Customer Reviews

Walking to Gatlinburg: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you're looking for Civil War historical fiction, this is not the book. It mentions some major players in the war, wraps some of the plot geographically around some of the battles, and follows the North-South Underground Railroad route. In fact the strongest connection to the Civil War is the main character's journey along the Railroad and his initial connection to it that led to a runaway slave's murder.

This murder leads Morgan Kinneson on a search to find his brother, Pilgrim, who may have died in the battle of Gettysburg, the year before the book takes place(1864). On Morgan's journey, he meets many people, one of which he falls in love. He also meets fantastical things like an elephant who seems to know the enemy. Along the way, Morgan is also being pursued by the murderers of Jesse, the runaway slave. This makes for an exciting chase to the finish.

While the story is outlandish at times, it is a fun read if your expectations change from wanting a good historical to wanting a good story well told.

Mr. Mosher's writing is superb and from the outset he captures the flowery and distinctive language of mid-nineteenth century America. He also takes an engaging young Vermonter - Morgan Kennison of Kingdoam County, Vermont - and sends him on his long walk from Vermont to Tennessee to find his brother who had been given up for dead at Gettysburg. Surprisingly, the Civil War is tangential to the book, although the Underground Railroad, sets the course for Morgan to follow south.

The book is framed as Morgan's Odyssey, or a less dreary Cold Mountain. Along the way he meets up with many characters, many of whom are interesting and several amusing. Some were fantastical and those detracted from the cast. To add tension and moral conflict he is followed by escaped convicts who want some things they believe he has, including an escaped slave woman. As he goes he must fend them off which leads to his moral "crisis" which really wasn't much. The plot was the journey itself and there many many unlikely coincidental meetings along the way.

The novel was confusing. There were serious moments of violence and killing (and one sexually grotesque scene) followed by light-hearted and frivolous ones. There were dark characters and cartoon-like characters. It dipped into fantastical moments and then attempted to graphically show the evils of slavery. The incongruous and inconsistent yarns spun on the southward journey leave the reader unsure whether this book was a romp or an attempt at anti-war fiction. If Mr. Mosher had picked one primary flavor, it could have been great because the writing is that good.

The excellent writing carried it to mediocrity. There were several scenes that were excellent, but the inconsistent nature brought the book as a whole down. There were a few great characters interspersed among fantasy ones and completely unrealistic encounters, albeit brief, with Lincoln and Lee. This book cried out for some serious editing.

A beautiful runaway slave girl. Her small brother, tortured for his secrets. A young man searching for his older brother through the chaos of war. And a band of psychopathic killers terrorizing the land with violence and death. It is 1864 and the War Between the States rages on in America, north against south, brother against brother. And among the fringe dwellers of the war are the murderous miscreants who seek to destroy the Underground Railroad, men like Doctor Surgeon, Prophet Floyd, a mad preacher, Steptoe, a necrophiliac actor and the murderous minstrel Ludie Too. Seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson leaves Vermont to find his older brother, Pilgrim, a physician for the Union Army. First Morgan is tasked with the security of Jesse Moses, an old man meant to escape via the Railroad.

Morgan makes a fatal misjudgment and Jesse pays the ultimate price. The killers are after Jesse's runs stone, but the old man has thwarted his murderers at the end of his life, passing the marked stone to Morgan. Now Morgan is the target, his fate sung by a mad minstrel as the boy realizes the magnitude of his mistake and the danger that faces him. Undeterred, Morgan continues his journey through the Great Smoky Mountains, harassed and tormented by the killers who seem to anticipate his every move. Following the etchings on the stone that mark the path to freedom for fleeing slaves, Morgan treads through scenes of battlefield carnage, encounters the idiosyncratic souls that inhabit the wild mountains and falls in love with Slidell, the slave girl desperate to save her brother. Her flight becomes Morgan's as he gathers wit and ammunition, facing extinction in the lair of the Devil as, time after time, he faces the murderers who would destroy the route to freedom.

Mosher captures this eerie progression in a series of scenes that are both phantasmagoric in nature and brutally real, Morgan tested as never before: "The world held a depth of evil that he had not yet plumbed." Slidell offers the healing power of love, the only antidote to such destruction as Morgan moves inexorably toward the brother he is seeking. Like a Grimm's fairy tale filled with horrors and dreams, this bizarre landscape reminds me of Cold Mountain, with the same particularity of personalities and place, the seductive stories and enchanted wilderness where good and evil reside in counterpoint and civil war fills the crevasses with the blood of the fallen. This is a fascinating canvas of love, war and slavery, the triumph of one young man in the service of an old man's legacy. Luan Gaines/2010.

Like other readers, I had hoped Walking to Gatlinburg to have more to do with the Civl War, since the novel was mislabeled as having at least something to do with it. I at least knew that Gatlinburg had little to do with the war, which should be at least one clue for readers. On the whole I enjoy historical novels and do love the nineteenth century, but do have at least some expectations to carry me through the novel. I would expect them to be mostly accurate and researched, though don't need historical facts, figures, and details waved in my face. I usually don't expect historical figures to meet main characters, especially when it has no point to aid the plot. Unfortunately It ends up feeling like Forrest Gump, a lazy way to remind readers that, hey, the novel isn't set in the present day.

Honestly though if a novel is well written, with engaging characters, and well made plot, I'm willing to put up with a lot. I have to say though that Walking to Gatlinburg is lacking on all three accounts. We do get a lot of details about the main character Morgan, being raised in the Vermont wilderness that of course set up why he will be able to wonder the country with little trouble. Yet most of the characters are fairly wooden, there to fill the scenery and to either aid or impede Morgan's progress in looking for his brother. I have to agree with other reviewers, after even a few chapters, it feels like the character is walking (or riding an elephant) with the scene and random characters doing all the work in a way that calls attention to itself.

In a bad way, it ultimately reminds me of So Brave, Young, and Handsome [SO BRAVE YOUNG & HANDSOME] [Paperback], which also is a historical episodic journey with similar issues. If you want an easy, non taxing read, Mosher's book might be for you, but for anyone looking for a compelling historical novel, look elsewhere.

Like a story told by a traditional storyteller, this book tells of a fantastical journey a young boy makes to find his brother. Odd circumstance after odd circumstance, coincidence, fate, and faith are relied upon to carry the story. The bad guys can't really die, and keep popping up throughout many states, without any explanation. The use of the rune to guide the trip was clever, but I felt mired down because of lack of characterization. I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this book, and found myself wading through it, wanting it to end.

An interview with my wife, who read the book:

Me: So, briefly, what was the book about?
Wife: Its a journey taken by a young man to solve the mystery of a runaway slave's death, and to find his older brother who went missing during the Civil War.

Me: At first, when you started reading the book, you seemed pretty optimistic...what did you like about the book?
Wife: It drew me in right away. I liked the setting, the description of the beautiful winter woods of Vermont...

Me: Did you like the characters at first?
Wife: Uh huh. Morgan grew up in a biblical family surrounded by books, and he and his brother would talk about science and Darwin and the Origin of the Species and that sort of thing. And he loved hunting with his brother.

Me: After you were reading it for a while, it seemed like something changed and you weren't enjoying the book anymore. What happened to change how you felt about it?
Wife: It began with the gruesome death of someone Morgan met on his journey. It just seemed a little excessive...and hard to believe that these kinds of things ever took place in 1864. The whole book ended up being filled with what seemed to be too many unrealistic events. Including not just gruesome events, but way too many "coincidental" encounters with villains who kept conveniently popping up throughout the story.

Me: So, would you recommend this book to anyone?
Wife: Well, I thought at first I might recommend a book like this to my 91-year-old father, who loves the outdoors, and loves historical fiction. But I'm glad I didn't recommend it. It's good storytelling, but what I thought would be a story about the underground railroad and the Civil War turned into something more like Homer's The Odyssey...too many wild adventures for me.

Me: How many stars would you give it, out of 5?
Wife: Three or four. I guess I'll go with four...it kept me interested enough to read, but I don't think I'd want to read another story like it.

This is an absorbing book, from a fantasy perspective, but not much else, as it is so far fetched. One should certainly not expect it to be historically accuate, nor technically accurate, as you will be sorely disappointed.
Read it for what it is, pure fantasy, pulp fiction.
I had expected something more of a historical novel, so I was disappointed, in that respect.

Note to reader: this is a REVIEW, not a book report. I am not going to go over every detail of the plot.

Further note to reader: Dear Reader, suspend disbelief when reading this book. It makes NO sense on SO many levels. (But, the larger question is "Why bother?"). I think the author is attempting to write a book in the manner of "magic realism" but Gabriel Marquez he is not. Particularly disconcerting to me was his going into great detail about things that did not need to be described in detail and were WRONG. E.g., when loading a muzzle loading firearm you do not first put the projectiles and then the powder into the muzzle, his detailed description of a Gatling gun is wrong, he doesn't seem to understand the basic principle of how it works, "Yellow Boy" repeating rifles/carbines were first manufactured by Winchester in 1866 and the story takes place in 1864. The author provides a lengthy description of a blacksmith converting the hero's muzzle loading smooth bore musket to an over-under rifle shotgun. He explains how the rifling is done and then hastily states that the gunsmith completes the conversion to a lever action metallic repeater (a complicated process well beyond the skill of a blacksmith and, as configured, impossible). They then make the bullets by dropping them from a bridge into the cold water of a stream below (very good for creating spherical bullets but you need a mold to make bullets for the rifle described) and the author gives no explanation of how the brass cartridge shells are made or where they come from.

More importantly, many of the incidents in the plot make no sense and it is never explained how the villains are able to constantly pop up out of nowhere and confront the hero.

If you are looking for an unsatisfactory novel set in the Civil War, read "Cold Mountain" instead. It's at least well written and true to life.

If you are looking for a Civil War story, you may want to keep looking. "Walking to Gatlinburg" is set during the war between the states, but the war itself is simply a catalyst for the action, then it becomes just so much background noise for most of the novel. If you are looking for dates or details of battles I recommend you pick up one of the award winning novels by Michael or Jeffrey Shaara. "Walking to Gatlinburg" reminded me of a 19th Century coming of age tale mixed in with dashes of "Forrest Gump" and "Tom Sawyer".

"Walking to Gatlinburg" tells the story of Morgan Kinneson who leaves the mountains of Vermont in search of his missing brother, Pilgrim, who was last seen on the Gettysburg battlefield. During Morgan's travels he encounters quite a menagerie of humanity. From an old gypsy and his elephant to an Amish gunsmith to a murderous plantation owner...all while having escaped lunatics and war criminals hot on his trail.

Mosher's novel is interesting, and the characters introduced throughout the novel will keep you turning pages, but I think the thing that hinders "Walking to Gatlinburg" is the repetition. Morgan walks, meets someone interesting, spends a couple pages interacting with the character, then departs. Only to repeat the process in the next chapter, and the next...and the next. Its almost as if Morgan's travels is simply a framework for a series of short stories...which all feel the same.

I just finished "Walking to Gatlinburg". Mr. Mosher is a good writer, but in his latest work he can't decide whether he is writing an historical novel, a psychological thriller, a ribald comedy, or taking a stab at magic realism. The result is a Christmas tree with just too many ornaments. He is skilled at creating and describing scenes and characters, and that in itself makes this an enjoyable book to read. But a good editor, with a well sharpened ax, and then a scalpel, could have made this into a book really worth owning.