Books I'm Reading: Andersonville

My grandmother always spoke highly of this book. Her interest in it stemmed in part from the fact that an ancestor of ours was captive at the infamous prison depicted in the novel, formally known as Camp Sumter. One Bernhard Kratzsch, an Ohio volunteer, (also known as Rheinhard)--to me, an uncle with many greats before his name, was captured at Gettysburg and ended up at Andersonville. According to my grandmother, he died there. In 2013, on a trip across the southern states (mostly for birding), I visited the site. I was unable to find Bernhard's name among those buried in the cemetery adjacent to the stockade that housed the captives. A guard told me many Union soldiers that had been at Andersonville--thousands of them--were moved south and east as Sherman's army advanced, and that many died en route or at prisons deeper in confederate territory. Our Bernhard was perhaps among those men.

It's a book I've long meant to read. And so I have now. I see that it would have interested my grandmother also because it is beautifully written. Her second husband owned a well-respected independent bookstore in Dayton, Ohio, McLean's Books,  in the days when nearly all bookstores were independent bookstores. She taught high school English for many years in Dayton. She read voraciously. She was an admirer of fine literature.

Andersonville was a shockingly horrible place. Kantor vividly describes the conditions in the camp--a simple rectangular stockade of upended pine trunks filled with tens of thousands of men given no shelter and little food, men with access only to fouled water. Though a novel, Andersonville is based on meticulous research. While characters in the story living outside the prison itself are mostly fictional, many of the guards and officers in charge and even some of the prisoners are based on people who actually lived. Some of the reports on conditions at the prison quoted are taken from contemporary reports. A substantial bibliography is provided. I see no reason to believe the author has done anything but bring to life the horrid place much as it must have been in reality. Although Andersonville was written almost 65 years ago. It remains quite fresh. Highly recommended.

Books I'm Reading: The Jim Stringer Mysteries by Andrew Martin

I'm not a fan of mysteries. Most mysteries seem hopelessly contrived. Usually my reaction to reading or trying to read one is annoyance, but Andrew Martin's Jim Stringer--a reluctant detective who really wants to be a steam locomotive driver--was a pleasure to follow through the four Jim Stringer mysteries so far published. The last one (Murder at Deviation Junction) first appeared in 2007, however, which makes me wonder if there will be more. I hope there are. Martin has captured the mood of his chosen setting (England in the early 1900s) so masterfully that reading the books feels like time travel--with a railway-obsessed young man as Cicerone. The heavy use of railway jargon, particularly in the first book (The Necropolis Railway), is confusing at first, but once you get used to Jim Stringer's language and settle in to the backstage railway world he inhabits, the stories are compelling.

[Update: After writing this, I discovered there are several more in the series, but they were published only in Britain. Jim Stringer doesn't seem to have gained an audience in the US, which simply shows that too many Americans have no taste. I wrote Mr. Martin a letter telling him how much I enjoyed the books. He actually wrote me back. He was very pleased to learn that at least somebody in the US appreciated his work (although I'm certainly not entirely alone).]