Based on real events, this gripping tale of military injustice ranks alongside The Red Badge of Courage as one of the most original and timeless Civil War novels ever published On a fine September morning in 1864, Lt. Marius Catto leads a platoon of Union army soldiers across a Kentucky meadow. A figure rises in the distance and takes aim. Catto dives to the ground, but it's too late--the lead ball lodged in his shoulder will be his final souvenir of the war.
The shooter, a barefoot teenager named Thomas Martin, claims to be a Confederate soldier, but he wears no uniform and his rifle is older than most of Catto's men. Taken prisoner and brought back to the garrison in Cincinnati, Martin is court-martialed as a guerrilla, found guilty, and sentenced to death by firing squad.
From the bare facts of a long-forgotten incident in the final days of the Civil War, author Stephen Becker has crafted an indelible portrait of the military mindset that is as true today as it was one hundred fifty years ago. The story of Thomas Martin--a sixteen-year-old orphan whose only advocate was the man he shot--is a riveting tale of courage, loyalty, and the crushing inhumanity of life during wartime.
About the Author :
Stephen Becker (1927-1999) was an American author, translator, and teacher whose published works include eleven novels and the English translations of Elie Wiesel's The Town Behind the Wall and André Malraux's The Conquerors. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and after serving in World War II, he graduated from Harvard University and studied in Peking and Paris, where he was friends with the novelist Richard Wright and learned French in part by reading detective novels. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Becker taught at numerous schools throughout the United States, including the University of Iowa, Bennington College, and the University of Central Florida in Orlando. His best-known works include A Covenant with Death (1965), which was adapted into a Warner Brothers film starring Gene Hackman and George Maharis; When the War Is Over (1969), a Civil War novel based on the true story of a teenage Confederate soldier executed more than a month after Lee's surrender; and the Far East trilogy of literary adventure novels: The Chinese Bandit (1975), The Last Mandarin (1979), and The Blue-Eyed Shan (1982).
Review :
"Like The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Becker's book explores the whole of war with realism and irony." --Time "Carries the shocking impact of a documentary." --Book of the Month Club News
"Becker's triumph in this short novel is to show a slice of army life as it might have been and can be in any era. . . . A superb story superbly told." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Becker is a good and sensitive craftsman. He has taken from the history of the Civil War a curious and frightful episode and woven the grim facts so expertly that the novel trembles with life." --The Washington PostBook World
"Poignant, immediate, and haunting." --New York magazine
"A brisk narrative that keeps you reading . . . Stephen Becker is an expert craftsman. He uses crisp, Hemingway-style dialogue to fine effect; he pictures scenes vividly." --The New York Times Book Review
"Stephen Becker's masterpiece." --George Garrett
"A memorable experience . . . Fascinating." --Library Journal
