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Varina by Charles Frazier review – clear-sighted view of a divided America

The Cold Mountain author has returned to the civil war for this novel of flight and separation

In February 1911, at a whites-only ceremony in New Orleans, the Jefferson Davis monument was erected to mark 50 years since the inauguration of the first and only man to hold the office of president of the Confederate States. Schoolchildren dressed in red, white and blue sang “Dixie” and were choreographed into a living Confederate flag. On 11 May 2017, under cover of darkness, the statue was taken down.

If historical fiction seeks to to shed light on the present, now is the time for Charles Frazier to return to the civil war period that provided the background for his million-selling debut, Cold Mountain. As statues of Davis and other Confederate leaders come down across the south, Frazier has chosen to focus on the president’s second wife, Varina Howell: bluestocking, opium addict, friend of Oscar Wilde and surely the most obscure woman to have borne the title first lady in America.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PvmA5f
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