Cape Cod Book Reviews

Slavery and the Civil War through a Vineyarder's eyes

Seen The Glory: A Novel of Gettysburg

By Michael Phelps

Seen The Glory is a wonderful book and you should read it right away. The four and a half stars of five showing up at amazon.com this afternoon is more than a half a star light as you'll discover.

 Seen the Glory, John Hough, Jr., Simon & Schuster $25

Beach book? It is for sure--or back porch or wherever you go to relax and experience the quiet, solitary joy of reading historical military fiction with the strongest of human and humane elements. It's historical fiction that reflects the importance of having the history right but, the greater importance, perhaps, of getting the sense of time and place in synchronization with characters whose voices you can hear clearly in John Hough's prose.

Seen The Glory is a novel but also a work of scholarship, not just in the historical verisimilitude of the narrative but also, and importantly in the vernacular of the conversations among the characters in Martha's Vineyard and, especially, among the men in Union blue on the march and at war.

It is a story of Martha's Vineyard brothers, sons of an abolitionist father who's a doctor, who join the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and go to war, fight in Northern Virginia and march back north through Maryland to fight still again in Gettysburg. The young soldiers, their father and Rose, the Cape Verdean housekeeper whom each of the three men love in different ways, come to life not through description but through what they say and how they act and move and react to one another. It may have been a war between the states or a war over state sovereignty versus federalism to some but, to the Chandlers, it was a war to end slavery and bring justice to those who had been for nearly the first century of the Republic deprived of the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" being enjoyed the forebears of the majority.

John Hough's story brings color and texture to the bone-draining fatigue of marching, the bugs, the knee-weakening fear and terror before the battle and the worse terror of what transpires when men kill each other in combat, hand-to-hand and eye-to-eye.

What others are saying about
"Seen the glory":
5/4 Publishers Weekly/ review: "[A] dramatic and tragic tale of Civil War-era brutality and suffering...Hough writes about the Civil War with a novelist's insight and a historian's eye...Amid the blood and fury of battle, a tender and poignant story of idealism, love and brotherly devotion shines through."
6/1 Booklist/ review: "Hough excels at re-creating the chaos, the confusion, and the brutality of war, and his searing, authentically rendered battle scenes should satisfy Civil War enthusiasts. A heartrending family saga wrapped up in an epic clash of armies and ideals."
6/15 Library Journal/ review: "Following in the footsteps of Michael Shaara's classic novel about Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, Hough's epic novel draws in the philosophical conundrums of a country at war and in which the lines among ideology, trust, and love can stand the barrage of battle."
7/10 Fort Worth Star Telegram (TX)/ review: "'Seen the Glory' offers a vivid and brutal glimpse into one of America's most famous battles...a gripping read."
7/1 York Dispatch/ review, feature, and event mention: "Hough's prose is unsparing in its detail and lovely in its rhythms... "Seen the Glory" makes the Battle of Gettysburg accessible and fascinating for non-history buffs, for those who want their action-packed summer reading more thought-provoking than the typical fare. It has its tender moments, too, poignant scenes that make a reader's breath catch. And always, always, it is moving toward that critical battle."
7/3 Barnstable Patriot/ review and event mention: "Hough's powerful war narrative kept me spellbound throughout the course of this fine and rewarding novel...Hough has an admirable ability to impart the small details that lend this narrative its heartbreaking immediacy."

The story is rich, the characters fulsome, the conveyed sense of time and place powerful and persuasive.

Full disclosure

By way, as they say, of full disclosure - Hiring a family member isn't always wrong but it's always tricky.

Writing a review of a book whose author is a good friend and whose father hired me to be newspaper reporter at The Falmouth Enterprise 38 years ago this coming Labor Day is way tougher.

And I resolved to default to not writing this review and telling my friend I could not and would not unless I found the book to be one that I could both cerebrally and passionately recommend.

John Hough made it easy for me.

Put down what you're doing and go get Seen The Glory. And read it.

Michael Phelp is the Publisher of the Washington Examiner. He began his career as a reporter and later Managing Editor of the Falmouth Enterprise and has held several top posts at some of America's best newspapers and newspaper groups. Among the stops on his flight was teaching journalism at Emerson College in Boston while being solicited by many of the nation's largest dailies to mentor their moves into the 21st century.

Mike even remade the industry trade journal Editor & Publisher about ten years ago before heading to the mid west as a vice president of Lee Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: LEE), and publisher of the Quad-City Times. In addition to his responsibilities as publisher in Davenport, Phelps oversaw newspapers in eastern Iowa, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Kentucky.

Today Mike is publisher of The Examiner in Washington, D.C. and The Baltimore Examiner.