Nonfiction: A Year in the South 1865, by Stephen V. Ash

The subtitle of this book is “The True Story of Four Ordinary People Who Lived through the Most Tumultuous Twelve Months in American History,” and is the kind of book one might expect to find assigned in an American History course. Yet, potential readers should not be put off by the idea that this book is akin to reading a textbook. Granted, it is full of microscopic details of four ordinary individuals' everyday lives, and the pacing is not that of an action-adventure novel, but because the book is based on primary documents such as letters, journals, and local newspaper reports, and because Ash, as a historian, does such a fine job of weaving these together, these details give the stories a wonderful sense of intimacy.

Two of my favorite elements of this book are the fact that Ash chose to explore the year 1856 through the eyes of four very diverse southerners (a former slave, the widow of a Confederate officer, a minister/plantation owner’s son, and a young ex-Confederate soldier-turned seminary student), and the way in which he breaks his chapters down into four parts, or seasons, so that, beginning in winter, we follow “from very different vantage points, the death of the Old South and the birth of the New South” (from the cover). While this book may take an extra measure of patience to read, whether you are a Civil War history buff or just interested in learning about this period of our history from a fresh angle, it is well worth your time.

Fiction: The Road to Cana, Christ the Lord Series #2, by Anne Rice.

During the last semester of my senior year, I overheard several of my classmates earnestly discussing Anne Rice’s recent, surprising deviation from a lucrative and well-established career path as an author. The discussion was inspired by the first book in her Christ the Lord series Out of Egypt: A Novel. As fans of Rice’s hugely successful Vampire Chronicles, these students felt that they had been “betrayed” by her decision to turn her talents to subject matter which allowed her to explore/express her reestablished faith in Christ. Since this overheard conversation, I have encountered further commentary/suspicion of Rice’s new novels, but this time from a different camp, namely Christians. This spring, after reading an excerpt from her new novel, and commentary from the author in World magazine (please see http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13761), I decided to jump into this second book in the series and establish some opinions of my own.

Not surprisingly, I read this book with all my antennas on high alert. I also tried to read with a consciously duel perception, that of writer and Christian. The more I read (and I almost couldn’t put the book down once I started it), the more I realized that it was working for me, the story itself, the fact that it was being told by Christ in first person, everything. And the reason why it worked for me, and why I would recommend this book to fellow Christians in particular, is because Rice did not deviate in spirit from scripture (I felt). That is, even in her rich story-telling, she depicts Christ as fully God and fully man. Furthermore, even though Rice deals with a period of time where there are gaps in scripture (between Christ’s boyhood and ministry, specifically), she avoids going off on wild tangents (think Da Vinci Code) and giving the reader the impression that she is telling us what she wants Christ’s story to be. Instead, she portrays Christ in such a way that the reader feels convinced that, from what we know of scripture, what she is telling us feels reasonable and probable.

As both a reader/writer, I was fascinated by how Rice attempts to articulate the speech rhythms of the day. Through subtle syntax shifts and simple, crisp diction, she creates a believable but dated voice. And yet that voice is non-archaic, clear and understandable to modern readers. I was immensely impressed by this and by all the research she must have done to prepare her for writing this work.

Copyright © 2008 by Charity Gingerich Share

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