A Blaze of Glory

June 15, 2012
War novelist Shaara returns with this first of a projected trilogy about the Civil War west of the Appalachians. Why Shiloh? It was a flyspeck in a corner of Tennessee, 20 miles from the Rebel stronghold of Corinth, Miss. The two-day battle in April 1862 was an inconclusive victory for the North. Still, the seesaw nature of the contest, coupled with the death of a commander in the saddle, gives it obvious dramatic appeal. That appeal is missing in the troop movements that take up the novel's first half. Everything is slowed in a sea of mud produced by the incessant rains. Shaara alternates between Union and Confederate war councils, while the common man is represented by a very green cavalry lieutenant from Memphis and an equally green infantryman from Wisconsin. It is the interplay between the generals, though, that fascinates Shaara. Grant must cope with his boss, the vainglorious Halleck in St. Louis, just as the sympathetically portrayed Southern commander, Johnston, contains his ambitious deputy Beauregard. While Grant waits for reinforcements, Johnston orders a surprise attack: a full-frontal engagement at dawn. The Confederates will dominate the first day, though waves of panic will infect both sides. Then Johnston dies suddenly, a leg wound. On the second day, Grant's army, much enlarged, gains the upper hand. Shaara tracks the constant flanking maneuvers on a battlefield obscured by smoke. The sheer detail becomes numbing, though there is great dexterity in his long, rolling sentences. Due recognition is given to the staggering numbers of dead and wounded (one quarter of all soldiers); the psychological state of the survivors gets less attention. One infantryman who has discovered the joy of killing sees himself bound for hell, but this revelation of a man's essence is rare. The particulars of the battle have been meticulously researched and rendered; what's missing is a vision that would transcend them.

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June 1, 2012
In just two days, April 6 and 7, 1862, a major battle of the Civil War was fought in southwestern Tennessee. It was also the bloodiest battle in American history up to that point. Best-selling and acclaimed historical novelist Shaara (son of the equally famous historical novelist Michael Shaara, author of the classic The Killer Angels, 1974) inaugurates a new Civil War trilogy with a deeply enveloping novel about the Battle of Shiloh, which ended in a Confederate defeat but, like so many other battles in that war, was a Pyrrhic victory for the Union. As the author follows troop advances and retreats and commanders' strategies for good or ill, his style, as always, is faultless, as is his feel for shape and architecture in constructing a work of fiction offering a balanced picture. He gives depth to otherwise flat historical figures and incorporates the attitude and experiences of low-ranking as well as high-ranking military personnel. The you-are-there sense is one of the great benefits of historical fiction, capitalized on here to a high degree by this consummately professional writer. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The list of marketing and publicity initiatives that the publisher has planned for Shaara and his new book is a long one, including an author tour, cable-TV advertising, and extensive library marketing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)