Homeland: A Novel [Hardcover]

Barbara Hambly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

Those who loved Cold Mountain or Geraldine Brooks’s March will embrace and long remember this spellbinding novel of two remarkable women torn apart by conflict, sustained by literature and art, united by friendship and hope.

As brother turns against brother in the bloodbath of the Civil War, two young women sacrifice everything but their friendship. Susanna Ashford is the Southerner, living on a plantation surrounded by scarred and blood-soaked battlefields. Cora Poole is the Northerner, on an isolated Maine island, her beloved husband fighting for the Confederacy. Through the letters the two women exchange, they speak of the ordeal of a familiar world torn apart by tragedy. And yet their unique friendship will help mend the fabric of a ravaged nation.

The two women write about books and art, about loss and longing, about their future and the future of their country. About love. About being a woman in nineteenth-century America. About the triumphant resilience of the human spirit.

Their voices and their stories are delineated in indomitable prose by an award-winning writer who captures in intimate detail a singular moment in time. In Homeland, Barbara Hambly takes readers on a unique odyssey across a landscape treacherous with hardship and hatred. She paints a passionate masterpiece of a friendship that not only transforms our understanding of the most heart-wrenching era of American history but celebrates the power of women to change their world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Two women, one a Northerner with a husband fighting for the Confederacy, and one a Southerner yearning to attend art school in Philadelphia, exchange letters and find in their unlikely friendship the strength to survive the Civil War, and though shades of Scarlett O'Hara occasionally pop up, Hambly manages a mostly original take on a much-covered era. Newly wed to Tennessean Emory Poole, Cora Poole retreats to Deer Isle, Maine, to remain true to her husband among friends and relatives who abhor his allegiance and suspect hers. In Greene County, Tenn., Emory's neighbor, Susanna Ashford, dabbles in the arts while facing an increasingly dire reality. The correspondents share feelings, views of current events and accounts of their respective tribulations: Susanna nurses the wounded, hunts and sews to pay for her sister's midwife. Cora raises her infant daughter, cares for her demented mother and also sews as the war exhausts resources. The leads are three-dimensional, occasionally surprising and always sympathetic as they find in their unlikely friendship the strength to accept the loss of their ways of life and to seek new ways where they both might thrive. (Sept.)
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About the Author

Barbara Hambly is the author of Patriot Hearts and The Emancipator’s Wife, a finalist for the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction. She is also the author of Fever Season, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the acclaimed historical Benjamin January series, including the novels A Free Man of Color and Sold Down the River. She lives in California.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553805525
• ISBN-13: 978-0553805529
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #448,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Behind the scenes of the Civil War, December 22, 2009

By 

V. K. Vermooten (Lawrence, Kansas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Homeland: A Novel (Hardcover)

HOMELAND is an unusual novel, both in its epistolary style, and in the unusual situations of the two protagonists. (One is a Southerner who doesn't support the Confederacy; the other a Northerner whose husband left home in Philadelphia to join the army, but didn't join until he was in the South.) Acquaintances in person, they become friends through their letters.

Most striking is the look at everyday life that develops in the course of the correspondence. Heroics are there, both obviously and also in the continued, determined survival in the face of overwhelming odds. More than any other book, this conveys the dogged, everyday struggle that each woman experiences, just because she sees no other choice. Others may give up; they keep going because they truly see no choice.

As Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January books give a view of slavery that is probably more accurate than any other that I've read, this book impressed me with the endurance required to survive insanity, horror, and the overwhelming pettiness of people at war.

It is a fascinating read, and I recommend it highly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I was blown away, December 29, 2009

By 

ginnyk "ginnyk" (Glenside, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homeland: A Novel (Hardcover)

I got the book because I know Barbara Hambly's work and enjoy her writing. Little did I know how good this book is. It is outstanding, and one I will recommend to all of my reading friends.

Hambly tells the story in letters between two women, one a Southerner, the other a Northerner, at the beginning of and through the Civil War. Neither woman quite "fits" into her culture and community, and each sustains the other's right to be different. They write of their lives, their frustrations, happinesses and unhappinesses. They tell of their everyday lives, with all of the tragedies that took place during that War, and how each struggles to be faithful to her own principles and beliefs. Their letters speak not only of the commonplace and extraordinary tragedies of the Civil War, but, to me, of all wars, of what happens to the women and children who are not fighting but are deeply and personally affected by this war and all wars.

I am going to buy another copy just to lend to close friends, because this is a story worth reading. I know it will haunt me forever, and I will probably re-read it at least once a year.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book that transends time., September 23, 2010

By 

A. Tooney - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homeland: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read this book when it was first released. I am a fan of Barbara Hambly's writing from her earlier science fiction/fantasy books to her meticulously researched historical novels. This book shows a side of the Civil War rarely presented - the view of women who are friends on opposing sides. I found that there were many issues that the two women in this book dealt with are also issues modern women deal with today.
I recommend this book any chance I get. I will definitely be rereading and its a great addition to my Barbara Hambly collection.