A Wounded Thing Must Hide: In Search of Libbie Custer

by Jeremy Poolman

Book Overview

A vibrant, deeply personal portrait of the wife of General Custer. Brilliant, inventive, but not in any conventional sense a biography, A Wounded Thing Must Hide is Jeremy Poolman's first foray into... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582341214
• ISBN13: 9781582341217
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Not a straightforward biography

If you just want the facts about Libby Custer's life, this would not be the book for you. But it is a very interesting book. Jeremy Poolman writes in a fasinating style, his obession come from his father, but he's obsessed w/Libby, like his dad was obsessed w/Gen. George. When his wife dies, he can't cope, so might as well give into this obession, which takes him around the world, going to the same places she went. He has some unusual friends, who make an appearence, because it is a book as much about Jeremy Poolman, using his obsession to counter his wish to just kill himself, as it is about Libby Custer. Also since he gives us most of his talks w/people verbatim, I realize he writes as facts, some things he hears from, well just people he runs into. Some guy trying to get him to take a jar of healing horse manure, (no joke) tells him Libby took a jar to the Czar of Russia. He's surprised to hear this, but later writes, that she arrived for her visit w/the Czar w/her jar of horse manure. But we know he has only this one source saying this. So I don't recommond this as first time biography of Libby Custer. However I highly recommond this as a fasinating piece of litrature. They way he weaves two, & on the rare occasion three conversations/events together, is not in the least confussing, he does it so skillfully. They way you can feel his pain for his wife, and his intention to keep on in spite of that pain, and the resonance of Libby's pain at the loss of her husband is very moving. So I'm not sure if all of the facts about Mrs. Custer are accurate, I wouldn't have marketed this as a bio. But the book is a grand example of what a book can be written by someone w/skill and a great imagination.

Excellent biography

I am a long time admirer of Libby Custer and have devoured many books about her. Poolman's work is unique in that it brings Libby to life in the pages of his book, examines the unexplainable attraction so many of us have to her, and also deals with his own journey to recover from his wife's death. As he seeks to know Libby more intimately, he takes the reader along on his journey quite around the world, introducing us to all the strange characters he meets along the way. I found this book very poignant, touching, refreshing, intelligent and honest (with quite a few humorous moments thrown in), and very well done in dealing with Libby Custer and the Custer history.

unlike any other biagraphy i'v ever read.

You must understand I'd just finished a book on the Sicillian Mafia and thinking this was a strait bio on Libby Custer I didnt get it at frist. But moving thru it, its more then a biagraphy. Its about the whys and hows of keeping lost love alive and of moving on. touching and funny. An entertaining read.

Freaks of the Morning Star: reviewing A Wounded thing. . .

Poor Libbie Custer (born Elizabeth Bacon). Had to polish her husband's reputation over and over again. Poolman, who had recently dealt with the death of his wife, makes interesting work of his study of the most famous cavalry widow of all--in an attempt to understand the frailties of life. The book is wrapped around Poolman's journey to sanity, and quietly deals with the Custers' relationship and Libbie's long life after the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. You get to actually know a sensitive G.A. Custer, and a fiercely devoted Libbie, who harboured his legend during her journeys around the world.Also fiercely devoted are all those people who have been hopelessly entraced by the Custer myth, who are just short of, well, nuts. While in Monroe, MI, you can actually go on a tour of the Custer's honeymoon (there wasn't one, so you get to walk on the same sidewalk), and recreate their wedding ceremony. On the anniversary of Custer's death on June 25, you can go to the barber and get a "Custer Cut"--"Custer Cut, Custer Prices". All of this craziness is treated with great humour by Poolman and is almost more interesting than the story of Libbie and her long widowhood.Sometimes Poolman's modern dialogue is hard to follow, and some parts were a little gratuitous, but all in all, you cannot read this book and not smile, even just a little.