Canaan

The search for the mythical land of milk and honey in post-Civil War America sweeps from the North to the South to the Wild West. Narrators Tom Stechschulte, Alyssa Bresnahan, and Carine Montbertrand weave a tumultuous tale between the time of Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865 and the massacre of federal troops by Sioux warriors at the Little Big Horn in 1876. Much of the story is lovingly told by a Santee woman named She Goes Before, who finds love with an ex-slave. Listeners may feel dust in their nostrils as the Indians attack Custer's soldiers, and few hearts are so cold that won't be warmed by the story's ending, wonderfully portrayed by Stechschulte. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

January 1, 2007
This well-wrought sequel to McCaig's Civil War novel Jacob's Ladder
(2003) covers the fractious years between Lee's surrender at Appomattox and Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn. To illustrate that complex, ugly era, the narrative follows the changing fortunes of a variety of personages—a Virginia plantation owner's family and former slaves, a Yankee carpetbagger and a railroad magnate among others. The character who best captures the contradictions that McCaig is after is Edward Ratcliff, top sergeant for the 38th Regiment, United States Colored Troops, who journeys from slave to free man to member of the South Carolina Santee Indian Tribe. Before the war, Ratcliff was known as a "hincty nigger," but his white army commander treats him with respect. After travels north and west, as a scout, a trail cook, cattle driver and sharpshooter, Edward looks for a context that affords a measure of esteem. Eventually he meets and marries She Goes Before and takes a Santee name, Plenty Cuts, because of his bullwhip scars. But as the U.S. continues the persecution of Native nations, robbing them of their natural resources, Ratcliff can no longer sustain his family. Eventually he takes a job as a scout for Custer at Little Big Horn, and his fate is sealed. McCaig's latest is authoritative and occasionally profound.