And Wait for the Night

John Wiliam Corrington

ISBN 10: 1484163222 / ISBN 13: 9781484163221

Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1484163222I3N00

Synopsis:

It is said that the winner writes the history, but it’s also true that the loser is free to use fiction to present the case for the defeated. John William Corrington, a noted Southern writer, published And Wait for the Night, his first novel, in 1964, near the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. As the novel begins, he describes the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi to show the agony of the defeat of the Army of the Confederate States by the overwhelming might of the Federal Army. But And Wait for the Night is not primarily about the war. It is about Reconstruction, the twelve-year occupation of the Confederate States that followed their defeat. Corrington’s dramatic example of this is the occupation of Shreveport, Louisiana, by the arrogant uniformed Yankee conquerors, both white and black, and their plundering civilian companions, the carpetbaggers. During the Civil War, one out of every five Southern families lost a husband, father or son. Under Reconstruction, the surviving Southerners found their Confederate money worthless, their land taken for unpaid taxes, and their civil government replaced by military fiat. And there was one further loss: the communal agreement that a Southerner should live his life with honor. Without any hope of redress by day, the survivors forgot their honor and responded by forming secret societies that waited for the night to take vengeance against their oppressors. Major Edward Malcolm Sentell, a paroled CSA officer, tires to maintain his honor but finds himself despised by his fellow Southerners and helpless to stop the looming conflict between them and the occupying Federal forces.

About the Author: John William Corrington was born in 1932 and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana where he attended Jesuit High School (from which he was expelled in 1950 for having “the wrong attitude”). He received a B.A. from Centenary College (1956), an M.A. from Rice University (1959), and a D.Phil. from the University of Sussex (1965). He served on the English faculty at Louisiana State University and, at the time "The Upper Hand" was first published (1967), was Chairman of the English De-partment at Loyola University in New Orleans. For the next two decades, Corrington lived in New Orleans with his wife Joyce and four children: Shelley Elaine, John Wesley, Robert Edward Lee, and Thomas Jonathan Jackson. During that time he left academia and took a J.D. at Tulane University School of Law. In 1978 he left the practice of law, formed a writing team with his wife, and scripted six feature movies and numerous television episodes. This writing career led the Corringtons to move to the West Coast in 1986. In 1988, John William Corrington suffered a heart attack at his home in Malibu and died at the age of 56. "This book is my deeply felt tribute to the fathers. I can re-member my grandfather talking about General Forrest as if he were an honored and beloved neighbor who had not lately come by to visit. So when it came time to try a novel, I decided to write about the time the Federals occupied my country and tore it up so badly that, when things more or less settled down, no one in my family managed to get to college between 1866 and 1951." —John William Corrington

Bibliographic Details

Title: And Wait for the Night
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket