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Neverhome: A Novel
Author:
Hunt, Laird
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3608.U
Print Run: 50000
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ISBN-13: 9780316370134
LCCN: 2014938585
Imprint: Little, Brown and Company
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Pub Date: 09/09/2014
Availability: Out of Stock Indefinitely
List: $26.00
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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246 pages ; 22 cm
H 8.5",
W 5.875",
D 1",
0.81 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Fiction Core Collection, 18th ed.
Fiction Core Collection, 19th ed.
Fiction Core Collection, 20th ed.
Texas Lariate Reading List
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Awards:
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Kirkus Starred Reviews
Library Journal Best Books
Library Journal Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
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TIPS Subjects:
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Historical Fiction
Military Fiction
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Literary
FICTION / Historical / General
FICTION / Women
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LC Subjects:
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Historical fiction
United States, History, Civil War, 1861-1865, Fiction
United States, History, Civil War, 1861-1865, Participation, Female, Fiction
War stories
Women soldiers, Fiction
Women soldiers, United States, History, 19th century, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Historical fiction
Women soldiers, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 06/01/2014 |
| A farmer's wife dons a uniform and fights her way into history as readers meet so-called Ash Thompson, a woman who leaves her husband and disguises herself as a man to fight in the Civil War. 256pp., 50K, Auth res: Boulder, CO |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Kirkus Reviews | 08/01/2014 |
| A novel that takes us there and back again, "there" being the Civil War and back again, a farm in Indiana. Constance "Ash" Thompson and her husband, Bartholomew, are a young couple with a farm, though their roles are a bit inverted, fo r Ash is fearless and a crack shot while Bartholomew has bad vision and is much more timid. Ash feels strongly about supporting the Union cause, but one of them has to stay home and tend the crops and animals, so Ash enlists and passes for a male soldier. She narrates her adventures crisply and matter-of-factly as she goes through her slapdash basic training and soon finds herself at the Battle of Antietam. She becomes expert in carrying off her role as a man, spitting and cursing with the boys but also showing herself invaluable as a marksman (even when this only involves foraging for squirrels to make a stew). Eventually, Ash is betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, and she finds the battle is not the most difficult challenge she faces, for rumor has it that a "whore from Chattanooga" has been dressing up as a man and infiltrating Union lines. When she persuades an officer that she's neither a whore nor a spy, she's incarcerated in an asylum, for it's concluded that lunacy is the only other possible cause for her cross-dressing. After suffering abundant humiliations at the hands of a female "keeper," Ash cleverly (and ironically) escapes by switching clothes with a Union guard. By this time, she's determined to get home to Bartholomew--and she does--only to find that some local thugs have taken over the farm. Of course, she vows vengeance, though this revenge is exacted in a way that leads to tragedy. While comparisons to Cold Mountain are inevitable, Ash's journey has its own integrity. Hunt keeps the pace brisk and inserts some new feminist twists into the genre of the Civil War odyssey. 224pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2014. |
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| Library Journal | 08/01/2014 |
| Hunt (Kind One; Ray of the Star) has written a particularly beautiful novel about Constance "Ash" Thompson, a woman who bravely sets out to fight, in place of her husband, in the Civil War. Having dealt with unbearable grief including the loss of her mother through suicide, Ash realizes her own strength as she courageously defends the Union with her male counterparts. Through her first-person perspective, we journey with this stoic, resilient, and hopeful protagonist who recognizes her own pain even as she is coping with the atrocities of battle. Hunt brings an especially bittersweet and lyrical tone to this forgotten part of Civil War history and gives voice to the several hundred women who did indeed make the momentous decision to fight. VERDICT Historical fiction fans will not be disappointed by this wonderful story of Ash's struggles with her identity and of her personal ties to the war. An amazing book. [See Prepub Alert, 3/31/14.]. Mariel Pachucki, Maple Valley, WA. 256p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2014. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 09/01/2014 |
| It's estimated that around 500 women passed themselves off as men so they could fight in the Civil War. In the haunting Neverhome, Laird Hunt deftly imagines one such situation and its heartbreaking repercussions. She calls herself Ash Thompson, a farmer who enlists to fight for the Union. Ash quickly earns a reputation as a brave and stoic soldier, even in the direst of battles. But Ash is actually Constance, an Indiana farmer's wife who left her husband behind to fight. Her reasons become clearer as this beautifully paced novel unfolds, and Ash goes from a war hero to a broken woman looking for a way home. After Ash is revealed as a woman and accused of spying for the South, she is jailed in deplorable conditions, nearly going mad while awaiting a chance to escape. On her trek back to her farm, many of those she encounters help her in their own ways: a trio of orphaned sisters; the wife of the General who commanded Ash. Others stick to their own path, fighting their demons as they make their way home from war. "Here and there you would cross a discharged veteran still had bombs and bullets flying in his eyes," she said. Hunt is at the top of his game with Neverhome, a mesmerizing book whose quiet surface belies its rich depths, up until its heartbreaking conclusion. His impeccable ear for authentic Civil War-era dialect--and his vivid battle scenes--breathe life into a novel that explores what happens when the call of duty collides with the lure of home. Amy Scribner. 256. BOOKPAGE, c2014. |
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| Booklist | 09/01/2014 |
| Although historical novelists have been slow to honor the brave women who fought in America's wars disguised as men, several, including Erin Lindsay McCabe and Alex Myers, have recently remedied this oversight. Hunt joins their strong ranks with an enthralling novel about an Indiana farm wife who leaves her husband in 1862 to become a Union soldier; she has her own reasons why. Don't expect instructive details on how Ash Thompson pulls off this masquerade. Instead, Hunt's is an exquisitely wrought vision of the terrible ravages of war--on the land, on the human body, and on the mind--as encountered by a tough, clever woman. As she marches from camp and into battle, into unfamiliar Southern towns and across woodland filled with intermingled blue and gray dead, she bests others and is herself bested. Her journey's every step is finely rendered in an authentic rural dialect. Readers will encounter eye-opening surprises in both her future and progressively revealed past while avidly living each moment alongside her, marveling at her determination and amazing courage. Johnson, Sarah. 256p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2014. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 03/31/2014 |
| Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his previous novel, Kind One, and a two-time finalist for the PEN Center USA Award, Hunt is a real writer's writer poised for breakout with this lusciously written but hard-hitting historical fiction (based in fact) about a woman who leaves her husband to fight for the Union cause. Why does she join and not her husband? Why does she seem to resist returning home? And why is she regarded as both a legend and a traitor? With a 50,000-copy first printing. 256p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2014. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 07/28/2014 |
| Following Kind One, Hunt returns to the 19th century to transform a footnote in history--the women who fought disguised as men in the Civil War--into a haunting meditation on the complexity of human character, the power of secrets, and the contradictions of the American experience. Saying that "he was made out of wool and I was made out of wire," Constance Thompson leaves her husband Bartholomew to work their Indiana farm and enlists in the Union Army as Ash Thompson. Her strength, fortitude, and marksmanship serve her disguise well, and soldiering seems to offer some of the change she has craved. But the carnage inevitably takes its toll. Captured by bounty hunters, Constance must use both cunning and violence to escape. After an injury separates her from her unit, the nurse with whom she's sheltered betrays her to the military authorities, and she is put in a madhouse. Though she finds her way back home, the war's brutality has changed both her and the farm so much that familiar grounds offers no peace, only pain. Hunt's characterization of Constance transcends simplistic distinctions between male and female, good and bad. The language of her narration is triumphant as well: sometimes blunt, sometimes visionary, and always fascinating. (Sept.). 256p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2014. |
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9780316370134,dl.it[0].title
| Review Citations |
| New York Times Book Review | 09/21/2014 |
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