Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg

by John Hough Jr.

Book Overview

John Hough's superbly readable historical novel, the revealing coming-of-age story of two young brothers fighting in the civil War, evokes the hardships and camaraderie of ordinary soldiers and civilians set against the bloody drama of the battle of Gettysburg. - Brilliant characters: raised by their abolitionist father on martha's Vineyard, eighteen-year-old Luke and sixteenyear- old Thomas Chandler volunteer for the union. They join the Army of...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416589651
• ISBN13: 9781416589655
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A great novel about the Civil War--and a great love story.

I've read a lot of Civil War novels, and this is one of the best. Like The Killer Angels, this one also climaxes at Gettysburg--but this book was actually more emotionally involving than that one. Heartbreaking, actually--two young brothers from Massachusetts go off to war and only one comes back, and there's a young freedwoman back home they're both in love with . . . so you've got a great war story along the lines of The Red Badge of Courage, crossed with what I think is an equally great love story. Like I said, extremely involving and heartbreaking, because the characters jump off the page, they're that real. And, finally, the writing itself: lyrical and spare, and in the climactic battle scenes, intensely vivid. This is a great novel.

beautiful & riveting

From the very first scene of a runaway slave taking temporary refuge in the Martha's Vineyard home of a small town white doctor, until the heartbreaking aftermath at Gettysburg, I inhabited this beautifully constructed novel alongside the characters. Seen the Glory is the riveting story of two young abolitionist brothers from Martha's Vineyard who join the Massachusetts 20th. It is also the parallel story of a small rural community and the little family left behind: their gentle physician father and enigmatic Cape Verdean housekeeper. The interplay between the two young brothers, in both words and gestures, is timeless. Their growth, from innocent boys in a loving abolitionist home to the hardened men they become in a war about race, is as authentic as anything I've read in fiction. Author John Hough crafts every scene - the dappled shade of small town lanes, moths dancing in candlelight, the bloodbath of battlefields - with a watercolorist's eye and in language that evokes 19th century America, North and South. I wanted to loop back and reread scenes, just to absorb the beauty of his language. Seen the Glory is a meticulously researched story of the Civil War, and it is a surprisingly complex love story. But the theme of growing up is just as powerfully drawn, as Luke and Thomas learn to balance ideals with reality, and that brotherhood means more than blood.

the truth of great fiction

As compelling, brutal, and ultimately heartbreaking as Hough's rendering of the battle of Gettysburg, what came before is what most caused me to miss the book when I had finished. It was greatly enlightening to be privy to the details of life from that period, especially the racism of the north. And the story of brotherly love, friendship, and human decency in the midst of tragedy and horror is one I'll never forget. This book has taken a place in my list of all time favorites, next to Cold Mountain, Lonesome Dove, the Great Gatsby and Grapes of Wrath.

Thoughtful and layered

John Hough's new novel is a lovely book about some fairly typical subjects (life as a young soldier during the Civil War) and some less common ones (19th century life on Martha's Vineyard and the politics of abolition as seen by teenagers). Though its subtitle calls it "A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg," readers expecting something like its distant cousin THE KILLER ANGELS will have to wait until the last fifty pages or so to get to the combat. The rest of the book is a carefully structured tale about how and why hotheaded boys get from home to battlefield and how they try to make their wartime sacrifices meaningful. Martha's Vineyard brothers Luke and Thomas Chandler have grown up with an abolitionist father and a Cape Verdean housekeeper, and they see on their isolated island a sort of microcosm for the different Northern reactions to the ongoing Civil War. When they finally enlist in 1863, the boys learn the expected lessons about the hardship of army life, the reality of death, and what it takes to learn about and get along with people from different backgrounds. Anyone who's read any good Civil War fiction will feel right at home with the protagonists' inevitable movement toward the climactic fight at Gettysburg; it is the balancing of that plotline with memories of life on the Vineyard that sets this novel apart. Hough crafts believable and sympathetic characters from many walks of life, and his colorful, evocative descriptions of hearth and home allow for a densely emotional history lurking in the memories of men who fight and die. A must-read for anyone interested in Civil War fiction or 19th-century domestic life.