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Date Posted: 15:20:17 10/01/01 Mon
Author: mt. healthy mountaineer
Subject: ANHOW Book Review "The Black Flower"

Title: The Black Flower
Author: Howard Bahr
Publisher: Owl Books
Length: 267 pages, trade paperback
Year published: 1997

First off - this is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It follows a group of Confederate soldiers during and after the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee (Nov. of 1864), especially an educated Private named Bushrod Carter. I will not go into great detail, for fear of ruining the plot for others.

This is the author's first book and I hope he has more in store for us. The characters are well-written and "feel" like real people. They have weight and depth, a feature that many readers and writers on this forum have decried as missing in most of modern literature. They speak in dialect that is easy to read and does not take much decoding (as opposed to some of Twain's). I am a Civil War buff, and I can testify that the historical aspects of the story ring true.

This book reminded me very much of "The Red Badge of Courage," but not in its theme or its plot. It reminded me of Crane's battle scenes - the confusion and the noise and the smoke and the pain and death are so well-described in both books. The "Black Flower" the title refers to is a metaphor for battle - a battle is a black flower that opens up and brings death, a wondrous and fearsome thing.

I can do this book no further praise than just quit writing about it. My grade: "A"

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