North and South by John Jakes

You may best remember North and South as a television miniseries in the early 1980s starring Patrick Swazye and his mullet. I'm not sure mullets were prevalent in civil war era America but they sure were prevalent on The Swazye in the '80s. God rest his soul. I can remember my mom reading all three books in the trilogy and I remember our family watching the miniseries. It was quite the television event at the time. Being 10 at the time of the miniseries airing, I naturally don't remember much of it so when I came across it awhile ago in my mom's book collection, I asked to borrow it.

Ye Olde Mullet

North and South chronicles the lives of two families - the Mains (Hey, that's my family's surname! Cool! Now I'm even more interested!) of South Carolina and the Hazards of Pennsylvania. The Mains run a successful rice plantation and - you guessed it - own many slaves. The Hazards own a large ironworks factory and don't own slaves. Orry Main and George Hazard meet at West Point and despite their cultural differences, become fast friends. They later fight in the Mexican/American war together where Orry loses an arm in battle and George saves his life.

After the war, Orry returns to South Carolina to run the family's cotton plantation and wallow in misery due to his lack of a left arm and the fact that the woman he loves has married a local a-hole. George returns to Pennsylvania to run the ironworks, raise a family and presumably smoke cigars. Seriously! He is always smoking a cigar in the book. Jakes features George's cigar smoking so prevalently that I can only assume he's setting the character up to die of lung cancer in one of the following books.  Don't tell me if he does.  I want to be surprised.

Tensions rise between the northern Americans and southern Americans as the slavery issue heats up and the country draws closer and closer to civil war. Through it all, Orry and George are determined to keep theirs and their families friendships intact.

Jakes did his research for North and South. I learned a lot about the lead up, characters involved and the circumstances surrounding the civil war. Jakes even inserts some key real-life characters into the story to interact with the fictional characters including Robert E. Lee and President Lincoln himself.  However, some of the history seems forced or awkward.  Characters will spontaneously begin debating issues unrelated to what was currently happening in the book or random characters will appear out of nowhere to provide exposition.  And Jakes also conveniently positions his characters so they can basically Forrest Gump their way through the civil war.  Oh look, two of the characters are conveniently at West Point when Robert E. Lee was the head master.  Oh look, one of the characters is conveniently stationed at Fort Sumter when it is fired upon.  Oh look, two of the characters happen to be on a train that is detained during John Brown's raid in Harper's Ferry, Virginia.  It all just felt contrived.

That being said, this is basically a 735 page Harlequin romance with some history thrown in. There is a LOT of bodice ripping and passionate embracing going down.  And the dialogue is equally cheesy.  I really just got the feeling that Jakes isn't that good of a writer.  Yes, he was able to create an elaborate world with many, many characters rooted in historical events.  He just didn't do it skillfully.  Margaret Mitchell did it a helluva lot better.

And my biggest problem with the book (which might be a little spoilery):  735 pages; one huge, lengthy book and the war hasn't even started yet!  Come on!  Yes, I get it.  There was a lot of lead up to the war.  We didn't just go to war overnight.  But let's get to the point already.  Which means, I guess I have to read the second in the trilogy, Love and War, which by the name alone almost guarantees more bodice ripping.

I'm giving North and South two and a half bows.

It wasn't awful. There are some scenes that are quite griping and the history is solid.  But it is also fairly ridiculous and cheesy. I'll at least read the second book.  But not right away.  I need some palate cleansing first.  Until next time, happy reading fellow book nerds!

Hello! Is This Thing On?

Hello again!  Long time no see.  Let's sit down and chat awhile, catch up on things, shall we?

Yep, it's been about eight months since I last posted on this blog.  There's been some pretty heavy stuff going on in my life that has drawn my attention away from just about everything except breathing.  My father was in a serious car accident and hospitalized for nearly two months.  He's doing much better now, recovering nicely.  I have been diagnosed with a particularly annoying and time consuming digestive disease that has required many tests, medications and a short stint in the hospital for myself as well.  I have also made some career changes.  I'm still an accountant by day (at least until I write the Great American Novel) but have taken a position as controller with a new company.  "Controller" is just a fancy word for someone who runs an accounting department for a small company.  Needless to say, this new job comes with some pretty hefty responsibilities and stress.  Things are settling down now, however.  Day to day life is starting to return to normalcy.

I have still been recieving all your author/publisher review submissions and filing them away.  I hope to return to reading and reviewing these submissions again but for the time being, I just want to get back in the swing of things.  If you have sent me a review request, I will be in contact soon on whether or not I will be able to accomodate your request.  I have been inundated with submissions and am unfortunately going to have to refuse some.  Alas, I don't do this for a living and therefore have limited time for reading and blogging.

However, during these last few months, I did not stop reading.  I haven't been reading as much but still reading nontheless.  A few of the titles that I read during my absence from this blog that I may or may not get around to telling you about include Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, and Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan.  I just finished North and South by John Jakes and have already started writing the review for it so look for that soon.  In the meantime, leave me a comment on what all everybody is reading.  I'd love to hear from you again.

Shannon