Product Description

On a spring day in 1865 Gawain Harper trudges toward his home in Cumberland, Mississippi, after serving three years in the Mississippi Infantry. Unmoved by the cause that motivated so many others, he had joined up only when the father of his beloved, Morgan Rhea, told him that he would never be allowed to wed Morgan unless he contributed to the war effort. Upon his return, he discovers post-war life is far from what he expected. Morgan has indeed waited for him, but before they can marry there are scores to be settled. Written with scrupulous respect for historical accuracy, The Year of Jubilo brilliantly evokes a time of sorrow and defeat, of anarchy and violence, and also of hope and rebuilding.AUTHORBIO: Howard Bahr was born in Meridian, Mississippi and served for eleven years as curator of Rowan Oak, the William Faulkner homestead and museum in Oxford, Mississippi. His first novel, The Black Flower, was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches English at Motlow State Community College in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75441 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.com Review
Midway through Howard Bahr's gripping, evocative second novel, Colonel Burduck sums up the Civil War with this rueful conclusion: "Too much had happened, was still happening, and enough remained for generations to wallow in bitterness, making charge and countercharge, revising and accusing and apologizing long after the smoke had drifted away on the wind, and those who had walked through the smoke were dust." The Year of Jubilo, set in Cumberland, Mississippi, in the summer of 1865, is the account of some who passed through that smoke.

A reluctant soldier, Gawain Harper was goaded into joining the Confederate forces in 1862 by the rabid secessionist Judge Rhea, father of the woman Harper loves. After three years of fighting the Union, the former professor of literature is now trudging home defeated and confused, weighed down by the thought that he is "walking through someone else's memory." The South of his past has indeed vanished, and the town Harper returns to is now governed by the victorious (but wary) soldiers of the North and overflowing with vengeful planters, opportunistic spies, and the fear and ingrained attitudes of its vanquished citizens. These characters are larger than life, as only those who live in such a land and time--one of Queen Anne's lace and poisonous snakes, of Victorian manners and the human indignity of slavery--can be. There's "King" Solomon Gault, the ruthless captain of a band of insurrectionists, plotting an attack on the ruling army; Colonel Burduck, the battle-worn commander who captured slave ships off the African coast in his youth and must now maintain order in a region that once supported slavery; Molochi Fish, a grotesque semi-being who lurks on the edges of humanity, scarred by brutality and meting it out in return; and of course Harper, who, spurred on by the meddling but ebullient Harry Stribling, dives back into this mess to create a life and retrieve a love.

Time is as enveloping in The Year of Jubilo as the lingering smoke of war and the sudden downpours that drench Cumberland's burned landscape. Bahr weaves his characters in and out of one another's lives, creating an almost smothering net. Harper notes, "they were spared of death, so must once again pay the tally for living; free, so they were indentured to tomorrow." In a fascinating narrative of epic proportion and intricate detail, Bahr intertwines life, love, loyalty (or the lack thereof), freedom, slavery, and death. --S. Ketchum

From Publishers Weekly
In this sweeping, lyrical tale set in the aftermath of the Civil War, Bahr (The Black Flower) brilliantly depicts vanquished Southerners coming to terms with the ravages of war, while their Northern counterparts go about the grueling and often thankless task of making the country whole again. Shamed by his girlfriend, Morgan Rhea, and her father into signing up with the Confederate army, former Cumberland, Miss., English teacher Gawain Harper is on his way back to the civilian life he abruptly left three years before. Taking up with another returning soldier, Harry Stribling, an enigmatic fellow Southerner who fancies himself a philosopher, 40-year-old Gawain confronts the dispiriting realities of change. The countryside is different, but so are the people, and the horrors of war have altered Gawain as well. Bahr ingeniously explores the many facets of killing: hand-to-hand combat; killing for vengeance; killing for hire; killing in self-defense or out of loyalty to a cause. Most troubling of all is the kind of killing fueled by a perverse righteousness and a lust for power--the kind practiced by renegade Southern leader Solomon Gault, a wealthy smuggler and a force to be reckoned with in Cumberland. Among his other evil deeds, Gault killed Morgan's sister Lily during the war, and so Gawain is drawn against his will into yet another battle, this time on his home turf. It is Gault's final skirmish that brings Southerners and Northerners together, culminating in a confrontation that will haunt Gawain and his loved ones forever. Bahr has crafted an unforgettably powerful and original Civil War story in this incisive account of one man's search for redemption from the sins of fratricidal conflict. 13-city author tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

While there may never be another Cold Mountain, Bahr's novel is as close as we're likely to get under current copyright law. It has many of the appealing elements of the earlier book: the Confederate soldier returning home in defeat, the wild adventures, the strong women, and the colorful secondary characters. Pressured into enlisting by the father of his sweetheart, Morgan Rhea, Gawain Harper limps home years later to find his Mississippi hometown occupied by union soldiers yet ravaged by the vigilante violence of "King Solomon" Gault. Harper seeks justice, aided by Harry Stribling, who has an uncanny knack for doing the right thing, and even Old Hundred and Eleven, named for the pattern of tobacco juice stains on his chin. Bahr, who was the curator at William Faulkner's home and museum for many years, also owes a clear debt to Faulkner, both in his prose style and preoccupation with abstract concepts. Narrated by Tom Stechschulte, this Civil War tale is highly recommended. John Hiett, Iowa City P.L.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended--From a Non-History Buff
I am not usually drawn to novels about the Civil War, but every once in a while, there is one that gets such good reviews, that I have to read it. After seeing all of the great reviews for The Year of Jubilo, I bought the book, but I must admit, it sat on my bookcase for a while because it was sort of intimidating. Was I really going to like it? The answer is yes. This novel has a lot to recommend for fans of Civil War fiction, and fans of well-written novels. Howard Bahr is a wonderful writer and this book, while I finished it a few days ago, is constantly on my mind. As the novel opens, we meet Gawain Harper who is returning to his home after the Civil War. He reluctantly fought for the CSA and now is anxious about what lies ahead for him in the town he grew up in. He is most concerned about Morgan, the love he left to fight in the war. The concerns he focuses on as he returns home, are not those he must deal with when he gets home. Much of his world is turned upside down. Morgan still loves him, but old alliances have crumbled and much of his town has burned down. He must make sense out of the post-war South, of his post-war life. He manages to face down fears that have haunted him since before he left for the war.

This novel is well-told and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.

Fiction at its best. Hard to put down.
A book that once opened is hard to put down. An engaging read from the first page to the last. Filled with some of the most interesting and off-the-wall characters you will ever meet. Gives a vivid portrait of the time just after the Civil War, and of the place, a small town in the South, ravaged by war. Gawain Harper, a literature teacher at a girl's school in Cumberland Mississippi, is shamed by his lady love, Morgan Rhea, into joining the Confederate Army. He survives the war and on his way home in June 1865, he meets Captain Henry Stribling, an unusual man of many talents and past professions. When they reach Gawain's home, things have changed considerably and much of the town has been destroyed. The town is now occupied by Union Troops commanded by a tired Lt. Colonel Burduck with many problems, assisted by his no-nonsense Provost, Captain von Arnim. They are trying to keep the peace and help restore order. Morgan has written of Gawain as long dead and has trouble accepting his return. Her home has been burned and she now lives with a demented cousin along with her once powerful father, Judge Rhea, and her younger brother. While most of the people of Cumberland are struggling to return to normalcy, there is one evil man, the self appointed Captain Soloman Gault, leader of raiders, misfits, and murderers during the war, determined to stir things up and cause as much trouble as possible. Unfortunately, he has many willing accomplices. Gawain's newfound friend Henry Stribling has a talent for sticking a finger in a hornet's nest and stirring things around until something happens. Now that the stage is set, to say anything more would spoil the fun. Get a copy of this book and be prepared to not do anything but read for several hours.

At Last a New BAHR
Just purchased this book yesterday and stayed up all night to finish it....could not put it down. From the first chapter you feel part of the scene and what a tragic one it is. The Civil War has just ended, but the fighting and killing goes on. Bahr's BLACK FLOWER is a book that has stayed with me since I read it over three years ago....it is the ultimate Civil War novel and I was anxiously awaiting his new THE YEAR OF JUBILO and was not disappointed in the least....He has done it again...created a setting and characters that breathe life into the consequences of war and its aftermath. The description of the young blind boy hearing and "seeing" the slaughter of his mother and father by confederate "soldiers" sets the scene for the tragic aftermath of war and the revenge and retribution that both sides deemed necessary. Thank you Mr. Bahr for providing the reader with a part of history that has not previously been openly discussed and written about in such detail.