Devil's Dream

This fictionalized story of Confederate military leader Nathan Bedford Forrest's life moves between the Civil War battlefield and his earlier years as a gambler, adulterer, and slave trader. The often grating roughness of Scott Sowers's delivery is well matched to the crude, profane Forrest. Sowers's voice occasionally takes on a softer tone when the story dictates, for example, when Henri, a free Haitian black man who fights with the Confederates, converses with Forrest's wife in a mix of French and English. The characters of Henri and Forrest's black illegitimate son bring slavery and the meaning of freedom into the story. The novel ends with a whimper, but that seems to fulfill Bell's intent: quietly conveying the futility of war. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

September 7, 2009
After tackling the Haitian slave rebellion in a three-book series, Bell uses a smaller stage to create a captivating portrait of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The novel plays effortlessly with time and structure, shuttling between 1845 and 1865 as Forrest marries Mary Ann Montgomery, becomes a guilt-stricken slave trader and, during the Civil War, is targeted for destruction by General Sherman. Despite his aggressive actions on the battlefield, Forrest struggles with the demands of a complicated family: tensions between Mary Ann and Forrest's black mistress take a personal toll, while the rivalry between his sons Willy and Matthew (the illegitimate child of a long-ago affair with a slave) creates distraction. Meanwhile, his addiction to gambling and his attraction to his mistress send Forrest into a contemplation of the forces that control him. Many of the war sequences are delivered via Henri, a Haitian wanderer who joins Forrest's troops and possesses the ability to communicate with the ghosts of those killed in battle. The unconventional structure and supernatural twist expand the narrative into an engaging examination of what it means to be free, a question that haunts Forrest through his life.