Rhett Butler's People | Donald McCaig | The BEST novel I've read in 25 years!

Rhett Butler's People | Donald McCaig | An Amazing Read!

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Rhett Butler's People

	Rhett Butler's People Donald McCaig St. Martin's Press, 2007 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 208 reviews view larger image
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Fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate, Rhett Butler?s People is the astonishing and long-awaited novel that parallels the Great American Novel, Gone With The Wind. Twelve years in the making, the publication of Rhett Butler?s People marks a major and historic cultural event.

Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler unfolds. Through Rhett?s eyes we meet the people who shaped his larger than life personality as it sprang from Margaret Mitchell?s unforgettable pages: Langston Butler, Rhett?s unyielding father; Rosemary his steadfast sister; Tunis Bonneau, Rhett?s best friend and a onetime slave; Belle Watling, the woman for whom Rhett cared long before he met Scarlett O?Hara at Twelve Oaks Plantation, on the fateful eve of the Civil War.

Of course there is Scarlett. Katie Scarlett O?Hara, the headstrong, passionate woman whose life is inextricably entwined with Rhett?s: more like him than she cares to admit; more in love with him than she?ll ever know?

Brought to vivid and authentic life by the hand of a master, Rhett Butler?s People fulfills the dreams of those whose imaginations have been indelibly marked by Gone With The Wind.

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The BEST novel I've read in 25 years!

McCaig is a virtuoso of the written word. I have no idea how any true fan of the original GWTW can give it less than 5 stars. McCaig has taken our favorite scoundrel, lover and hero and made him BETTER! He's still all that he ever was, but you are allowed to see the thoughts behind the action. And what glorious thoughts!

Each page screams loving dedication and hours of research. I have studied the Civil War extensively, have a library of over 100 books on the subject, have sojourned in its many battlefields contemplating the destruction, waste and tragedy of mankind. But somehow McCaig has made it easier to understand.

Do not hesitate to buy this one. I just can't believe I waited this long to read it.

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An Amazing Read!

I recently purchased and read this book. Based on the reviews that I had read, I thought I wasn't going to enjoy the book. I am so glad that I was wrong. Are there flaws with the book? Absolutely, the main one being the way Melly is protrayed. However, with all of the flaws, it is still an amzing read! If you didn't like the way Alexandra Ripley continued the story, you should really get satisfaction from this book. Congratulations Mr. McCaig on a job well done!!

A mixed bag

Much of the book is quite interesting, in that it fills out the character of Rhett Butler. In GWTW, the book and movie, he appears and disappears without our knowing from whence and to where. With this book, we learn about the events that shaped his character--from the beatings by his cruel father to his association and partnership with Belle Watling. We also learned the Margaret Mitchell estate approved version of what happened after the last page of the novel GWTW.

Also good is the depiction of the ante-bellum South, especially Charleston, where secession was born. There is a myth about that era, propagated by post-bellum, 2nd generation Southerners. Only a small percentage of the whites lived on comfortable plantations, worked by happy slaves. A London newspaperman traveled through the South just before the war and was amazed to find that so many white illiterates, so much chewing tobacco on the sidewalks. Still, there were the Taras so GWTW was not entirely inaccurate. The present book continues that myth but fleshes out the other reality a bit.

However, when this book attempts to describe military actions, it is woefully inaccurate. One example: Morgan's Ohio raid of July 1863 is a mess in this book. Gen. John Hunt Morgan is replaced by a fictional colonel, who looks at "Pommery, Ohio," rather than Pomeroy, Ohio, in Meigs County, on the Ohio River. Morgan's raiders tried to cross the river near there, and some made it into West Virginia, which was scarcely safe Confederate territory at the time. The rest of Morgan's men were forced eastward and were captured near East Liverpool. The prisoners did not go to prison in Illinois, as is suggested in this book, but were sent to Camp Chase, Johnson's Island and the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Morgan escaped from the latter site. I can't imagine why the author decided to change history so drastically, when the real story could have served his purpose just as well. The author's postscript explanation does not adequately explain or justify the rearrangements in his novel.

There is also confusion with respect to the sequence of when military events took place. The Ohio raid followed closely upon Gettysburg, in July, and yet the southerners shivered in the cold. In another place, southerners cross the Potomac River into Pennsylvania. What happened to Maryland? In another case a train leaves Georgia, enters Mississippi, then proceeds into Alabama. Another case: Maj. Ashley Wilkes was all over the place in the war, in the Army of Northern Virginia, in the Army of Tennessee, and in raids into Kentucky. In the Mitchell book he is with Gen. Gordon, strictly in Lee's army.

It is hard to overlook these alterations of history or errors and maintain a sense of reality in reading this. Margaret Mitchell was far more careful in mentioned battles and in adhering to accurate timelines.

It is unfortunate that the author of Rhett Butler's People let his book be marred by errors that any student of the Civil War will see--amd regret.

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