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A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War
Unavailable
A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War
Unavailable
A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War
Audiobook17 hours

A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A Multi-Cast Production Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army--and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever. A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 23, 2009
ISBN9781600247637
Unavailable
A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War
Author

Robert Hicks

Robert Hicks writes for Cycling Weekly, Cycling Fitness and Cycling Active, covering topics from riding techniques to nutrition, psychology and physiology.

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Reviews for A Separate Country

Rating: 3.529412549019608 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

102 ratings21 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Okay but not great. I'm still going to donate my copy to my library.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What happens to famous southern generals when the South surrenders? Does life return the way is was before the war or are there new battles to fight? General John Bell Hood heads to New Orleans, finds love, starts a family, and finds friends where he least expects it- a midget, a preacher, a man who tried to kill him, and a someone he never knew but let down. It was far from easy and the relationships are not always what one expects- they lead him on a journey to finding inner peace, if that's possible for a man who sent men to die on the battlefield.A a civil war buff I was skeptical if there was any truth to this book, while it is NOT meant to be a work of non-fiction, Hicks apparently drew from some real-life letter that have survived. An interesting fictional novel geared towards those who are interested in the Southern life of a General after the war.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Remarkable tale of General John Hood, Confederate Army, and his marriage to an extraordinary woman, Anna Marie. After the war Hood, broken in body and mind by his experiences and the South's loss, moved to New Orleans and married a young Creole woman. During the next ten years Hood started and lost businesses, did charity work, and sired 11 children. This is a fictional account of that life and the ultimate death of Hood, his wife and their oldest child, all from the yellow jack. It is told through writings of both Hood and Anna Marie and a man who was orphaned by Hood's army. About death, and life, and the toll that the war took on everyone. By the author of Widow of the South which also dealt with the dead of the war.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A stranger in a strange, beautiful and confounding town, General Hood is ready to find happiness and comfort after losing a war and becoming one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army. Crippled by wounds of flesh and spirit, he meets and marries an extraordinary young woman who loves and accepts him despite his failures. As Hood struggles to bild a family and a business with Anna Marie at his side, adversity and despair continue to beset him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author of The Widow of the South, Robert Hicks, has here written a fictional account of the life of General John Bell Hood after the Civil War. (And with a flashback or one particular episode before the war.) Fittingly, Hood was the Confederate commander at the Battle of Franklin, which figured so heavily in his previous book. I picked the book up because it appeared on a list of "best books of 2009", but I think I might quibble with that pick. While there is nothing really wrong with the book, there's nothing really spectacular about it either. It kind of meanders though Hood's life and that of his wife Anna Marie as well as former soldier of Hood's, Eli. The three alternate chapters, although Hood and Anna Marie have already died when their narratives are presented. History lovers will enjoy the book, but it is a long one and takes a certain amount of dedication to finish. Fortunately, it picks up a little steam in its last quarter, making the going a bit easier. I recommend it if you have a bunch of time that you need to fill.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In A Separate Country, Robert Hicks draws upon one of the Confederacy's most colorful generals, John Bell Hood, to tell a story of love, redemption and life in post-Reconstruction New Orleans.After the war, John Bell Hood came to New Orleans a shredded man. Physically scarred with a useless arm and missing leg, Hood's mental state was equally fragmented, regretting his decisions made during the Tennessee campaign that killed so many soldiers. He marries a New Orleans debutante, Anna Maria, and started their life together, which consisted of 11 children, two bankrupt businesses and the threat of yellow fever. In the end, "yellow jack" was the demise for Hood, his wife and their oldest child, Lydia.While on his deathbed, Hood asked his friend, Eli Griffin, to take his secret manuscript to his former protege, a known murderer named Sebastian Lemerle. Sebastian served with Hood before the Civil War, and Hood felt guilty for transforming Sebastian into a murderer. If Sebastian felt comfortable with this version of Hood's life - of a man lost, vulnerable and almost cowardly - then Hood knew he could be redeemed for his sins. It was Hood's wish that his personal memoirs - not his military one - be published. Compounding matters was Eli's discovery that Anna Marie also wrote a journal. In possession of both memoirs, Eli was determined to preserve this side of the infamous general's life, even though Eli knew finding Sebastian could jeopardize his life.Hicks's depiction of New Orleans brought the sights, smells and sounds of this city to life. Mix in a thieving dwarf, hulk-size priest, Irish prostitute, and piano-playing octoroon, and A Separate Country depicts New Orlean's rich and historic melting pot. At times, Hicks lumbered over his descriptions, but he never strayed from his cause: bringing a greater understanding to the life of John Bell Hood and the city that he eventually called home.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Separate Country is a story of the post Civil War era. It is based on the life of Confederate General John Bell Hood. This is a life time full of tragedy and misfortune. It felt a little slow at times but I am not sure if that is the writing or if it is just really hard to read about such sadness! Hood was marked for life by the war, he was a defeated man, mentally and physically...and his story just starts there. From the book jacket: A Separate Country is the bittersweet story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures...and the story of those who taught him to love, to be loved, and transformed him. That said - the writing style of Robert Hicks, author of The Widow of the South, is ingenious! The settings in the post war South, especially in Reconstruction era New Orleans are illuminating. The sights, the sounds, the smells - even the stifling summer heat - it takes you there. I look forward to more from Hicks, his realistic style is one I appreciate in this world where everyone seems to want a happy ending.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved it. that's all I have to say say.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Set in New Orleans after the Civil War, author Robert Hicks has tackled one of the most tragic stories of the War. Confederate General John Bell Hood was one of the most-respected generals of the South. After the Battle of Antietam, Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general. But fate had it in for Hood, He lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg, and his right leg was amputated during the Battle of Chickamauga. He returned to New Orleans, broken not only in body, but also in mind and spirit.The story opens with Hood near death from yellow fever. In another room, his daughter, Lydia, has already perished. The Hoods are found by one of his nemesis’ Eli Griffin. Hood leaves him a stack of papers that turnout to be a secret memoir and urges Griffin to do everything he can to get them published.Hood’s story begins in 1878. He has not done will since the war, failing at one business after another. He married Anna Marie Herrern and together they produced eleven children. Nearly broke, he reflects on the last ten years.The story oscillates between Hood, Anna Maria, and Eli. During the first half of the book, all three voices sounded exactly alike, and I had a hard time figuring out who was talking. In the last half, the voices were more distinguishable, and I truly became interested in Hood. Although I didn’t care much for A Separate Country, (I give it 3 out of 5 stars), I am looking for more material on Hood.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great follow up from the "Widow of the South", this novel follows John Bell Hood after the fall of the Confederacy while he marries and settles down in New Orleans. Hicks has the incredible ability to make you feel as you falling back in time and actually there watching the story as it unfolds. This is a must-read for lovers of history, New Orleans and just a good story!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    While this novel was okay, I didn't really enjoy reading it and the subject matter felt depressing overall. Worse, the characters seemed to stray into implausible events, especially later in the novel. In fact, almost too much seems to happen in this novel - characters murdered, only to be revealed to be still living and then murdered again, for example. While very evocative of New Orleans and Creole culture, I don't know that I would recommend this book to anyone.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    "Mystery on mystery, secret behind secret. It was too much, I wanted to be gone."The above line is thought by one of the character, Eli Griffin, but it sums up how I felt about this book. Eli, along with John Hood and his wife Anna Marie narrate the story, the last two through writings Eli acquires after their deaths.This is nominally the story of John Bell Hood and his family after the Civil War when he moved to New Orleans and married Anna Marie Hennen, and some parts are that, and often very moving. But in many ways, their marriage is merely a backbone to hold together the various, often implausible and improbable events in the book which the Hoods are sometimes awkwardly inserted into. The story details their courtship and marriage, and then leaps to their last few years before they both died in a Yellow Fever epidemic, which undercuts the premise that this is the story of their marriage. Robert Hicks has other things to deal with: New Orleans lore and history, guilt and angst. Well-meaning or ill-meaning, the characters constantly set up all sorts of situations for themselves to feel bad about. They then generally make things worse, adding to their guilt and angst. I wanted to tell a couple of the characters that when one has a family, one must forgo the pleasures of agonizing over the past and pay attention to the present. At the halfway point, I felt that this book had gone on long enough, although I persevered to the end. The book was well-written in a technical sense, and there were some great parts, but the sprawling, coincidence-laden story and the endless angst didn't hold my interest. If Hicks's point, stated at the end, that generals are "flesh-and-blood sinners like the rest of us" was the inspiration for the book, I think that is too obvious to spend 420 pages on. We don't assemble large armies from dragons' teeth, we make them from former civilians.For those who have read the book, I thought the incident when Anna Marie is out riding with her father's coach, George, and encounters Homer, the cobbler's stepson, when he steps into the street was too typical of the book: bizarre and unlikely. In a Black section of town, George is about to beat Homer for impeding their progress, when Anna Marie stops him. This much I can believe. Then, for no apparent reason, she slaps him three times. After that, she goes running after Homer so that she can have an encounter with compassion in the face of death. The latter is a nice scene, but Anna Marie's involvement seems unlikely. I suppose Hicks felt the need to tie it to the Hoods.It does have a happy ending for a couple of characters, but I can't say that I care.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Eli Griffin has been given a special task by General Hood. A task that will take him deep into the Hood family's history and open a whole can full of mysteries and intrigue. General Hood and his wife, Anna Marie, have both written their histories down and we follow their tale as Eli reads through it, with the occassional jump back to the "present" as we see the effects their stories have on the man.General Hood is not a good man and has done things that lead to the deaths of many people. This is his story and how he comes to terms with his past and tries to make up for what he has done. While I did not like General Hood in the beginning, he seemed to be a callous and cruel man, by the end he had earned, at least, my respect. Respect for accepting the consequences of his actions and learning from them. Respect for trying to change his life.I'm a little at a loss as to what to think of Anna Marie. I had a very hard time relating to her as a woman, mother, or wife. She seemed to be constantly trying to overcome something within herself, something similar to selfishness, that she could never quite master. This seemed to hang over her head too often to allow me as a reader to get too close.Eli Griffin, the main narrator, was an odd man, and I'm still not quite sure what to think of him. He changes and grows in ways that are surprisingly familiar, but I can't seem to put my finger on why.I enjoyed reading the book, but there were times I had to put it down, especially near the beginning, because the scenes were a quite disturbing. They were there for a purpose, and the book wouldn't have been the same without them, though.4/5

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I had to give up on this one! Sorry, it just didn't ring true. But, if you were not brought up in the army, or disabled, or know ...never mind, I read half of it before calling my 90yo mom to see if my objections rang true. From other reviewers, I seemed to be a minority.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow!! I didn't expect to like this nearly as much as I did. Everything I know about General John Bell Hood stops at the Civil War. This novel, based on his own writings, some literary license and the history of New Orleans, makes me desperate for a good biography of the man. Alas, I've yet to find one. Aside from the truly unusual story and narrative, the depictions of everyday life in NO,LA was fascinating. As for Hood, the author truly captured the psychological toll sending young men to their deaths (particularly at Franklin, Hood's own Waterloo) took on the man once he was away from the heat of battle and settled into a life that gave him plenty of time to reflect. If you are a Civil War buff, a fan of historical fiction, love a great tale or just like hearing how folks lived in the wake of that war, pick this one up next chance you get.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Looking for a great novel after Widow of the South? This is not it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    General John Bell Hood of the Confederate States of America would seem to have been a unique individual if the premise of this work of historical fiction is true. However, it was difficult to follow being written using different POVs as well as different time periods.We are told of a Confederate officer who suffered several horrible injuries, losing an arm and a leg in the war, who married Anna Marie and fathered 11 children. We hear about her youth and how she met and befriended Michèl and Rentra and Pascal.I've had this book for a over a year and resolved that I was going to read it this year. If not for that resolution and the fact that I was part of a group read at my suggestion, I don't think that I would have continued to the end. I tried reading the hardback. It was too confusing, I got an audio version and I was able to get through it easier with the different readers helping to keep things straight.I found this story very disjointed, only because I had read Widow of the South did I understand the references to Franklin and therefore I can only give it 1½ stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author of The Widow of the South, Robert Hicks, has here written a fictional account of the life of General John Bell Hood after the Civil War. (And with a flashback or one particular episode before the war.) Fittingly, Hood was the Confederate commander at the Battle of Franklin, which figured so heavily in his previous book. I picked the book up because it appeared on a list of "best books of 2009", but I think I might quibble with that pick. While there is nothing really wrong with the book, there's nothing really spectacular about it either. It kind of meanders though Hood's life and that of his wife Anna Marie as well as former soldier of Hood's, Eli. The three alternate chapters, although Hood and Anna Marie have already died when their narratives are presented. History lovers will enjoy the book, but it is a long one and takes a certain amount of dedication to finish. Fortunately, it picks up a little steam in its last quarter, making the going a bit easier. I recommend it if you have a bunch of time that you need to fill.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After the Civil War is over, John Bell Hood, defeated Confederate general, moves to New Orleans seeking a future. The war has irreparably scarred him, changing not only his view on life but his very body; he’s missing a leg and the use of one arm. In New Orleans he meets a woman to love, Anna Marie Hennen, has almost a dozen children, and finds himself enmeshed in a society and a history that is not his own, which he finds he must pull apart in order to properly understand, until the yellow fever takes everything.Civil war fiction is always a tough sell with me and I have no idea why. Fleetingly, I hoped Robert Hicks could buck the trend, as a few notable authors had done before, but unfortunately this book did not strike a chord with me. Strange, because it focuses on a fascinating historical figure and his transformation from an arrogant man into a humanitarian one. New Orleans itself is fascinating and I found myself looking up its history as I went along (only on wikipedia, but still!). I really enjoyed the characters’ forays into the forests and the conflicts between the Creoles and the Americans, not to mention the depiction of changing attitudes towards race. A Separate Country has plenty of interesting hot button topics to consider, even more as the novel moves towards a conclusion.The book is told through a trio of important characters. The first is Eli Griffin, an iceman, who would never have been in New Orleans or anywhere near General Hood if not for his family’s fate in the war. Eli has been entrusted with Hood’s book, a memoir, ensuring that it makes publication. Fulfilling Hood’s dying requests makes up his part of the book; other sections are told from Hood’s perspective from the war to his death and the rest of the chapters are from Anna Marie’s viewpoint, written to her daughter Lydia as she is on her deathbed. These are not spoilers, we gather this information in the first few pages of the novel.I think overall the problem for me with the book is that none of these characters were particularly compelling. I find it difficult to sympathize with this Confederate general. His arrogance and blindness at times is overwhelming and even his moves towards a more likeable personality didn’t quite pull off redeeming him in my eyes. The worst, though, was Anna Marie, who admits that she is shallow, finds her children a burden after the first one, and inadvertently causes misery for almost all of her friends. Normally I like when characters are made more human due to their flaws, but to be honest, these had me driven up the wall.I do think there is a good book here. It just is not a book for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    John Bell Hood was a very well known Confederate General. Having lost a leg and the use of an arm during the Civil War, he decided to settle in New Orleans to start his life over again, since the city was largely untouched by the war. In New Orleans, he met, fell in love with and married Anna Marie Hennen. Together they had eleven children.A series of events involving John and Anna Marie and some of her childhood friends made them re-evaluate their lives and take some chances. They did something totally unconventional to make a difference in the life of others.A Separate Country by Robert Hicks is a fictional account of the life of a real Confederate General. The book is told from three points of view – John Bell Hood’s, Anna Marie Hood’s and Eli Griffin’s. It opens with Eli Griffin receiving a note written by John Bell Hood on his deathbed, requesting two favors. It seems John has written two books, and he wants Eli to see that one is published and the other is destroyed. But, before Eli destroys it, John wants him to take it to one of his former associates, Sebastian Lemerle, to read and decide if John has lived a life of humility. Eli’s part of the story tells of his search for Sebastian.The rest of the story is told through John’s book and Anna Maria’s journal and what a fascinating story it is! It is not a Civil War story, but rather, the story of someone who has lived through the war. (The story is set after the war.) It’s the story of two survivors – General John Bell Hood and New Orleans. It’s the story of what love can do for someone who’s suffered. I really enjoyed this book and I think there will be a lot of buzz about it, especially among historical fiction fans. There were a couple passages, attributed to John, that really struck me and made me sit back and think:“No one thanks the executioner, they wish he would stay out of sight. The cripples too.”“I knew nothing about death, only killing.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The characters that inhabit “A Separate Country” are compelling, to say the least. (Although using the word character when referring to real people always feels odd to me.) Confederate General John Bell Hood and his wife Anna Marie Hennen are the main characters of this novel set in New Orleans after the Civil War. Their words, their stories and the lives they lived in that time draw the reader in…if only because of the sorrow and regret that seems to permeate every page.These are two people that have lived through and been a part of one of the most horrible times in our country’s history…and the impact of their actions and reactions to what they have seen is what makes up this touching story.General Hood undergoes the greatest transformation – barely able to recognize the man he was before and during the war. He sees himself as a man apart – a person unlike anyone around him.“I can remember what I thought standing for the first time in the St. Louis Hotel, watching the traders and fixers mingling in the red and alabaster of the lobby, sharing their whiskey and passing around bills of sale. They were smooth-faced and tailored. Their shoes glowed. They moved lightly between couch and chair and bar. I stood on the precipice, a scarecrow, a lump of earth, a pile of broken things, and watched them flow and slip around each other like dancers. They were full of grace, the earthly kind, and I was full of heaviness.”Hood has been changed by what he has done and seen, and further changed by his relationship with his wife and children. The horrors he has perpetrated make it hard for a reader to fully accept his transformation, but the actions he takes later in life and the deep regret he feels, make him a more reliable narrator of his own life. He finally sees the connection between his life and others lives, and the weight of that which he cannot fix falls heavy on him.As reflects on the end of a major battle: “Now I realize what I saw in his eyes: he saw a devil on a black horse, mutilated and fire-eyed, possessed and under the command of Satan himself, towering over the spoils of five thousand souls. The other boys walked across the battlefield, daring each other to look. One by one they broke away and ran into the town and disappeared without a word. But the blond boy, he would not move. I believe he was waiting for me to take him too. I nearly called out to him, but there was fear upon him and it gave me strength. But I know now that fear was only a part of what I saw in that boy. Had I known to look for it, I would have seen hate and shock and the melancholy of knowing he could no longer be a child, now that he had seen what men could do to men.”Hood is filled with the regret of his actions, and his wife mourns her inaction. Born to a privileged life, it took many years before she understood the impact of the racial hatred and inequality that was happening around her, which she made no effort to stop or change.“That awful night I closed my eyes and walked. I discovered I had not forgotten. At the end, at the foot of the steps and in the gaslight that wavered behind the wings of moths and an ephemera of mayflies, I stopped and opened my eyes. I watched the last few bloody footprints behind me disappear into the brick…But this is what a killing does: it proves safety is a wisp, that evil is strong, and that every moment of comfort and peace and beauty rests on a foundation of wishful thinking and ignorance.”There are two other characters in “A Separate Country” that I found almost as interesting as Hood and Anna Marie. One is painted as nearly angelic by most who knew him and one is painted as satanic. As the book unfolds, the angel is revealed to have feet of clay and the devil shows mercy. As in life, there is no black and white, and as the other characters realize this, the message of the book deepens.The introduction and resolution of the book are strong, but the tension drops a bit in the middle of the book. Since the reader knows (generally) the ultimate end of many of the characters fates, there is some frustration with the length of the journey.At the end, though, I could appreciate this separate country that Hood and Anna Marie make of their family. They strip away that they thought made life better…and are left with a better life. I cannot say I admired them, but given the times in which they lived: “He forgave you, I should tell you that, missus. He didn’t think he would have done anything different if it had been him, and for that reason he had to forgive you. I think he was right about that, and it makes me hellfire hot. We would have all done what you did. That’s the evil, you see.”One can hope for the strength to stand up for that which is right, but when confronted by fear, pain, death…one never knows.“Soon more onlookers joined in, those passive and cowardly men I knew every mob required, men who, having held back out of fear, now would try to outdo each other. I began to feel sick, and leaned my head against the cool wall. The mob, I am tired of the mob.”Sorrow and regret, and that which men can do to men. “A Separate Country” is full of these, but in the end, finds salvation in love.