Huckleberry Finn in Love and War: The Lost Journals [Paperback]

Dan Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 2007

Dan Walker answers the questions Mark Twain avoided: What if Huck Finn carries out his promise, at the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to “light out for the Territory”? Twain himself got sixty-two pages into the prairie and lost interest. But what if Huck, Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and the rest are caught up—as they surely would be—in the crisis of the Civil War? What choices will they make when history calls? For the boy who once said, “All right, then, I’ll go to Hell,” what might that mean in the Valley of Mexico, parted from the love of his life, apparently forever, or behind rebel lines in the wilderness of central Virginia, with the duty to kill or capture old friends on the other side? How would our ageless boy do in such trials? Hell might be preferable.

Product Details

• Paperback: 327 pages
• Publisher: PublishAmerica (October 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1424194768
• ISBN-13: 978-1424194766
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,816,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Calling Dr. Doyle..., May 1, 2008

By 

Robert W. Winter (Truman, MN, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Huckleberry Finn in Love and War: The Lost Journals (Paperback)

Sherlock Holmes is one of the few fiction greats to pull off a sequel, climbing the unclimbable (we know full well that Watson can't see what's in front of his face) and leaving his old rival dead down below. Would that Huck had the same chance. As it is, by book's end it seems like everyone has shown up at this Old Home Week In The Wilderness but Aunt Polly and Injun Joe and Huck, who is already fighting with Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Abe Lincoln, Winfield Scott, most of the Union general staff and a Mysterious Sojourner for a little time on stage, has effectively been made a minor character. A shame, as Walker makes it quite credible that this unlikely riverbum has become not just a soldier but a trooper, not just a trooper but a Sergeant, and not just a Sergeant but a Regular. (Some will be surprised to find out in which army.)

Walker obviously knows his home turf and its history, and might well give us outstanding portrayals of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and the Wilderness. His characters aren't bad, ther are just too many of them here. But Huck, agreeable though he was, could only be pushed so far. If he's to live on in sequels, and certainly no character in American fiction has a better right to, let's let him exercise a some control of his life.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Twain Dared Not Do..., November 30, 2007

By 

Lloyd D. Walker "Dan Walker" (partlow VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Huckleberry Finn in Love and War: The Lost Journals (Paperback)

First, full disclosure: I wrote this. Somebody has to write the first review, so I'll do it. The way I told the story may be controversial: not from Huck's point of view but from the POV of an old friend who now has Huck's Journal and quotes from it--and other sources. So there's some cutting back and forth between the narrator's investigation of the mysteries and Huck's own story. I'm pleased with what resulted, and I'll enjoy hearing what reviewers think.
The book, I think, is the logical extension of what Twain had done in the immortal Huck: what would happen to Huck when America itself lost its innocence in Mexico and the Civil War? Surely Huck (and Tom, too) would have to make those choices. Twain, I think, realized that and shied away: he didn't know anything about the War. How would Huck maintain any kind of innocence under those pressures? Let alone his immortality? If you're interested Huck or in Civil War might-have-beens, you'll enjoy this!
DW