CIVIL WAR - FICTION
"The Year of Jublio" 
By Howard Bahr
A book that once opened is hard to put down. An engaging read from the first page to the last. Filled with some of the most interesting and off-the-wall characters you will ever meet. Gives a vivid portrait of the time just after the Civil War, and of the place, a small town in the South, ravaged by war.
Gawain Harper, a literature teacher at a girl's school in Cumberland Mississippi, is shamed by his lady love, Morgan Rhea, into joining the Confederate Army. He survives the war and on his way home in June 1865, he meets Captain Henry Stribling, an unusual man of many talents and past professions. When they reach Gawain's home, things have changed considerably and much of the town has been destroyed. The town is now occupied by Union Troops commanded by a tired Lt. Colonel Burduck with many problems, assisted by his no-nonsense Provost, Captain von Arnim. They are trying to keep the peace and help restore order.
Morgan has written of Gawain as long dead and has trouble accepting his return. Her home has been burned and she now lives with a demented cousin along with her once powerful father, Judge Rhea, and her younger brother.
While most of the people of Cumberland are struggling to return to normalcy, there is one evil man, the self appointed Captain Soloman Gault, leader of raiders, misfits, and murderers during the war, determined to stir things up and cause as much trouble as possible. Unfortunately, he has many willing accomplices.
Gawain's newfound friend Henry
Stribling has a talent for sticking a finger in a hornet's nest and stirring
things around until something happens. Now that the stage is set, to say
anything more would spoil the fun. Get a copy of this book and be prepared to
not do anything but read for several hours.
Reviewed by Kenneth S. Smith
6/9/2000
Available from:
Henry Holt & Company
115 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
