The Other Side of Silence: A Civil War Novel

James Willis' The Other Side of Silence is a great read and one that touches on the key questions of life. This Civil War novel/fictional memoir is in the voice of Billy Butler who looks back on his life and specifically on his years in the Civil War as a young Confederate enlistee who goes off to war seeking glory but who learns of the hardships, horrors, and losses of war. The battle scenes are mesmerizing and engaging yet Willis, an historian who really knows the Civil War and its realities, also allows his protagonist to relate the behind the lines movements, marches, experiences, and frustrations that are so much a part of war. In addition Billy learns that glory is ephemeral and wonders if love might be as well. Will his new-found love Rebecca wait for him? Will his brother, his closest friends, his mentors survive the War? Will he? And how will this War change him? And those around him? Another strength of the novel is in the detail of place. The reader envisions the woods, the marshes, the fields where battles are fought and where marches are forced, and where loved ones must be left behind. One sees the landscapes and scenes vividly: a dark woods where renegades torture a black woman, surgeons' tables with innumerable discarded limbs beneath them, a pastoral town where Billy's beloved teacher, Professor Donald Miller, shares his wisdom with the young narrator. The sweeping scope of the novel takes the reader through Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas in the Confederacy's noble but doomed effort to stop an irrepressible force under Generals Grant and Sherman. The choice of the memoir genre is brilliant. It allows Billy to live in the moment but also to wryly comment on his situation and to draw on literary quotation for a richer reflection on life experience and his coming of age. This novel brings those life questions to us once again or anew; its a novel not to be missed and one that will remain on your mind for quite some time.