Collard Greens, Grits and a Side of Russian Dressing

I finished "The Widow of the South" last night. It was with a huge air of relief too. I started reading this book, intrigued by Carrie McGavock and her deep connection with the 1,500 men buried in her backyard. Based on true events, the McGavock's plantation home is turned into a makeshift hospital during one of the last and bloodiest battles of the Civil War in Franklin, Tennessee. Carrie tends to the wounded and dying soldiers, connecting with the loss of life. Upon hearing that the graves of close to 1,500 soldiers are to be disturbed so the field they inhabit can be tilled and planted, Carrie takes it upon herself to make sure the men buried in the mass graves are dug up, identified in a journal she carried with her the rest of her life and reburied on her property just yards from her back door. The idea of this woman fascinated me and I wanted to get the author's prospective as to why she may have done this.

The book goes way wrong for me in one regard and in the end ruined it for me. I have never been a fan of the Russian realist/modernist style of writing. The main characters are focused on with their individual stories told in chapters dedicated to them, while other chapters focusing on other characters and places are intermixed within the main story. For me as the reader it's like a juggling act and I simply can't keep all the balls in the air. I don't know what this says about my intelligence...(a subject to be explored at a later date in time). Had I read the author's notes before I delved into this novel I may have put the book aside, but I was invested and pressed on. Another heavy theme in Russian literature is love affairs gone wrong or never realized...Robert Hicks does not stray from this theme either. I just wasn't in the mood. Like everything else in my life currently, I'll blame my dislike on a pregnancy fog. My blah eeks into every part of my life, including my love of reading and (for shame!) the taste of my favorite Diet Cherry Coke elixir. I don't think I'll start another book until February. I would hate to miss out on loving a book because my brain couldn't wrap itself around the artistic concepts of the author. The next book on my docket is "Inkheart" and I want to love it because my niece Isa loves it. Onward I go-

P.S. I still enjoyed my share of sugar cookies over the holidays. I had to choke them down, I promise.