The Wolf Pit

by Marly Youmans

Book Overview

A powerful, intimate look at the Civil War on the home and battle fronts, "The Wolf Pit" is Marly Youmans's third and most accomplished novel. In it Robin, a young Confederate soldier and witness to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374291950
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Civil War Novel Dazzles

The narrative progresses slowly, Biblical and intense, replenishing itself with great gulps of history and panorama. Youmans writes like the child of Allan Gurganus and Toni Morrison, with Morrison's gift for sentences that carry theme and incident in their sheer craft. And, the use of the "ancient tale" structure is inspired. Youmans subtitles each chapter as if it were an age-old ballad: "Concerning wolves and wolf pits And a fight in the burning wilderness," or "Two narrative of loss, Comprising a picnic on the last careless day And a pilgrimage to harvest wands." It's oracular, touching deep wells-springs of storytelling. The Wolf Pit resembles Cold Mountain in its use of landscape to shade its motifs and its occasionally complex éclat. You may read it for its dark tale and, at the same time, savor its rich prose.

Be magically transported to a time of sorrow and truimph!

"The Wolf Pit" does what few other examples of historical fiction do, it introduces us to characters in another time who act like characters in that time, not like modern characters in old fashioned cloths. The novel contains a range of human experiences which are woven with beautiful language and keen insight. The reader is reminded of Dickens as the foibles, cruelty, ambition and nobility of the players in the story are developed. The rich writing and examination of issues still of foremost concern (human cruelty, racism, bravery, sacrifice) will entrance the reader of literary fiction, the rich detail and authentic depictions will be of great interest to the armchair historian. While other "modern" books slide into irrelavence in their striving for hip cynacism, this novel boldly looks at the issues that should engaged thinking readers.