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A review by jdintr
A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers
5.0
I found the narrative haunting, illuminating a the borderlands of Virginia and North Carolina, and the blacks, Native Americans and others who inhabit it.
Beginning during the Civil War and extending into the 1960s, the narrative traces the life of George Seldom, born barely a year after Appomatox and cast adrift in the Great Dismal Swamp, cut off from his past. Turning from 90-year-old George, to the lives of his parents, to a "Croatan" girl that George befriends in his dying days, the narrative follows the lives of characters who are almost too good for the sacred ruins in which they find themselves--individuals of whom this corrupt nation is somehow unworthy.
I was really touched, listening to the book. Powers is a powerful poet-writer.
Beginning during the Civil War and extending into the 1960s, the narrative traces the life of George Seldom, born barely a year after Appomatox and cast adrift in the Great Dismal Swamp, cut off from his past. Turning from 90-year-old George, to the lives of his parents, to a "Croatan" girl that George befriends in his dying days, the narrative follows the lives of characters who are almost too good for the sacred ruins in which they find themselves--individuals of whom this corrupt nation is somehow unworthy.
I was really touched, listening to the book. Powers is a powerful poet-writer.