February 2, 1997
Oates, biographer of Lincoln (With Malice Toward None) and Martin Luther King Jr. (Let the Trumpet Sound), traces the 40-year buildup to the American Civil War through 72 dramatic monologues attributed to 13 speakers. Among them are Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Nat Turner, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Jefferson Davis, Mary Chesnut and Abraham Lincoln. Oates quilts together a number of spoken or written statements taken from many different sources and presents them as a single utterance stitched, when necessary, by his own fictional touches. For example, an account "by" Jefferson Davis on the reaction to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry is culled from more than 30 sources that range from President Buchanan's published papers to an article in a contemporary Harper's magazine. The result is dramatic, even melodramatic at times, but a skeptical reader, especially one who diligently studies the pages of reference notes, will probably question the validity of the text. Did Stephen A. Douglas, for example, really use the F--- word when discussing the upcoming 1860 Democratic convention? This is entertaining, but it's more TV docudrama than history.(Feb.) FYI: Oates plans a second volume to cover the "voices" of the war itself.