A Bright Tragic Thing

In Texas in October 1862, more than 40 Union sympathizers were summarily executed by supporters of the Confederacy in an episode that became known as the Great Hanging at Gainesville. Clark ( A Charge of Angels ), a descendant of one of the murdered men, here offers a fictionalized account of the massacre. The novel focuses on young Todd Blair, whose father is among the Union sympathizers rounded up by local slaveholders loyal to the Confederacy. Most of the story takes place during the month or so between the time Todd's father is taken into custody and the time he is hanged. Todd tries in several ways to save his father from the noose; in the process he falls in love with the beautiful niece of the man who orders his father killed, then shoots to death--under morally unassailable circumstances--the most heinous 'most murderous killer' seems redundant of the Confederate killers. As history, the book is, by the author's own admission, unreliable, a story in which "truth to the spirit of the event . . . takes precedence over a strict adherence to history." As fiction, the book is a little too pat, its air of teenage adventure and young, impetuous love at odds with the morbid reality of historical events.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The author, who edited a volume of contemporary recollections on which this novel is based, revisits a Civil War tragedy known as the "great hanging" at Gainesville, Texas, where a score of Union men were lynched. His fictional re-creation recounts the tale through the narration of a young man trying to save his father. In due course, the protagonist rescues a young woman, beds her in a steamy sexual encounter, and takes on brigands and Rebel toughs alike. The scenes are improbable, the first-person narrative often turgid. This potboiler should be shelved with the historical romances rather than the works of Stephen Crane or Michael Shaara. Only for those who must own everything on the Civil War or Texas.
- Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.