Howard Bahr – författare

After returning from the Civil War, Cass Wakefield means to live out the rest of his days in his hometown in Mississippi. But when a childhood friend asks him to accompany her to Franklin, Tennessee, to recover the bodies of her father and brother from the battlefield where they died, Cass cannot refuse. As they make their way North in the company of two of Cass' brothers-in-arms, memories of the war emerge with overwhelming vividness. Before long the group has assembled on the haunted ground of Franklin, where past and present - the legacy of war and the narrow hope of redemption - will draw each of them to a painful reckoning.

Early on the morning of Christmas Eve, 1940, Artemus Kane leaves his sweetheart's New Orleans flat to catch the northbound Silver Star, a first-class passenger train on the Southern Railway. Artemus, a brakeman, will help bring the train to Meridian, Mississippi, a 180-mile journey along what the railroad men call ""Pelican Road."" Meanwhile, in the Meridian yard, conductor Frank Smith awakes in his caboose. A few hours later, Smith will take charge of a fast freight train southbound for the Crescent City.Smith and Kane, who served together in the Marine Corps during World War I, are old comrades. Their friendship flourishes amid the community of railroad men who work along Pelican Road - a brotherhood whose lives are spent among the lights and shadows, the danger and humor and violence, and the loneliness and camaraderie of railroad work. On this Christmas Eve, however, Smith and Kane are each bound on a journey that will alter their lives forever.Pelican Road is a novel played out against the landscape of a vanished way of life. Howard Bahr, who worked as a brakeman and yard clerk in the twilight years of old-time railroading, brings the authenticity of experience to his narrative. Pelican Road, however, seems more than a railroad adventure story. At its heart, the novel is about friendship and love, about men and women who persevere in the face of hardship and danger and who, in the end, find redemption in each other.

A Confederate soldier confronts the horror of battle and the power of grace in this “poignant, haunting, and important” novel of the Civil War (The Tennessean, Nashville).  A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of the William Boyd Award for Best Military Novel   In November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee prepares to launch an assault on Union forces near Franklin, Tennessee. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, the Confederate soldiers form a line of battle across an open field. Among them stands Pvt. Bushrod Carter, a twenty-six-year-old rifleman from Cumberland, Mississippi. Against all odds, Bushrod has survived three years of war unscathed—but his luck is about to run out.   Wounded in the battle, Bushrod is taken to a makeshift hospital on a nearby plantation. There, he falls under the care of Anna Hereford, who bears her own scars from years of relentless bloodshed and tragedy. In the grisly aftermath of one of the Confederate army’s most disastrous campaigns, Anna and Bushrod seek salvation and understanding in each other. Their fragile bond carries with it the hope of a life beyond the war, and the risk of a pain too devastating to endure.   Written with profound empathy and meticulous attention to historical detail, The Black Flower brilliantly portrays the staggering human toll of America’s bloodiest conflict. In his award-winning debut novel, “Howard Bahr casts a tale of war as powerful as any you’ll ever find” (Southern Living).  

The author of The Black Flower “re-creates [a] seminal moment in American history with prose that is vivid, unflinching, and often incantatory” (TheWashington Post Book World).  A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year and Winner of the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction   Cass Wakefield left the bloodshed of the Civil War behind him twenty years ago and intends to live out the rest of his quiet days in his hometown in Mississippi. But when a childhood friend asks him to travel with her to Tennessee, he has no choice but to go along. Alison Sansing has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and wants to recover the bodies of her brother and father before she dies. Cass fought alongside Alison’s loved ones in the disastrous Battle of Franklin and helped to bury them where they fell.   Joined by two of his former comrades-in-arms, Cass guides Alison through the heart of the still-devastated South. Along the way, memories of the war emerge with overwhelming vividness, thrusting Cass back into the terror and exhilaration of the battlefield. At their journey’s end, the group faces a painful reckoning between a past that refuses to die and a present still waiting to be born.   “A beautifully wrought novel that deserves a wide audience,” The Judas Field is the “eloquent and fearless” final chapter in a Civil War trilogy that began with The Black Flower and The Year of Jubilo (Los Angeles Times).  

A “sweeping, cinematic story of rebellion, loyalty, revenge, and reawakened romance” set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War (The New York Times Book Review).  A New York Times Notable Book   The last time Gawain Harper saw Cumberland, Mississippi, he was heading off to fight for the newly formed Confederate States of America—driven not by the cause that motivated so many others, but by love. The father of his beloved, Morgan Rhea, refused to allow her to be courted by a man who would not take up arms to defend the South. So Gawain joined the Mississippi Infantry—and now, three nightmarish years later, he is coming home.   But postwar Cumberland is not the place Gawain so fondly remembered. An occupying force of Union soldiers keeps uneasy watch over the townspeople, including an erstwhile slave hunter and an albino gravedigger known as Old Hundred-and-Eleven. Meanwhile, a bloodthirsty former Confederate officer named King Solomon Gault is organizing a secret militia to drive the occupiers out and bring the entire region under his ruthless control. Before Gawain can marry Morgan and build their new life together, he must return to the world of violence and turmoil he has been so desperate to escape.   With “complex, well-crafted, often beautiful prose” (TheSeattle Times) and “a cast of characters worthy of a Larry McMurtry novel” (Newsday), The Year of Jubilo is a stunning achievement from the award-winning author of The Black Flower and The Judas Field.