The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War - Softcover

Howard Bahr (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 150405055X ISBN 13: 9781504050555

Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, 2018

Synopsis

A Confederate soldier confronts the horror of battle and the power of grace in this “poignant, haunting, and important” novel of the Civil War (The Tennessean, Nashville).
 
A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of the William Boyd Award for Best Military Novel
 
In November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee prepares to launch an assault on Union forces near Franklin, Tennessee. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, the Confederate soldiers form a line of battle across an open field. Among them stands Pvt. Bushrod Carter, a twenty-six-year-old rifleman from Cumberland, Mississippi. Against all odds, Bushrod has survived three years of war unscathed—but his luck is about to run out.
 
Wounded in the battle, Bushrod is taken to a makeshift hospital on a nearby plantation. There, he falls under the care of Anna Hereford, who bears her own scars from years of relentless bloodshed and tragedy. In the grisly aftermath of one of the Confederate army’s most disastrous campaigns, Anna and Bushrod seek salvation and understanding in each other. Their fragile bond carries with it the hope of a life beyond the war, and the risk of a pain too devastating to endure.
 
Written with profound empathy and meticulous attention to historical detail, The Black Flower brilliantly portrays the staggering human toll of America’s bloodiest conflict. In his award-winning debut novel, “Howard Bahr casts a tale of war as powerful as any you’ll ever find” (Southern Living).
 

About this title

Review

“I recommend it highly.” —Shelby Foote, author of the Civil War Trilogy
 
“Bold . . . a deeply moral book . . . of startling originality . . . Bahr succeeds in capturing the pointlessness of war.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Impressive . . . [Bahr’s] convincing evocation of the private soldiers’ harrowing lot puts his work squarely—and not undeservedly—in [Stephen] Crane’s tradition.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
“A memorable story of war at its most emotional and painful . . . Bahr’s blend of historical fact with gut-wrenching emotion has produced a riveting novel of the Civil War, a frighteningly realistic portrait of men and women caught in an awfulness beyond their control.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“Bahr makes an impressive debut with a haunting tale of a brief but bloody encounter on the road to Nashville.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Meticulously accurate, with historical detail woven into every page. Superbly researched . . . The emotions of those involved in the brutal conflict are artfully conveyed. . . . This is an impressive first novel.” —Historical Novel Society
 
“The senseless agony of armed conflict is expertly evoked in this elegiac Civil War novel. . . . The mournful tone of the narrative serves to underscore the powerful drama of this harrowing tale.”—Booklist
 
“I finished it in one long draught, thinking as I read of Crane, Hemingway, Mailer, and Faulkner . . . but realizing at the end it was altogether original.” —Ernest B. Furguson, author of Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War
 

About the Author

Howard Bahr is the author of four novels: The Black Flower (1997), The Year of Jubilo (2000), The Judas Field (2006), and Pelican Road (2008). A native of Meridian, Mississippi, he served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War and worked for several years as a railroad yard clerk and brakeman. From 1982 to 1993, Bahr was curator of Rowan Oak, the William Faulkner homestead and museum in Oxford, Mississippi. His last post was as writer-in-residence at Belhaven University.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 150405055X
• ISBN 13: 9781504050555
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 350