Customer Reviews

The Forge (Library Alabama Classics)

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The Forge is book 1 in the 3 part Vaiden series. The books begin at the start of the Civil War and follow one Southern family through reconstruction.

The second in the series, The Store, won the Pulitzer in 1933, so I decided to read the entire series.

The Forge was very successful at creating this family and depicting their lives. The pace was quick, in fact in the 500 or so pages of this first book, we went all the way through a family owning slaves, signing up to fight in the Civil War, losing half of their family in the battles, losing the war, losing their slaves and eventually losing all of their money. They went from being a prominent and well respected family to having nothing and being shamed into town.

There is a definite agenda of the author, to both show this family in a sympathetic life and to make a statement against the way they lived. I found him to be extremely successful at this as well.

It's a little strange reviewing this book now, as I finished it and immediately began the second book. So it basically feels like I'm still in the middle of it. I was torn rating it, because it's something I've really enjoyed and become somewhat lost in, yet it isn't necessarily something I'd recommend to someone either.