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Jarrettsville by Cornelia Nixon

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Matt Phillips
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Jarrettsville by Cornelia Nixon

Post by Matt Phillips » Fri April 16th, 2010, 7:18 pm

I picked this recent novel up out of interest in the location (Harford County, Maryland) and time period (immediately after the Civil War). What then held my interest is the premise: A woman from a family of Confederate sympathizers murders her former fiance, a Union veteran, in broad daylight in front of a slew of other men in blue uniforms celebrating the anniversary of Appomattox. Nixon then takes the reader back several years to tell the story of what led up to such an unlikely couple getting together, followed by such a shocking (and real) murder.

Nixon uses an interesting point-of-view approach: Most of the backstory is told in first-person from the POV of either the murderer or her former fiance. The story of the murder itself (at the beginning of the narrative) is told from the POVs of several other characters, almost in an oral history style, as is the story of the trial, although the defendant's POV is included at that point as well.

I expected to find this technique distracting, but was pleasantly surprised. Nixon successfully gave each POV character a distinct voice, and each contributed something valuable to the reader's understanding. Also, for the most part, the characters' voices and behavior seemed appropriate to the time, with the mix of superficial gentility, self-righteous partisanship and rampant brutality that characterized the era.

My two criticisms focus on the characterization of the fiance and some historical flaws. Although I don't believe murder was justified (of course), I ended up sympathizing more with the woman's feelings than her fiance's. This may have been intentional on the author's part, but I at least wanted to understand why the fiance behaved how he did. Despite the large portion of the narrative before the murder being told from his POV, he never explained his behavior effectively. In any event, it was easy to understand why this woman was so confused and distraught.

There were also a few cringe-inducing historical trip-ups, such as reference to Maryland's cotton-growing economy (its cash crop in the 19th century was primarily tobacco; you don't get to the part of the South where cotton was king until at least the Carolinas) and peanut butter (unlikely to appear on anyone's plate until at least the 1880s or so).

Overall, worth reading if you are interested in the Civil War/Reconstruction period, or interested in an unusual approach to using multiple first-person POVs.
Last edited by Matt Phillips on Fri April 16th, 2010, 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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