippets of Civil War history interspersed with fictional elements. And the focus on a Civil War Missouri is both refreshing and educational, no antebellum homes here, mostly just poor farmers with nary a plantation in sight.
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