ANHOW Review of Books: <I>Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative</I> by Shelby Foote -- Adilbrand Noblesword's Hall of Warriors

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Date Posted: 02:28:38 05/02/04 Sun
Author: Mt. healthy Mountaineer
Subject: ANHOW Review of Books: Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative by Shelby Foote

Genre: Fiction
Published: June 1992 by Vintage Books
First published: 1952

Synopsis:

Seven snapshots of the history of a fictional Mississippi county in the form of short stories form this book. They very greatly in length and travel backwards in time. These are not epic tales that attempt to tell the entire history of the eras they represent, like a Michener novel. Rather, they are intensely personal stories - more about the feelings of the characters than the history they are living.

My review:

As I already mentioned, the length of these short stories vary greatly (from 4 pages to 150 pages). Unfortunately, so does their quality. The first is the most surprising and the second is the best (it concerns a black horn player - how he starts and ends his life in the Jordan County and his success in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance).

In my opinion, the worst story is the longest. It concerns a very emotionally-stifled plantation-owning family in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The most interesting is the last (and chronologically, the first). It should have been fleshed out a bit more. It had too much of a shadowy feel. It was the only one of the stories that was told from a very detached point of view and I wish it had had more to it.

I'm giving this book a "C" for its up and down nature.

I am including two links:

One is for a biography of Mr. Foote, whom I respect immensely for his three-volume Civil War history and his work on Ken Burns' Civil War mini-series of more than 10 years ago. I found the bio quite interesting and more than a fair assessment. http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/foote_shelby/

The other is a link to its location of Amazon.com. I thought I'd link future reviews so that you can see what others think of it.http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679736166/qid=1083478108/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-7175533-7786552?v=glance&s=books

I would like to recommend another Foote novel. I thought I had reviewed it online on this forum, but I can't find it - his novel Follow Me Down is an interesting picture of love gone horribly wrong in the WWII-era South. I would also unhesitatingly recommend his Civil War histories that I mentioned above - but be careful - they are nearly 3,000 pages of reading, not counting the bibliographies.

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