Varina by Charles Frazier

What a writer this guy is! He can craft a sentence or paragraph like nobody's business. 

Charles Frazier's latest novel is a richly imagined account of the life of Varina Davis -- wife of the Southern Confederacy's  first (and only) president and front line witness to history.

Teen aged Varina marries the widowed Jefferson Davis expecting to settle down to life on his Mississippi plantation. When her husband opts for a life in politics, she follows him to Washington where she enjoys success as a popular hostess and access to some of the most powerful names in the government. This life is turned upside down when the South secedes and Varina's husband is appointed president of the Confederacy.

The novel is structured as a series of conversations (interlaced with flashbacks) between the elderly, long-widowed Varina and James Blake, an educated mixed-race free-born man who, for a time during his childhood, lived with the Davis family and was treated like one of the children.

Varina does much to shed light on the varying sentiments that led to the war, as well as the confused residue of emotion afterward. All of the characters are memorable, none more than Varina, who is intelligent and educated beyond the norm of the time. 

As is James Blake, struggling to find his place between the white world and the black,  James Black, once known as Jimmy Limber, who asks the aging Varina if she had thought of him as a pet.

Frazier has brought history to life through the eyes of this remarkable woman. The questions raised of morality versus the law and of the nature of complicity are eternal, and oh, so relevant today.

 Highly recommended.

Listening to NIGHTWOODS

I read really fast. Sometime I say that I read a book fast so I know if I'll want to read it again -- slower.  When I encounter a novel as rich in description and poetic imagery as Frazier's are, I try really hard to slow down and savor the prose. But if, as in Nightwoods, there's a compelling plot -- two young children traumatized by witnessing the murder of their mother are hunted by the murderer -- I'm likely to skim over the description and imagery in pursuit of WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Fortunately, there's a fix for my sort of reader -- audiobooks.  And Nightwoods is beautifully read -- really, performed is a better word -- by Will Patton whose pleasant Southern voice suits the material perfectly.  I listened to the book over several days in manageable bits -- like pacing myself at a seven course meal. The prose is so rich, the descriptions so true -- and the villain so truly awful that, although I was eager as ever to find out what happened, I used the breaks to imagine where Frazier would take the story. 

At that memorable lunch, I mentioned to Charles that he had upset some folks with the death of one of his main character at the end of Cold Mountain and he just smiled and said it was what had to happen. So I spent some time in wondering what had to happen in this book,  knowing that no one was safe -- not the children, nor Luce, the aunt who is trying to bring the children out of their silent world, nor Stubblefield, the quiet suitor who is trying to win Luce's confidence.

I guessed right about a few things and was pleasantly surprised by being wrong about some others. I loved this book and will, I'm sure, re-read and re-listen to it soon. This man's writing is amazing. It's a good thing I hadn't read this before he came to lunch -- I would have been an even more babbling fan-girl.

Highly recommended -- especially the audio book!