A Country of Our Own: A Novel of the Civil War at Sea

This book is a follow-on to Poyer's first book on the Civil War, "Fire on the Water". In that book, Poyer introduced us to a large cast of characters; in this book he follows basically one of them through the end of 1861, while leaving you in some suspense as to what the other characters are doing or what's happened to them. The character that the author decides to follow is Ker Claiborne, the Confederate officer who was one of the main characters in the first book. At the end of that novel he joined the Confederate Navy, and in this book he winds up first as the executive officer of one Confederate raider, then the commander of another. That's the main part of the book: Claiborne fights various battles against the Yankees, and he and the other characters think about, but don't discuss much, the issues that have started the war. This is one of the strangest sequels I've ever read. Since the first book has so many different characters, it had multiple points of view, and that made things interesting. This book is much much more narrowly focused. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a change, and I can't figure out why he did it. On the other hand, there's one thing that he did that I liked. Typically, in Civil War fiction, you get two stereotypical characters. First, you have the reluctant rebel. He typically is pro-choice on the issue of slavery, i.e. he won't own slaves himself, but he thinks that Yankees shouldn't be invading his country to force emancipation on others who own slaves. The second stereotype is the Yankee abolitionist, who of course is always portrayed as a religious fanatic, an unsavory character, and usually some sort of hypocrite. No one on the Southern side is ever portrayed as a fanatic of a lunatic; instead, they're victimized and reluctant to fight. While the main character fits the first stereotype pretty well, the second one isn't here. Instead, the fanatic turns out to be a Confederate who's basically a lunatic. He wants to kill all the Yankees, and has all of the requisite silly Southern prejudices that were held during the era: gentlemen will put the "rabble" to flight at first sight, Yankees are only good merchants when they cheat everyone, breeding makes a man a better person, etc. You instinctively despise him, and of course he's the villain of the piece. I enjoyed this book, at times, though there is the large issue of the characters other than Claiborne. I am looking forward to the third book, in which he apparently reintroduces most of the characters from the first book, while following Claiborne also.

Excellent novel about the Civil War at Sea. David Poyer's research and knowledge, coupled with his ability to capture personalities and frame events is unmatched. I've been in the Navy for 38 years, and have never found a better writer about issues relating to the Sea.

I came to this after reading James L. Nelson's latest novel, "Glory in the Name," so there was some danger in getting too much of a good thing. Both books are about the naval fronts of the Civil War, but that is where the likenesses between the books begins to end. This is solid good stuff, and it's obvious that Poyer has done his homework. If you like Nelson's book, which squeaks out this one by just a nubbin because of Nelson's great sense of humor, you will probably enjoy the further advntures of Custis Claiborne in this book.

This sequel was much more enjoyable than the first. Mr. Poyer settled down and eased up a bit on the nautical jargon. I'm anticipating the third book with relish. I want to know what happened to Hank, Minter, and Minta!

In this sequel to Fire on the Waters, Ker Claiborne becomes captain of a commerce-raider.Country of Our Own is a bit disconcerting as a sequel because only Claiborne's point of view appears. He's an engaging, well-drawn character, but what happened to the other protagonists from the first book? I would have liked to follow them as well.The book is completely from Claiborne's perspective, including his feelings about secession and the Confederate flag (which some modern readers may find disconcerting, but which seem historically probable) and slavery. Some of the secondary characters -- Olivia, Minter, Henshaw -- show promise, but vanish disappointingly; Minter, a main antagonist, is hustled out of the story in an expository section, and it's not clear whether Henshaw survives to the end of the book or not. An African-American point of view would have made a good counterpoint, but unlike in the first book Poyer does not give us one, and Ker's servant Romulus seems more a stereotype than a person.Battle and action scenes are very strong throughout. The plot moves fast and grips the reader, and most of the sentence-level writing is vivid, with some striking images. Despite my reservations about the handling of secondary characters, I enjoyed the book very much and recommend it.