The Widow of the South

Paul Boehmer starts this ensemble reading in hushed tones, as if afraid he'll be caught. In short order, it's clear why. While the novel's factual roots--Southerner Carrie McGavock's lifelong devotion to the buried Confederate dead in her plantation's cemetery--are poignant, author Hicks reduces Carrie to a lovesick cipher who meanders through a cliché-riddled romance with a wounded soldier to whom she's inexplicably drawn. The narrators make a valiant effort--Lorna Raver is suitably creaky and drawly, Stephen Hoye does his level best to imbue every sentence he utters with impending doom, and Scott Brick wrangles various soldiers who wander in and out of this audiobook-- but the listener's mind will wander. A.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

August 1, 2005
The grand scale of drama in this Civil War novel that recreates the life of Carrie McGavock, whose Tennessee home became a Confederate hospital and who later tended a massive cemetery in her backyard, feels ready-made for the movies and hearing it read aloud makes that feeling even stronger. The music that swells up under the tense and emotional parts is sometimes a little overblown or sentimental, but it captures the mood and enhances the listening experience. The readers (including Becky Ann Baker, Tom Wopat, David Chandler and Jonathan Davis) use Southern accents strong enough to be authentic but not too thick to be comical. Characters are not read exclusively by one person, and the men are less successful at getting the right tone for the female parts than Baker is when she reads men's parts. Her smart Southern belle voice for Carrie changes wonderfully into a gruff, bitter one to embody Zachariah Cashwell, a Confederate soldier Carrie falls in love with as she nurses him back to health. Extra tracks on the final disc includes an interview with Hicks on his inspiration and writing process; a computer program containing photos, artwork and archival material Hicks used; and an author's note that fills out more of the actual history. Even without accessing these enhancements, though, one quickly gets caught up listening to this sweeping novel.

A chorus of voices revolves around the Civil War battle that took place in Franklin, Tennessee, and the McGavock home, commandeered as a field hospital for many of the 9,000 casualties. As the property becomes a graveyard, the narratives of soldiers, Carrie McGavock, and the Creole slave Mariah are taken by the four actors. Although clear enough, the performances rarely convey an appropriate sense of time and place. The language, too modern, and the accents, unrealistically refined even when the speech is not, fail to take the listener into the scene. Melodramatic writing is amplified by music that would be at home with a made-for-TV saga. Becky Ann Baker does the best she can with McGavock's angel of death role, but the uneven writing and performances are overall disappointing. R.F.W. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine