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Author Erik Larson offers compelling acount of the start of the Civil War
Only a master storyteller like Erik Larson could turn the five tumultuous months leading up to the Civil War into “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroes at the Dawn of the Civil War” (Crown), a compelling, page-turning read, chock full of anecdotes, psychological profiles and obscure but compelling tidbits of history all set against a relentless march towards a conflict that would kill over 620,000 soldiers and devastate a nation.
Larson, the author of six New York Times bestsellers whose previous works include “The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America,” about a mass murderer and the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair, writes in a novelistic style that makes history come alive. He does so through his ability to weave together the familiar facts of history with information that can only be gleaned through relentless and extensive research.
Yes, most of us know that the Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter, which was located in Charleston Harbor and under the command of U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson. But did you know that Anderson had owned enslaved people and was a defender of slavery? That Lincoln often misspelled Sumter as Sumpter? Or, more importantly, South Carolina did not have to succeed because of Lincoln’s election, as he had no intention of outlawing slavery in the Southern states?
“When I started out doing this, one concern I had was that the Civil War has not exactly been underwritten,” Larson told me during a phone conversation earlier this week, noting that a quick Google indicated around 65,000. “I had vowed over the years never ever to write about the Civil War.”
That changed when, as he was looking for the topic of his next book and watching the events of the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, he began to consider the deep divide and unrest of our own times.
Faced with what he describes as an intimidating world of previous scholarship, Larson says “What I really wanted to do was to provide a rich sense, on an intimate level, of what the forces were and the motivations for the start of the Civil War.”
The magic of his writing is that he accomplishes this by immersing the reader in details, descriptions, and personalities mostly unknown to many of us, including “eight typical characters” such as Charleston society doyenne Mary Boykin Chestnut, who kept a detailed diary, and James Henry Hammond, a Charleston planter who was a leader of the secessionist movement and who later became a U.S. senator despite public knowledge of his sexual relationships with four nieces ages 13 to 19.
He also includes information about resolving issues regarding dueling, from “The Code of Honor or Rules for the Government Principals and Seconds in Dueling” and instructions for the “proper” way of whipping slaves as well as the going prices for selling human beings.
The Southern mindset among the owners of enslaved people of the time is best summed up in a letter written to President James Buchanan, president before Lincoln, by Arthur Peronneau Hayne, a U.S. senator from Charleston. In it, he writes that without slavery “our every comfort would be taken from us. Our wives, our children, made unhappy — education, the light of knowledge — all lost and our people ruined forever. “
“White southerners had persuaded themselves that slavery was a good thing for all concerned, especially for the enslaved blacks,” said Larson. He also notes that many of these same men were devoted readers of writers like Sir Walter Scott, author of “Ivanhoe,” and believed fervently in honor and the code of chivalry.
As outrageous and hypocritical as that seems today, Larson says when writing about a different era it’s important to consider the point of view of those times to accurately reflect how events unfolded.
“It gives a better sense of what the forces were that did lead to states like South Carolina succeeding from the Union and the Civil War,” he said, noting that understanding is not condoning, but historic context provides a lesson for the present and future as we struggle with political division today.
This article previously appeared in the Northwest Indiana Times.
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Camino Ghosts by John Grisham
“what could be better than a cursed island, some supernatural happenings, and the righting of centuries of social wrongs?”
“It was a ship from Virginia, called Venus and it had around 400 slaves on board, packed like sardines,” bookstore owner Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann, a writer who is looking for a new book subject. “Well, it left Africa with 400 but not all made it. Many died at sea. The conditions on board were unimaginable, to say the least. Venus finally went down about a mile to sea near Cumberland Island. Since the slaves were chained and shackled, almost all of them drowned. A few clung to the wreckage and washed ashore in the storm on Dark Island, as it became known. Or Dark Isle. It was unnamed in 1760. They were taken in by runaways from Georgia, and together they built a little community. Two hundred years went by, everybody died or moved away and now it is deserted.”
One of the many facets of John Grisham’s enthralling fiction is his ability to take complex social issues and weave them into the fabric of his novels so that they make for a compelling read.
In Camino Ghosts, the third book in the Camino series, he does it again with his compelling story of Lovely Jackson, an 80-year-old Black woman who is determined to save Dark Isle, the now deserted island once settled by both shipwrecked Africans kidnapped into slavery and escaped slaves. Lovely is the last of those who settled on the island, and she stopped living there when she was 15, only returning to tend to the cemetery where her ancestors are buried.
For years no one wanted the island, an inaccessible and unfriendly barrier island of impenetrable jungle, poisonous snakes, and prowling panthers. But Hurricane Leo has changed the island’s topography and rabid land developers with politicians in their pocket see Dark Isle as the place to build a sprawling casino and resort complex.
But Lovely is determined, believing she is the sole owner of Dark Isle and the protector of her ancestors’ history and graves. She also happens to be the only one who can lift the curse of her great, great, great grandmother, Nalla, a woman who was kidnapped from her village in Africa, taken away from her husband and only child, chained in the hold of a ship as it crossed the Atlantic, and raped repeatedly by the crew members. No white man who has stepped on the island has survived.
Camino Ghosts is the third in the series about bookstore owner Bruce Cable, who likes fine wine, good food, pretty women (he and his wife, an importer of French antiques, have an open marriage), and books. But he is more than a bon vivant and purveyor of tomes, he likes to intervene in the island’s business to produce the best outcomes and is extremely supportive of his writers. Good at pulling strings, he is the force uniting the factions fighting the development and is also helping his former lover, Mercer Mann, a bestselling author with writer’s block, find her next subject. And what could be better than a cursed island, some supernatural happenings, and the righting of centuries of social wrongs?
This article originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books and the Northwest Indiana Times.
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The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters
“a compelling look at a dynamic trailblazer who broke into a field that was male dominated and leading the way for other women . . .”
“When Dana Walters found her husband ashen-faced and unconscious in their hotel bed, his bottle of sleeping pills emptied, she didn’t call an ambulance,” writes author Susan Page in The Rulebreaker, her biography of Barbara Walters. “She called their daughter.
“‘I can’t wake your father up,’ her mother said, her voice frantic. ‘He just won’t wake up!!’
“Barbara ran to the street and hailed a cab for the Hotel Navarro on Central Park South, a mile away where her parents were staying. When she got there, she tried to shake her unconscious father awake—Daddy, Daddy—she shouted—as her mother and sister watched. Jackie, who as always was living with her parents, didn’t fully understand what was happening, but she knew it was a crisis. Lou didn’t respond. Barbara was the one who called the ambulance.”
Walters was the daughter of a nightclub owner who at times was extremely successful and at other times was broke, his family caught up in a cycle of living high and barely scraping throughout Barbara Walters’s childhood. And though she was a journalist, her father’s showmanship was also part of her genetic make-up; and so when Lou Walters, after having his stomach pumped, was out of danger, she went into public relations mode.
“No one had to warn the daughter of Lou Waters about the perils of bad press. At the hospital once her father’s stomach had been pumped, she recognized the risk to his reputation in his future prospects if word got out he had tried to take his own life. . . . Sometimes bad news required a shiny finish.”
This brief description of a major family emergency succinctly highlights the aspects of Walters ‘s personality, a summation of all the components of what led her to be such an outstanding success. She was the one people turned to in crisis. And even though she was devastated and fearful of losing her father, she kept her cool, she evaluated, and then made her decisions about what was the course of action. But underneath it all, her formative years had instilled a sense of impending doom, an understanding that life could change in a nanosecond. But that anxiety didn’t stop her from breaking through the barriers that had kept women out of the coterie of male reporters who were seen as the only ones capable of relaying news with the gravity and seriousness required.
She was a “rulebreaker,” a woman who managed a somewhat complicated private life (divorces, affairs, and the like) while working toward her goals. Walters is famous for many things and among them are the number of big “gets,” interviews with famous people such as Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Fidel Castro, the Shah of Iran, Monica Lewinsky, Ted Turner, and Betty White.
Not only a rule breaker but a groundbreaker, when Walters was 67—retirement age for many—she created a new television show with The View, the first in what is now known as talk TV.
Page, the author of the New York Times bestselling Madame Chair and the award-winning Washington bureau chief of USA Today, interviewed more than 150 people for her book and did a deep dive in archival research. The result is a compelling look at a dynamic trailblazer who broke into a field that was male dominated and leading the way for other women including Oprah, who announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters.
This article previously appeared in the New York Journal of Books.
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Fiendishly Noir: Friend Indeed by Elka Ray
“How far would you go for a friend in need if it meant your life and liberty might come crashing down upon you?”
“Jo crawls over the bench and squats beside me. One sharp yank get the motor going. ‘I’ll drive,” she says tightly. ‘Move to the middle. And keep an eye out for debris.’
“I crawl to the central bench and sink down. Jo turns us toward shore. Distant lights twinkle. Wind catches my hair.
“It’s a relief to be moving, to flush my lungs with cold air.
“I pull my hands into my sleeves. I’m wet through and chllled. My teeth chatter. For some minutes, we ride in silence.
“’Dana?’ Although she’s driving slowly we’ve started to bounce again. Jo sounds ill.
“’Did you love him?
“I look back over my shoulder, toward my huddled friend and the black knuckles of islands. I find the spot we left Stan. I bite my lip, hard and spin the way we’re headed.
“’Yes. I still love him.’”
Two best friends, always there for each other. When Jo is fired from her job and her husband files for divorce, empties their bank account, and leaves her and their daughter homeless, she turns to Dana, married to Stan and living the life of an affluent wife in a ritzy subdivision in Texas. Dana is there for her, encouraging Jo to move back to Texas and gets her a job at the posh private school her children attend, even though Jo is without references.
So, of course, when Dana calls in the middle of the night needing help, Dana gets into her dilapidated car with her daughter and speeds over. But while Jo’s situation had been dire, the trouble Dana is in takes it to a whole other level. She killed her husband during a domestic assault. Stan, she tells Jo, has been abusive throughout their marriage and she was defending herself. Is that true? It’s difficult to know at first.
Dana has lived a life many women dream of—a handsome, filthy rich husband, a beautiful house, three children, and all the accoutrements that go with such a set-up. But Jo owes Dana big time and though she wants to call the police, Dana begs her to help dispose of the body. So the two trundle Stan down stairs and into a boat, weigh the body down, and drop him in the water and then return to the house to scrub, hopefully, everything clean. Exhausted, Jo gets her sleeping daughter into the car to head home and accidentally blows a stop sign causing a speeding motorist to swerve and hit a pedestrian walking her dog. He speeds on but Jo stops and calls 911 though she knows it will tie her to a location near Dana’s home.
It is not a good evening any way you look at it, but what will happen next will only get worse as Jo and Dana seem to be surrounded by vultures including malicious gossiping neighbors, zealous cops wanting to crack the case, and a blackmailer. Will the two women, who have known each other for 30 years, withstand all these external forces coupled with their own horror at what happened and what they’ve done?
Friendship is one thing but author Elka Ray, who was born in Canada, raised in the United Kingdom, and now lives in Central Vietnam, writes suspense novels, often with a touch of noir and poses intricate questions and situations. Her previous books include Divorce is Murder and Killer Coin. In her latest, A Friend Indeed (Blackstone Publishing), she asks, How far would you go for a friend in need if it meant your life and liberty might come crashing down upon you?
This article originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books.
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Nancy Chadwick-Burke, Michelle Cox, and Patti Eddington: Three Authors Discuss Their New Work at The Book Stall
The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) will be welcoming authors Nancy Chadwick, Michelle Cox and Patti Eddington on Thursday, July 11th at 6:30 PM. In a discussion moderated by Michelle Cox, each author will talk about her writing process, and the origins of her book. Our guest authors work with similar themes, and they will be exploring these connections in their new works of historical fiction, connections with the natural world, and memoir. Whether you are a fan of writing by and about women or a writer looking for guidance on completing and publishing a book, this is the program for you! We’ll leave plenty of time for audience Q&A.
This event is free with registration! Visit their website or CLICK HERE.
Nancy Chadwick is the author of Under the Birch Tree: A Memoir of Discovering Connections and Finding Home. Her essays have appeared in The Magic of Memoir: Inspiration for the Writing Journey, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and Turning Points – The Art of Friction, as well as in blogs by Off Campus Writers’ Workshop, the Chicago Writers Association Write City, and Brevity. Her debut novel, The Wisdom of The Willow, has been included in the “Most Anticipated Books of 2024” by the Chicago Review of Books. She finds writing inspiration from her many meanderings through any forest.
Michelle Cox is the award-winning author of the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, a mystery/romance saga set in 1930s Chicago. She also pens the wildly popular, “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog chronicling the lives of Chicago’s forgotten residents. Her debut novel, The Fallen Woman’s Daughter, is her first foray into women’s historical fiction and is based on a story she heard working in a nursing home. She has spent years crafting it into a novel and is delighted to finally share it with the world.
Patti Eddington is a newspaper and magazine journalist whose favorite job ever was interviewing the famous authors who came through town on book tours. She never dreamed of writing about her life because she was too busy helping build her husband’s veterinary practice, caring for her animal obsessed daughter—whose favorite childhood toy was an inflatable tick—and learning to tap dance. Then fate, (and a DNA test) led her to a story she felt compelled to tell. Today, the mid-century modern design enthusiast and former dance teacher enjoys being dragged on walks by her ridiculous three-legged dog, David, and watching egrets and bald eagles from her deck on a beautiful bayou in Spring Lake, Michigan.
The Book Stall is an independent bookstore and cultural institution on Chicago’s North Shore. We are known for our great selection of books, cards, and gifts, as well as our long-running author event series. Learn more at www.thebookstall.com.
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The Instruments of Darkness by John Connolly
“Moxie Castlin was easy to underestimate, but only on first impression. He was overweight by the equivalent of a small child, didn’t use one word in public when five others were loitering nearby with nothing better to do, and had a taste for the reminiscent of the markings of poisonous insects or the nightmares of LSD survivors. He subsisted largely on fried food, coffee, and the Maine soda that had given him a nickname, now long since passed into common usage: since he had been christened Oleg. Moxie sounded better to him. He lost cases, but not many, and his friends far outnumbered his enemies.”
And so, in the first chapter of The Instruments of Darkness (Atria/Emily Bestler Books), the 21st book in the Charlie Parker series by international and New York Times bestselling author, John Connolly, we meet Moxie who is defending Colleen Clark, a mother accused of abducting and possibly murdering her two-year-old son Henry. It’s a heinous case and everyone, the police and general public, and especially the politicians who have an election coming up, think Colleen is guilty. After all, she was home, supposedly asleep when Henry disappeared. Her husband, Henry’s father, had been away on a business trip.
But it doesn’t matter if the world is against you when you have Moxie and Charlie Parker, a private investigator
Everyone does seem to be against Colleen, including Henry’s father, Stephen Clark, who stirs the pot. Because of his outspoken concerns, the police search Colleen’s car and discover a blanket soaked in Henry’s blood in the wheel well of her car. Rumors about Colleen begin to circulate and as Parker, who narrates the story, wryly says they were unfounded, but that is no obstacle as unfounded rumors are the best kind.
The book lives up to its title, there is definitely darkness surrounding the case and the community. Others have disappeared without a trace. And there’s a touch of the supernatural to give the readers a few shivers as Parker tries to help Moxie take on a case where even before the trial a guilty verdict has been decided.
Connolly, who lives in Dublin, Ireland, has written more than 30 books, is the author of several series including the Samuel Johnson trilogy, the Lost Things stories, and (with @JennieRidyard), the Chronicles of the Invaders. He writes long, weaving a complex mystery-thriller full of twists and turns, and peopled with intriguing characters, some benign and eccentric, others scary including a gang of fascists who are readying for war; and a psychic who says that the dead, including a woman named Verona Walter, frequently appeal to help from Walter, who, it seems, is dead and buried but still in contact with the living.
But there’s more to deal with than fascists and a psychic that talks to the dead, there’s the house, seemingly in ruins, deep in the dark Maine woods and exerting an unnatural and dangerous force.
As Connolly describes an interaction between two people as they approach the isolated home.
“Pinnette tried to tear his gaze away from the house but found he could not. While it might have looked abandoned, he was not convinced it was quite empty. Certain structures, while appearing uninhabited, retained about them a sense of occupation, as though a latent presence had infused the very boards. As he and Unger observed the house, Pinette could not help but feel that the house was observing them in turn: not someone in the house but the house itself.”
It will take all of Parker’s detective skills to overcome the obstacles he faces to help Moxie with his client, all the while trying to stay safe.
This review first appeared in the New York Journal of Books.
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Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day with Romance and Brews
On Saturday, April 27 at 3:30 pm, join the folks at The Book Stall for an afternoon of Romance and Brews to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day! Author Stephanie Jayne joins us at The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) with three fellow Romance authors for a meet & greet with some frosty refreshments! Stop by for a brew and say hello to romance author Kelly Farmer, romance and mystery author Sharon Michalove, and historical romance and mystery author Felix Alexander. Copies of their titles will be available to be signed! Ms. Jayne will be signing her new book, I’ve Got My Mind Set on Brew. A down-on-her-luck craft beer brewer and her privileged new boss clash as they work together to save a quirky brewpub in this enemies-to-lovers workplace rom-com.
More About the Book: Kat Malone is left cash-strapped after a job loss and a bad breakup when she discovers a surprising new career path: craft beer brewer. When the brewpub is sold, the new owner places his light-on-experience son in charge of the pub. Ryan is as basic as a pale lager and aims to turn quirky Resistance into a run-of-the-mill sports bar. Despite clashes between Kat and Ryan, he confides that Resistance is in financial trouble and that drastic changes will be needed if the pub has any hope of survival. Forced to collaborate, Kat realizes Ryan isn’t as bland as she assumed—he might even be exactly what she’s been craving.
More About the Authors: Stephanie Jayne loves to write relatable characters striving to make their mark on the world as they fall in love in the process. When not crafting quirky love stories, she’s often found playing video games or fangirling over romance books with a book club. She lives in the greater Chicago area with her multi-talented creative husband and two persistent cats.
Kelly Farmer, author of It’s a Fabulous Life, has been writing romance novels since junior high. The stories have changed, but one theme remains the same: everyone deserves to have a happy ending. She loves telling tales with a touch of snark and a lot of heart. Kelly lives in the Chicago area, where she swears every winter is her last one here.
Felix Alexander is a Mexican-born, American-raised novelist and poet of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent. Being third-generation military, after a grandfather and three uncles who served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, respectively, Alexander is proud of his service in the U.S. Army and grateful for his experience. He lives in the Chicagoland area and volunteers to promote literacy among youth. His books include the Aiden Leonardo mystery series and the Labyrinth of Love Letters historical romance series.
Sharon Michalove writes romance, suspense, and traditional mystery, as well as being a published historian. After growing up in suburban Chicago, she spent most of her life in a medium-sized university town, working as an academic professional. Sharon moved back to Chicago in 2017 and started writing fiction, publishing her first book in 2021. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Chicago-North Romance Writers. Currently, she is president of the Sisters in Crime Chicagoland Chapter and an at-large board member of MWA Midwest. Her Global Security Unlimited series is a finalist for the Chanticleer International Book Award for Genre Series.
Independent Book Store Day is a national effort to recognize the importance of independent bookstores. This national one-day party held on the last Saturday in April celebrates independent bookstores across the country online and in-store. It’s a party you don’t want to miss!
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Max’s War: The Story of a Ritchie Boy
The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) on Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 pm is presenting a program with author Libby Fischer Hellman featuring her new book, Max’s War: The Story of a Ritchie Boy. This suspenseful coming-of-age war story is Libby Hellmann’s tribute to her late father-in-law who was active with the OSS and interrogated dozens of German POWs. To register for this free event, please visit their website or CLICK HERE.
More About the Book: As the Nazis sweep across Europe, Jewish teen Max and his parents flee German persecution to Holland, where Max finds friends and romance. But when Hitler invades in 1940, Max escapes to Chicago, leaving his parents and friends behind. When he learns of his parents’ murder, Max immediately enlists in the US Army. After basic training he is sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, where he is trained in interrogation and counterintelligence.
Deployed to the OSS, Max carries out dangerous missions in Occupied countries. He also interrogates German POWs, especially after D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, where, despite life-threatening conditions, he elicits critical information about German troop movements.
Post-war, he works for the Americans in the German denazification program, bringing him back to his Bavarian childhood home of Regensburg. Though the city avoided large-scale destruction, the Jewish community was decimated. Max roams familiar yet strange streets, replaying memories of lives lost to unspeakable tragedy. While there he reunites with someone from his past, who, like him, sought refuge abroad. Can they rebuild their lives together?
More About the Author: Libby Fischer Hellmann left a career in broadcast news to write gritty crime fiction and historical fiction. She has written eighteen novels and twenty-five short stories and has been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community. She has been a finalist twice for the Anthony and the Shamus; and four times for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. She has also been nominated for the Agatha, the Daphne, and she won the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year in 2021. Her novels include the Ellie Foreman series, the Georgia Davis PI series, and five stand-alone historical thrillers.
Her short stories have been published in anthologies, the Saturday Evening Post, and Ed Gorman’s 25 Criminally Good Short Stories collection. In 2006 she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 4000-member organization committed to the advancement of female crime fiction authors.
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Poisoned Passover: Book 2 Torah Mystery Series
he Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) is delighted to host mystery author Susan Van Dusen on Wednesday, April 17 at 6:30 pm for an in-store discussion featuring her new book, Poisoned Passover, the second book in the Torah Mystery Series. With no experience except watching TV detective shows, Julia Donnelly, the wife of the mayor, and her Torah group leader, Rabbi Avrum Fine, have been pressed into service to solve the town’s mysteries.
This event is free with registration. To register, please visit their website or CLICK HERE.
More About the Book: Who’s poisoning Passover guests in Crestfall, Illinois? When Julia Donnelly brings chopped liver to her Torah group friend Devorah’s seder, she has no idea it will result in mass poisoning, murder, and a connection to past arson. Julia, wife of Crestfall’s mayor, and Rabbi Fine, Torah study group leader, become involved in a mystery surrounding Sophie’s Kosher Deli. Someone is trying to put her out of business. Is it Lester Pintner, a developer who wants to put up a building, her good-for-nothing son Milton who wants to transform the store into a pool parlor, Sweet Cheeks, a mysterious woman who has attached herself to Milton, or perhaps Nate, another deli owner who wants to buy Sophie’s store.
Meanwhile, Julia must also deal with challenges on the home front when her son Sammy refuses to go to school. She has a full plate! How does she cope with everything? By teaming up with the Rabbi, using powers of observation, and logic from Jewish tradition to solve a confusing puzzle of danger and greed!
More About the Author: Susan Van Dusen is an international award-winning writer of books, editorials, magazine and newspaper articles. She was the Communications Director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and Associate Director of Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. Susan created “The Read In” project at the University of Illinois in Chicago and “Coming Together in Skokie and Niles Township,” acknowledging the diversity of those communities. In Israel and in Chicago’s Uptown area, while teaching English to non-English speakers, she wrote songs and plays to stimulate interest in language. Susan was the editor of a neighborhood weekly newspaper, then became the award-winning editorial director of WBBM-AM Newsradio as well as writing for newspapers and magazines. While studying with a Torah group for ten years, she realized it was the perfect vehicle for a series of books, with the first book in the series being The Missing Hand. Currently she is retired, a normal human being, a mayor’s wife, a mother and grandmother, and participant in several civic and writing groups.
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