The Confederate General Rides North

In "The Confederate General Rides North," 11-year-old Katherine McConnell and her moody mother strike out on a road trip from Georgia to Maine. Because of her fascination with the Civil War, Kat plans their route so that she can visit historic sites and battlefields along the way. As her mother's behavior becomes increasingly disturbed, Kat takes refuge in her fantasies of being a Confederate general, even as the journey ends abruptly in Gettysburg. where Kat is forced to make adult decisions. Kat's voice rings true on every page in a wonderful novel that will appeal to both adults and teens.

Title The Confederate General Rides North: A Novel Author Amanda C Gable Rating ****1/2 Tags 1960s, childhood, mother-daughter relationship, mental illness Upfront disclaimer: I know the author of this book, and like her quite a bit though it has been a few years since I've seen her. She is a bright woman and a kind person. So I was quite excited to hear she has published a novel, and was prepared to be kind to it even if it turned out to not be my kind of book. Happily, that isn't necessary. It is indeed a fine novel. The narrator is Katherine, an 11 year old girl who is obsessed with the idea of being a Confederate general. It is the late 1960s. One summer morning her mother announces that the two of them are going to take a long trip from their home in Marietta, Georgia up to Maine, buying antiques for the store they are going to open. Katherine knows her Mother has her rocky days, but the trip sounds exciting. The farther they go, the more disturbing the plans. For one thing, her mother reveals that they are going to live in Maine and open the store there. Katherine hurts at the idea she will not see her father and grandparents for a long time. Along the way, Katherine gets to visit some of the major Civil War battle sites, and learns that war is not the noble thing she had thought. On the surface, there's not a lot of action in the novel. Yet it is a marvelous book, an excellent exploration of character. This will be one of my favorite books of 2009. Publication Scribner (2009), Hardcover, 288 pages Publication date 2009 ISBN 1416598391 / 9781416598398

This is a wonderful book, and a great read. Gable is really good at capturing the details that an 11-year old child would notice (some of the various descriptions are of things I myself remember observing back when I was a 11 year old!) In fact, Gable's so good at imitating the voice of this 12-year old that you don't notice at first how complicated her world is. The book put me in mind of what I liked so much about A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY - the same delicate way of writing that allows the reader to understand exactly what's going on, while the narrator telling the story is still missing pieces of the puzzle. The risk you run with a child narrator is that s/he can border on irritatingly precocious, but not in this case - what came out of Kat's mouth made sense to me, i.e. wasn't there just to advance the plot. I had trouble putting the book down.

From the first sentence ("Get up, baby...We're going on an adventure") I was hooked. We the readers adventure with Katherine McConnell and her moody, artistic, compulsive mother--from Marietta, GA to Gettysburg, PA. Her mother is looking for antiques and escape; Kat is looking for stability and control, something she finds by losing herself in Civil War history and imagining herself a general. But Kat's daydreams of leading the troops can only last so long...and eventually she must reckon with her own powerlessness in the face of her mother's demons, as well as her growing ambivalence concerning her former pride in being "a Confederate." This is a book that works on multiple levels, yet it's also simply a great read. Kat's voice is strong, true, and feisty, reminiscent in some ways of Ellen Foster.

"The Confederate General Rides North" is a vivid and genuine story of a young girl's inner life and imagination as she navigates her family's changes and the world around her during the south in the late 1960s. Gable's a terrific writer, and this is an engaging novel.