We have experienced friendships that have withstood the
test of time and/or distance. Few of us likely have had
friendships tested by war like the two characters in
Barbara Hambly's new novel HOMELAND. Rather than a
narrative, Hambly's book is comprised of letters from two
close friends, who live on opposite sides of the Mason-
Dixon line, but don't necessarily share the beliefs of
their friends and families.
Susanna Ashford lives on Bayberry Run Plantation in eastern
Tennessee with her father, brothers and sister who are all
avowed confederates. Cora Poole married a close friend of
one of Susanna's brothers, and to keep matters interesting,
Susanna is in love with Cora's father-in-law. While Susanna
has had slaves all her life, she isn't sure secession is
the best thing, and Cora starts out with her husband Emory
in Boston, but moves to Deer Isle in Maine to live with her
family when Emory goes to war.
But Emory doesn't walk down the street and sign up. He goes
south to fight with his childhood friends for his homeland.
Cora is branded a "copperhead" and told she should divorce
her husband as a traitor. Susanna and Cora are strong,
intelligent and opinionated women who share all with each
other. It seems many times they have no one else in which
to confide. The letters cover everything from the everyday
life of sugaring and preserving to going visiting to gossip
to literature. They tell stories as the quick e-mails we
dash off to friends and colleagues can't possibly do. It
might seem that writing letters would be easier than
maintaining a narrative, but I think it's harder as entire
lives and experiences must be conveyed in correspondence.
Hambly, well-known for her fantasy tales and a historical
series about a free man of color in New Orleans, has put a
new twist on the historical novel in HOMELAND, but creates
no less compelling a tale. It felt not so much like reading
a novel, but sitting in my grandmother's attic, reading
letters she had saved from her mother's mother. Susanna and
Cora draw the reader into their lives, sharing experiences,
emotions and hardships. The novel has much food for thought
to impart, as well: when does a true friend tell the truth
and when is it withheld? The letters don't shy away from
details of the hard labors of daily life, having a militia
in one's house, watching a loved one fade in front of one's
eyes or the siege at Vicksburg. Barbara Hambly
manages to make each genre her own, and this novel is no
exception. Fans of historical novels, women's fiction and
mainstream stories will enjoy this novel.
Those who loved Cold Mountain or Geraldine Brooks’s
March will embrace and long remember this
spellbinding novel of two remarkable women torn apart by
conflict, sustained by literature and art, united by
friendship and hope.
As brother turns
against brother in the bloodbath of the Civil War, two
young women sacrifice everything but their friendship.
Susanna Ashford is the Southerner, living on a plantation
surrounded by scarred and blood-soaked battlefields. Cora
Poole is the Northerner, on an isolated Maine island, her
beloved husband fighting for the Confederacy. Through the
letters the two women exchange, they speak of the ordeal
of a familiar world torn apart by tragedy. And yet their
unique friendship will help mend the fabric of a ravaged
nation.
The two women write about books and art,
about loss and longing, about their future and the future
of their country. About love. About being a woman in
nineteenth-century America. About the triumphant
resilience of the human spirit.
Their voices and
their stories are delineated in indomitable prose by an
award-winning writer who captures in intimate detail a
singular moment in time. In Homeland,
Barbara Hambly takes readers on a unique odyssey across a
landscape treacherous with hardship and hatred. She paints
a passionate masterpiece of a friendship that not only
transforms our understanding of the most heart-wrenching
era of American history but celebrates the power of women
to change their world.
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