Jim Mundy: A Novel of the American Civil War

In October of 1861, Jim Mundy and the other young Confederate soldiers marching off to fight in the Civil War believed the Yankees would be whipped before Christmas. The whole reason Jim joined up when he did was because he was afraid the war would be over if he waited too long. Like most of the enlisted men, Jim's family was poor and didn't own any slaves. But that didn't stop him and the others from wanting to fight.If determination and valor were enough to win a war, then by all accounts the South should have won, especially with soldiers like Jim Mundy. Told through his words, we experience the elation of early victories and the devastation of later defeats. With Jim, we also learn about specific battles, field hospitals, army prisons, and blockade running, all of the major features of the War Between the States. Stories written in a first person point of view can often be limiting. But to change that by taking the story out of Jim's hands and giving it to an omniscient narrator, floating above the landscape from battle to battle and side to side, would destroy the novel, leaving us with nothing more than a history text.First published in 1977 by Harper & Row, JIM MUNDY was reissued by Stealth Press twenty-three years later. Unlike most recently published books, Stealth's packaging is quality inside and out. With full cloth-covered boards, decorative end papers and foil lettering, this is one book that you would be proud to display on any bookshelf and certainly worth looking for.

This book is for either the civil war enthusiast or the fan of general fiction. While it's historically accurate to please the CW buff, it's also an interesting coming-of-age tale of a young man during the war for the ficiton reader. Fowler does a superb job of balancing the fact easily beside the fiction.

I HAVE READ THIS BOOK ABOUT A DOZEN TIMES. I SWEAR IT GETS BETTER EVERY TIME I PICK IT UP. I FOUND THIS BOOK AT A LOCAL FLES MARKET ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO. yOUR LOCAL LIBRARY PROBALY HAS A COPY OR CAN AT LEAST ORDER YOU ONE, IF NOT YOU COULD GO TO A USED BOOK DEALER OR AMOZON. COM ITS WELL WORTH THE EFFORT OF FINDING IT. HECK IM GOING TO GO READ IT AGAIN.

New York Times reviewer called this book "the most truly sounded novel about the Civil War ever written, bar none." It got nearly a hundred reviews when it was first published in 1977. I know it also was published in paper back but has long been out of print. This is one of the finest novels about the Civil War. It deserves to be republished.