What can I say about this book that captures the doubts and hesitations that meant I almost abandoned it several times, and took a painfully long time to get through it, while at the same time reflects the fair and positive, because I actually did enjoy it, and in many ways found it very impressive.
The downside first, so we can end on a high note: this is a book that seriously needed a firm Editor. I suspect that this was a Labor of Love project (and perhaps, just a little, even a Vanity Project) that Logan earned from his publishers because he has earned them a LOT of many with his well-written but, let's admit it, formulaic thrillers. This is Mr. Logan writing about a topic (the Civil War, and Civil War re-enactors) that he knows and cares about, and demonstrating that he can make his reader care, too. And, I suspect, this is Chuck Logan saying, I can write! I don't do just formulaic! I can do character-driven ruminations on the impact of the Civil War that we are living with, even today!!
Both excellent worthwhile things, but I still think Mr. Logan could have profited from a firmer hand from his editor. I think "South of Shiloh" would have been a better book if it had been up to 100 pages shorter: Logan tends to go deep into describing everything that happens in a scene: John Rane turned the key in the lock and let himself in. He put the groceries on the counter, and turned on the shower. While he was waiting for the water to heat up, he made himself a coffee, grinding the beans ... It was during long, pointless descriptions like that that I started to lose the will to live, let alone read on.
And yet, I did -- and here we come to the Good Part: this is a thoughtful, slow burn of a novel that features interesting and engaging characters, challenging moral dilemmas (not all of them to do with the Civil War), and a couple of nice twists, that still manage to avoid the beartraps of thriller formulae. In fact, in "South of Shiloh," Logan gleefully defies formula: be warned, it is about 100 pages before "anything happens." But when it does happen, the buildup of those 100 pages make it devastating, and genuinely heartbreaking -- you feel the violence in this novel, and you care about the loss, because Logan has taken the time to build up real, intriguing characters who are suffering the pain, or being lost or suffering the aftermath of that loss. (That is not to be mistaken, however, with long digressions on how hot John Rane likes his shower, or how he grinds his coffee beans -- I stand by my opinion that we don't need that!)
Highly recommended if you like something that bucks the formula, and immerses you in a strange world: the world of Civil War re-enactors.
The downside first, so we can end on a high note: this is a book that seriously needed a firm Editor. I suspect that this was a Labor of Love project (and perhaps, just a little, even a Vanity Project) that Logan earned from his publishers because he has earned them a LOT of many with his well-written but, let's admit it, formulaic thrillers. This is Mr. Logan writing about a topic (the Civil War, and Civil War re-enactors) that he knows and cares about, and demonstrating that he can make his reader care, too. And, I suspect, this is Chuck Logan saying, I can write! I don't do just formulaic! I can do character-driven ruminations on the impact of the Civil War that we are living with, even today!!
Both excellent worthwhile things, but I still think Mr. Logan could have profited from a firmer hand from his editor. I think "South of Shiloh" would have been a better book if it had been up to 100 pages shorter: Logan tends to go deep into describing everything that happens in a scene: John Rane turned the key in the lock and let himself in. He put the groceries on the counter, and turned on the shower. While he was waiting for the water to heat up, he made himself a coffee, grinding the beans ... It was during long, pointless descriptions like that that I started to lose the will to live, let alone read on.
And yet, I did -- and here we come to the Good Part: this is a thoughtful, slow burn of a novel that features interesting and engaging characters, challenging moral dilemmas (not all of them to do with the Civil War), and a couple of nice twists, that still manage to avoid the beartraps of thriller formulae. In fact, in "South of Shiloh," Logan gleefully defies formula: be warned, it is about 100 pages before "anything happens." But when it does happen, the buildup of those 100 pages make it devastating, and genuinely heartbreaking -- you feel the violence in this novel, and you care about the loss, because Logan has taken the time to build up real, intriguing characters who are suffering the pain, or being lost or suffering the aftermath of that loss. (That is not to be mistaken, however, with long digressions on how hot John Rane likes his shower, or how he grinds his coffee beans -- I stand by my opinion that we don't need that!)
Highly recommended if you like something that bucks the formula, and immerses you in a strange world: the world of Civil War re-enactors.
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