The Widow of the South

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Though it’s based in reality, Robert Hicks’ work of historical fiction The Widow of the South is an incredibly long, often meandering novel that failed to rouse me in any real way. And that’s something I’m truly sorry to report.

A few years ago, I became interested in all things Southern. My boyfriend, born and raised in Alabama, is like this treasure trove of lovely, unfamiliar things, and the area in which he was raised never fails to fascinate me, a girl who was born and raised in Los Angeles. The American South is this incredibly multi-faceted, bizarre, segmented country of its own, and I think its bloody, checkered past is greatly responsible for both its beauty and savagery. Needless to say, I was very excited to read Hicks' Deep South tale of a woman named Carrie McGavock, who had 1,500 Confederate soldiers buried in her back yard.

The opening scene of the novel takes place in 1894 and is perhaps the most telling of McGavock and what she has become; she spends her days almost obsessively walking the aisles of her personal cemetery with her former slave, wearing the same black dress she’s worn out of mourning for countless years, checking to make sure everyone is buried where they’re supposed to be. After McGavock’s home, the Carnton Plantation, was taken over by Confederate soldiers nearly thirty years prior, it’s safe to say that she was never the same again.

I’d be very interested in a novel that took the pains to describe exactly what kind of woman it would take to muster the strength and heart to dig up the bodies of these soldiers--whose original graves were going to be plowed over--and rebury them in her own backyard. There is a real sense of dignity and respect in this well-researched story, so I was disappointed—but not surprised—when a love story emerged that detailed the relationship between McGavock and a soldier named Zachariah Cashwell during the bloodiest hours of the war.

Frankly, I hate how novels, movies, and television shows of all kinds feel this overwhelming, almost obsessive need to throw a love story into any story featuring an interesting, strong, or otherwise compelling female character. Sure, love happens and the fact that McGavock and Cashwell were able to fall in love during the madness that was the Civil War is compelling in its own way, but in The Widow of the South it almost seems to cheapen McGavock’s strong character. The entire novel features lengthy passages of beautifully written prose, but sometimes it’d simply be nice to see a woman’s story stand on its own... and perhaps for a little less than 551 pages.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, January 8th 2010

Fugue State

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:44:00 +0000

By Brian Evenson

Coffee House Press

The Library of Congress’ perfunctory “Cataloging-in-Publication Data” (printed on the verso of the title page) rarely has anything novel or even in the least bit helpful to contribute to the discussion. However, in the case of Fugue State, a collection of stories by Brian Evenson, the dissembled “data” contains a single bit of notable information. Fugue State, the Library-of-Congress proclaims, belongs in the category of “psychological fiction, American.”

The collection of stories gathered in Fugue State is representative of the best and the worst of what may be considered "psychological fiction". Some stories careen in Southern Gothic sensibilities, causing you to seethe as you read, in the way only the best can. Others have an appeal more reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, which is unsettling in a very different yet distinct way. In one story, a woman glibly sleeps with a mime, who never speaks, pretends to be in an invisible box all the while, and then replaces it over her as he leaves her bed. The woman as a result, is unable to sleep thereafter, becoming increasingly taciturn. The box remained my bedmate as well for several nights.

Other stories fall flat. Making little, if any, sense on their own, and even less in the rich context of the other stories assembled in this collection, several of the stories are aberrant. The only way in which one can conceive of their belonging is that these stories, in fact, cause you to scratch your head. Perhaps the psychological undercurrents flow so deep and are so subtle in these stories that in a preliminary reading they were overlooked—on second review, perhaps not.

Evenson, in something of a departure from psychological fiction, casts the women in his stories in the role of victim. Even as villains the women are victims as the plots turn this way and that. One can imagine the little girls in plaits and pink and the women similarly from central casting. Evenson is sympathetic, yet many of his characters radiate a naïveté about women that give away the fact that they were written by a man.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, October 8th 2009