Devil's Dream

Devil's Dream Madison Smartt Bell Pantheon books $26.95 Reviewed by David Madden April is poetry month. If "April is the cruelest month," as T. S. Eliot said in his poem `The Wasteland," it is appropriate that we observe April as also Civil War History Month. Edmund Wilson called the War a time of "Patriotic Gore." When asked "Who was the war's greatest general?" the great General Robert E. Lee declared, "A man I never met. Nathan Bedford Forrest was his name." Union General Grant called him "that devil Forrest." General Sherman is said to have regarded him as "the most remarkable man our civil war produced on either side." In almost every respect, General Forrest, who became infamous as the father of the Ku Klux Klan, was very different from General Lee, who became known as the saint of the Lost Cause. In his 14th novel, Bell succeeds in humanizing Forrest by juxtaposing scenes from his pre-Civil War past with scenes from the more familiar legendary life. We listen to the dreaming devil eloquently butcher the King's English, court the woman who became his wife, torment himself with a gambling addiction, torment his military superiors with his insistence on autonomy, torment his enemy with impulsively unique tactics--charging when expected to retreat--and amaze everyone with his energy and endurance, even when wounded. Soldiers on both sides called Forrest "The Wizard of the Saddle." Bell imagines him in a supernatural dimension; because I have always imagined him as a force of nature on a mythic scale, that expressionistic device strikes me as very well conceived. Forrest's multi-faceted life is a web of contradictions, which every one who encounters him experiences, including a young Haitian who comes to the states to foment a slave rebellion but who falls under Forrest's spell. In spirit and in action the freest General in the war, Forrest had to wrestle with the paradox that he was a relatively kindly slave trader and owner who fought with extraordinary ferocity to keep slaves in bondage. That this Nashville author of a trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian slave rebellion should steep his imagination, emotions, and intellect the task of rendering the most intimate portrayal of Forrest's unique life is eminently appropriate. That I now do not have to write my own long-intended novel about Forrest is a tribute and a blessing.

Madison Smartt Bell has chosen none other than controversial Confederate cavalryman, Nathan Bedford Forrest as the subject for his fifteenth novel, "Devil's Dream." Forrest was a conflicted man of many contradictions; he was a married man, and slave trader who fathered a son with his black mistress. He was born into a poor farming family and became a man of wealth, and married a woman above his station. He was a Christian with a gambling addiction who profanely swore, but did not drink alcohol. He was a brilliant cavalry officer, brave and daring, though often reckless, who was at once loved and hated by his men. Bell's novel covers the twenty years spanning from 1845 to 1865. Jumping backwards and forwards through time, the author examines the complicated relationships of Nathan Bedford Forrest's life; with his wife and family, his slaves, his black mistress, and his soldiers. Often Forrest's family is at odds within itself: his wife, the former Miss Mary Ann Montgomery, is jealous of Catherine, Forrest's black mistress. The author also highlights the sibling rivalry between Forrest's two sons, Willie, who is white, and Matthew, who is black. Added into the mix, Bell stirs in a trace of mysticism, as many of the battle scenes are told through the viewpoint of Henri, a free Haitian black, who joins Forrest's cavalry and frequently talks with the ghosts of Forrest's cavaliers who were killed in battle. The books largest failing is what it doesn't cover, and perhaps the most controversial aspect of Forrest's life, his relationship with the Ku Klux Klan. For a novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest, this aspect of his life most certainly should have been included, and would have given the novelist so much more to work with. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the subject of Bell's novel, never quite emerges from the nebular cloud of Bell's nonlinear prose. Forrest's speech is filled with dialect, which at once is somewhat cryptic, yet manages to get the point across. "Devil's Dream" never quite gels as a complete novel, but rather seems to be a novel in pieces, much like a jigsaw puzzle. It challenges its reader to stay alert and demands the reader's full attention to put its pieces together in order to see the much larger picture.

This was one of the best Civil War books I've ever read. Beautifully written and emotionally satisfying. I felt like I was there in those times. I wonderful portrait of an often misunderstood man and wrongly disparaged. He grew to care more about the black's plight than most who just gave it "lip service".

Devil's Dream is a meticulously researched novel, but it's just that--a novel, not a history of Forrest or the Civil War. History buffs will not find much reason to object to the book, but they are not its primary audience. The book is essentially a character study of a brilliant but seriously flawed man. There's plenty of battlefield action, but it's chiefly in service of the larger narrative about Forrest and the culture that produced him. The book has a mystical element woven through it, suggesting that Forrest's war is one episode in an eternal struggle, whether it's the struggle for freedom, or the struggle to rise above our base nature. Like all Bell's work, Devil's Dream is beautifully written, but the strength of the book is Bell's insight about Forrest. He doesn't try to explain the man, but explores his contradictions in a clear-eyed, unsentimental way.

"Devil's Dream" by Madison Smartt Bell is many things -- a book one can't put down; a fascinating story of American history and valiant warriors; and, finally, a book one wants never to end. This writer feels privileged to have discovered a perfect example of the novelist's craft. That is not to say it's an easy book -- it is, after all, a story of America's bloodiest war, and the protagonist, Nathan Bedford Forrest, is nothing if not a warior. Forrest, a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War, his family, friends, and cavalry cohorts form the nucleus of this story of a man who may well be the most fearless and single-minded person who ever lived. Author Bell's character development in "Devil's Dream" is breathtaking for the scope and depth of his presentation. In the course of the book, we meet his wife, children, slaves, friends, and, yes, his mistress, each one of whom is well-developed and who further informs us about Forrest's persona. Best of all, we come to see Black and White people, slave and free, in many roles during what must have been the most tense time of race relations in American history. Of particular interest, too, are the attitudes of southerners on the ground, many of whom cohabit with family members who are Union sympathizers. Author Bell's macrocosmic knowledge of American history and microcosmic details of Civil War battles is awesome. And, most important, none of this information is "told" to us lecture-like -- it's all "shown" -- and you feel yourself seated behind Forrest on his horse as he plunges into the thick of a half-dozen battles. One is astounded by the number of knife cuts and bullets the man survived as well as the number he administered to others. You'll lose count of the number of horses shot out from under him, but you'll never forget the two horses whose wounds he plugged with a finger in order to keep the nag galloping on in the battle to kill more Yankees. Bell's deft use of language is at once descriptive but also breathtaking for its creativity -- a single word, a touch that arrests your attention, holds it captive, e.g., "Somewhere behind them the second cannon coughed," "and the pair of them were silhouetted in silver by the mist," "Day should have broken, but fog smothered the sun." And you'll find moments of surprising beauty in small details, e.g, following a battle where blood colored the Mississippi River and in the following morning when the fog lifts and there is the smell of death and gunpowder -- a white owl settles in a tree now leafless and "it preened its yellowish feathers and shrugged." "Devil's Dream" by Madison Smartt Bell is more than a book to recommend, it's a MUST READ to add to your collection.