Customer Reviews

The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War

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I am not usually drawn to novels about the Civil War, but every once in a while, there is one that gets such good reviews, that I have to read it. After seeing all of the great reviews for The Year of Jubilo, I bought the book, but I must admit, it sat on my bookcase for a while because it was sort of intimidating. Was I really going to like it? The answer is yes. This novel has a lot to recommend for fans of Civil War fiction, and fans of well-written novels. Howard Bahr is a wonderful writer and this book, while I finished it a few days ago, is constantly on my mind. As the novel opens, we meet Gawain Harper who is returning to his home after the Civil War. He reluctantly fought for the CSA and now is anxious about what lies ahead for him in the town he grew up in. He is most concerned about Morgan, the love he left to fight in the war. The concerns he focuses on as he returns home, are not those he must deal with when he gets home. Much of his world is turned upside down. Morgan still loves him, but old alliances have crumbled and much of his town has burned down. He must make sense out of the post-war South, of his post-war life. He manages to face down fears that have haunted him since before he left for the war.

This novel is well-told and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.

A book that once opened is hard to put down. An engaging read from the first page to the last. Filled with some of the most interesting and off-the-wall characters you will ever meet. Gives a vivid portrait of the time just after the Civil War, and of the place, a small town in the South, ravaged by war. Gawain Harper, a literature teacher at a girl's school in Cumberland Mississippi, is shamed by his lady love, Morgan Rhea, into joining the Confederate Army. He survives the war and on his way home in June 1865, he meets Captain Henry Stribling, an unusual man of many talents and past professions. When they reach Gawain's home, things have changed considerably and much of the town has been destroyed. The town is now occupied by Union Troops commanded by a tired Lt. Colonel Burduck with many problems, assisted by his no-nonsense Provost, Captain von Arnim. They are trying to keep the peace and help restore order. Morgan has written of Gawain as long dead and has trouble accepting his return. Her home has been burned and she now lives with a demented cousin along with her once powerful father, Judge Rhea, and her younger brother. While most of the people of Cumberland are struggling to return to normalcy, there is one evil man, the self appointed Captain Soloman Gault, leader of raiders, misfits, and murderers during the war, determined to stir things up and cause as much trouble as possible. Unfortunately, he has many willing accomplices. Gawain's newfound friend Henry Stribling has a talent for sticking a finger in a hornet's nest and stirring things around until something happens. Now that the stage is set, to say anything more would spoil the fun. Get a copy of this book and be prepared to not do anything but read for several hours.

Just purchased this book yesterday and stayed up all night to finish it....could not put it down. From the first chapter you feel part of the scene and what a tragic one it is. The Civil War has just ended, but the fighting and killing goes on. Bahr's BLACK FLOWER is a book that has stayed with me since I read it over three years ago....it is the ultimate Civil War novel and I was anxiously awaiting his new THE YEAR OF JUBILO and was not disappointed in the least....He has done it again...created a setting and characters that breathe life into the consequences of war and its aftermath. The description of the young blind boy hearing and "seeing" the slaughter of his mother and father by confederate "soldiers" sets the scene for the tragic aftermath of war and the revenge and retribution that both sides deemed necessary. Thank you Mr. Bahr for providing the reader with a part of history that has not previously been openly discussed and written about in such detail.

The Year of Jubilo should be read by everyone with an interest in the Civil War and by those who love historical fiction. Howard Bahr has written a book filled with distinctive characters (Stribling, Old One Eleven, Gault, Gawain Harper and so on) and with some of the most beautiful and lyrical prose imaginable.

Indeed, a central theme of this excellent book is transitions: from war to peace, from the violence of battle to the day-to-day rhythmns of normal life. For example, he underlines this theme by contrasting, on the one hand, violence of every form with a beautful and lyrical description of the transition from night to day: "When a summer morning came, it drew the night out of houses where people lived. . . . [S]tand in the yeard of a house flung open, at the moment when day was established at last, and you could feel the night leave through the windows like an exhalation of breath. You could smell the night as it passed you, see if almost, as you might see a blackbird rise from the grass." Bahr is a writer who obviously cherishes and mulls over every word. The result is a real triumph for him and a gift to those who love the light touch and the beautifully rendered phrase.

Bahr brings new life to the civil war novel. This will sit right next to Cold Mountain.

This is the second book by Bahr tha I've read. In fact, I bought this one because I enjoyed his first novel, "The Black Flower" so much. This book is diferent the "The Black Flower", which was heavy on texture and feel. This book is every bit the equal of the first, but much more focused on plot and theme.

So, what is the theme? Its in the title. The Year of Jubilo refers to the Old Testament Hebrew tradition called the Year of Jubilee. Every 7 years, all slaves were forever released from bondage. This novel explores freedom of all sorts in a (barely) post-Civil War Alabam town. There is, obviously, the newly-won freddom of the slaves, but that is barely brushed upon in favor of deeper themes. There is freedom (or not) from the past, guilt, the entanglements of family, family honor, regional honor, friendship, obligations of social position and even love.

All of this is mostly told through two characters, Gawain Harper, a former college professor who joined the Confederate army to prove he was worthy to the father of the woman he loves and Harry Stribling, a former newspaperman who served in the Confederate cavalry during the war and is now a self-proclaimed philosopher. Bahr is not limited to these two characters, though. He has created a whole community in this book. Characters range from the Union colonel in charge of the occupying force to a former slave chaser to a smuggler.

The smuggler, King Solomon Gault, is by far the most interesting character. He has avoided the real war all together and has made himself rich by smuggling during the war. He literally sees himself as a god unto himself and he callously uses and destroys a great number of people to pump up his own sense of grandeur and freedom. He is the antagonist and all of the advances in the plot move through him and the reactions to him.

This novel has rich characters and sometimes almost poetic scene setting. It is a joy to read. I laughed out loud at parts and was surprised at the brutality and abruptness of other parts. I even read parts out loud to my wife.

This is the sequel to Mr. Bahr's Black Flower, although it is not necessary to read the Black Flower first. The main character was in the former work and there are a few mentions of the battle.

This is the story of a Confederate veteran returning to his home town which has been partially burned out and is now occupied by Federal soldiers. He returns to court his old love interest - the daughter of a judge who had forced him to enlist. Additionally, a leader of an outlaw Confederate guerilla group is mounting a campaign to retake the town. That outlaw band had burned out the home of the judge's daughter (Love interest's sister) and hanged his son-in-law. The outlaw's return causes conflict with the main characters and the Federals, leaving Confederate veterans fighting side by side with the federals in the brief skirmish.

The book takes a hard look at the difficulties encountered by a returning veteran to a town on the losing side; the difficulties the town has in coping with its demolished and occupied state and those who do not want to say die; and, the outlaw who wants the South to rise again under his leadership.

The view is a raw and disturbing one. The characters are very memorable.

Mr. Bahr's writing is unique. At times it is near poetic. Also at times, the writing itself captures the raw emotion running through the book. Unlike Black Flower, however, at times the wording became a bit cumbersome and the writing got in the way.

Still, a book recommended. If there is one word to describe the book, it would be "haunting". The story-line, the characters, the emotion, all are haunting and will stick with the reader long after.

Readers who appreciate highly literary treatments of historical events will undoubtedly appreciate The Year of Jubilo. This novel ably follows in the footsteps of - and has ties to - Howard Bahr's seminal first work, The Black Flower. Bahr does a superb job of painting the tensions which were common to the South in the wake of the Confederacy's collapse. His feel for mid-nineteenth century vocabulary and social mores is uncanny, and they lend a high degree of realism to The Year of Jubilo's plot and characters. All in all, a great read!

Howard Bahr's second novel,THE YEAR OF JUBILO (following his powerful and beautifully written THE BLACK FLOWER), is an extraordinary work. As with any fine literary novel, its major action occurs within the hearts of the characters, all of them sensitively drawn, well-developed, and capable of producing within the reader the rare feeling of being among them on the page. Still, the story is filled with adventure, intrigue, and finely tuned twists of fate that make the reader eager to know what comes next, all the way to the haunting conclusion. THE YEAR OF JUBILO is set in Cumberland, Mississippi, just after the war, when Southerners are attempting to fashion their minds and lives around the new social order that is emerging from devastation and defeat. Caught up, too, are the Union soldiers left behind with the thankless mission of maintaining order among citizens, many of whom see them as the cause of their grief. Perhaps most striking is Bahr's ability to convey the essence of that time and place through speech, colorful detail, and flawless prose. As you read each page, you will realize you are in the hands of a master craftsman, one who understands the period he is writing about and one who possesses the ability to offer it up with beauty and power.

Bahr has captured the tentative hope, hardship, fear, and lingering hostility of the aftermath of the Civil War. It is June, 1865, and Gawain Harper returns from the war to Cumberland, Mississippi, where his sweetheart Morgan awaits him. But is she the same person he left years ago, and is Gawain the same man? Is Cumberland the same town? Questions like these complicate the homecoming and put Gawain's life and love in danger.

As historians know, the strife of the Civil war occurred not only at places like Gettysburg and Shiloh, between North and South. It raged within just about every community in the Union and Confederacy, among brothers whose loyalties and values came to intense blows. And it didn't end with the surrenders of Lee and Johnston, as Gawain, Morgan, and the occupying Federal army learn. The book kept me in suspense to the very end, wondering if there would be peace in Cumberland, and marriage for Gawain and Morgan.

Bahr's superb storytelling carries me back to a different time, as he did so well in The Black Flower. Yet, The Year of Jubilo is even better than Bahr's first novel. In fact, I rate this book among the best Civil War novels I have read, along with Frazier's Cold Mountain

Although he had no passion for the war, former schoolteacher Gawain Harper joined the Confederate cause at the insistence of his future father-in-law, Nathaniel Rhea. The judge demanded that Gawain help the South win the fight or forget any thought of marrying his daughter Morgan. Willing to do almost anything for his beloved, Gawain signed on as an enlisted man and saw battle over the next several years.

In 1865, with the war over, Gawain finally returns to his hometown of Cumberland, Mississippi. However, nothing is even remotely the way it once was when he left home. Northern troops seem to be everywhere. Yet the violence that the war's aftermath has spawned comes from local sources. His family is dead, murdered due to their northern sympathies. The Rheas own nothing but their pride, which has the Judge demanding a new quest by Gawain if he still wants to marry Morgan. Gawain must assassinate white supremacist, current power mogul and rival "King" Solomon Gault.

THE YEAR OF JUBILO is an extraordinary Civil War drama that deserves critic and reader acclaim as it is sure to be one of the top five historical fictions works of the year. The story line is an exciting insight into Southern chivalry that somehow survived the destruction of the civil War. Gawain lives up to his Arthurian name as a noble individual. The support cast is just incredible. They seem so real the audience will feel they know them. It is the secondary players that make Howard Bahr's novel so good that 2000 is the year of jubilee for Civil War buffs.

Harriet Klausner