Charles Frazier (1) (1950–)

Charles Frazier is one of my favorite authors. He focuses on The South and the Civil War. In this book we learn about Varina, the wife of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Varina really was Jefferson Davis's wife so we're often trying to figure out how much of this story is real and how much is the result of a very talented imagination. The real Varina Davis did rescue a Black from the abusive streets of Richmond and took him into her household to play with her children. She also did take him along with her as she tried to escape the pursuing Yankees and flee to Florida and eventually Havana. That was the plan but they did not make it and were taken in to custody. At that point the young Black was taken from her. All of this did happen. Where it appears that Frazier's imagination intervenes is he imagines that the young man grows up to be a teacher and eventually reunites with her as she is living fifty years later in retirement home in New York. In a series of meetings they explore what he remembers in only bits and pieces. She fills in the details. A fascinating literary twist one can only hope might really have happened.

In the process she validates him and we learn much more about Varina. She was much younger than Jefferson Davis and his second wife. She was offered to Davis by her father who treated her, as was common in the day, more like property than a person. She pushed back on the arrangement but ultimately consented. They spent many years separated and she in her later years even encouraged him to live with another woman. She relished the role of wife of a Senator and as First Lady of the Confederacy with all the entertaining that entailed and the fashionable clothing that went along with the entertaining. The most detailed events we learn about is their fight from Richmond as the Confederacy was falling. She, with her husband, were jailed once they were caught.

It's an intriguing story of an independent woman. While she was the First Lady of the Confederacy she clearly was not a believer of the inherit decay it was based on. It sounds and feels like a real story. It's unclear where the embellishment starts and the actual history is left behind. It's called a novel on its cover yet there definitely was a Varina Davis. A woman I would never have known about without reading this book.… (mere)

Val Welch is an artist charged under the WPA Act to paint a mural on the post office wall in Wyoming. Here he meets big rancher John Long and his wife Eve, who he has recently married and a woman who has a history as a cowboy singer, a hobo, and a no good ex husband. John has several paintings by artists such as Renoir and Eve unexpectedly takes off with one of his favorites. John has ambitions to run as governor or senator of the state and doesn't want any kind of scandal so he hires Val to find Eve. The quest takes him to Seattle where he finds a clue about the ex-husband, Jake, whose family lives in a swamp in Florida. Val takes his first scary airplane ride to Tampa and finds the even more scary Olson family.

The story moves from Wyoming, to Florida, to Seattle, and to San Francisco to dive bars, fancy hotels, and places in California. There are interesting characters along the way, a bit of humor, a believable plot, and a satisfying ending. All in all, a good read. (Liked it much better than Cold Mountain).… (mere)