What to say about this book, this brick of a historical fiction novel?

First off, the positives, and there is a lot going in this book’s favor.

The novel is imminently readable, no small advantage for a book of this length. The reader can breeze their way through several chapters without the fatigue that sometimes attends sprawling, historical narratives like this. True, the characters are a bit simple, the heroes are absolute paragons and the villains are cartoonishly evil. However, the plot flows wonderfully and the author juggles the dozen or so interesting characters and their crisscrossing plotlines adroitly.
The principal virtue of this book is its entertainment value. The historic details are present and integral but somehow feel surface level at times. Overall this book narrowly misses the distinction that some historical fiction attains (from the pen of someone like Mary Renault, for instance) of breathing vibrant life into a specific time and place long past, fully capturing the feel for a certain period. This novel presents the history as linear and apparent, which of course it is to us now, but somewhat strains credulity when the main characters back in the mid 1800’s regularly foresee the nature of events, elections, succession, battles, etc. and are almost always right. One almost gets the sense that every main character already knows all about the Civil War in general, just not their specific part to play in it.

Now on to the less positive impressions this book left me with.
First and foremost is the problem of Virgilia.

Virgilia, sister of George Hazzard, is the only truly staunch abolitionist we see in in the entire novel. She is also portrayed as raving mad, vindictive, and seemingly more interested in the cause of abolition for personal motives (resentment, a desire to “get even” with the world, etc.) than for any real moral reasons. Her portrayal only deteriorates as the novel progresses. In the beginning she’s unpleasant, (repeatedly other characters theorize she only does abolition work because she is homely and therefore needs something to occupy her time) and may say something unkind and too pointedly political during dinner. But by the book’s end she’s a complete lunatic who wants to see Orry hanged by a mob. Now I don’t deny some abolitionists were extreme in their views, but it bears repeating that Virgilia is the ONLY abolitionist we spend any time with in the book. Without any other abolitionist characters, she becomes a representative sample which makes her characterization extremely troubling. The only one adamantly against the whole institution of slavery is a spiteful, vindictive person with an apparently serious set of mental disorders.
There were many persuasive, moral, and eloquent abolitionists from this period in American history. We have their speeches, essays, and letters and their assertions were, of course, proven correct. But we hear from none of them in this book, thus we miss a vital element of the debates going on at the time and the work of good people horrified by slavery is omitted.

The problem of Virgilia is really just a symptom of a larger issue I had with the book, that is that it veers incredibly close to ahistorical “Lost Cause” talking points and removes and responsibility for the institution of slavery from any individual slave owners.

At one point towards the end of the novel, Cooper Main, a likeable and honorable South Carolinian, speaks to his wife about his upcoming service to the confederate government. He states he believes the cause “already lost” yet feels compelled to serve his state for the sake of honor. Further, by the end of the novel every “good” character who owns slaves is convinced of the institutions’ moral wrongness yet feels unable to give it up. Indeed, Orry finds a note from his father disclosing that he too knew slavery was wrong despite never expressing those views publicly. This framing attempts to portray the slave holders themselves as victims of a sort while at the same time ameliorating or obviating their own personal responsibility for the “peculiar institution” and didn’t sit well with me.

In their repeated forays into the North, the Mains are often accosted by bigoted Yankees and held personally responsible for all the evils of slavery in America. The author points out, through tone and framing, that this is doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. But they ARE responsible for owning slaves themselves, something the novel never seems eager to address head on, and if they’re not individually responsible for their own actions then who in history was?

I understand the novelist’s impulse to make characters on both sides of the Mason Dixon relatable, to make both families morally good people, it makes for excellent story telling. But this humanizing impulse shouldn’t extend to wiping out personal responsibility for one of the worst institutions to ever exist in the history of our species. I may read the other books in this series but I am thus far skeptical for the reasons mentioned above.