Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

By Allan Gurganus

Book Overview

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature.

Lucy married at the turn of the twentieth century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the War for Southern Independence, Lucy became a veteran of the veteran with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Lucy's story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy striper. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is a marvel of narrative showmanship and proof that brilliant, emotional storytelling remains at the heart of great fiction.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375726632
• ISBN13: 9780375726637
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 736 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

I found this book to be long, drawn out, and very difficult to get through completely. I never quit a book, but I came close many times with this.

Deleting the passage of time...

Here I am, writing this review of a book I read at least 7 years ago. But, like any great book, I still remember Lucy Marsden.(Like I remember David Copperfield, Don Quijote, Natty Bumpo, etc.)Perhaps Gurganus's novel doesn't belong with those other classics, but I remember Lucy!I agree that the book should be shorter. That doesn't change the fact that you should read this story.The most powerful impression that this book gives is that the flowing of time separates us from other generations but there are messages and memories preserved for us to experience and from which to learn.When Lucy compares the confederate veterans hanging out in the town square to the vietnam vets hanging out in that same town square, the effect is dizzying. We came from previous generations and others will come from us, live in our houses, drive down the same streets we do, etc. Lucy serves as a reminder that time passes but things don't necessarily change.The novel's portrayal of history is indeed special.

One of the best books I've ever read

I wasn't really prepared for this to be a good book -- I was given an old copy by my Mom, who is from the South. 'Oh good, another war story' I thought. But once into the book, I was hooked. So many books lately seem shallow: they have one main theme and seem constructed mainly to make a good screenplay.This book will never make a good screenplay, but it makes a rich, intriguing read. Although the story is complex, I had no trouble remembering what was going on or who the characters were: they were so detailed and memorable. It doesn't really matter what you think about the Civil War, either: the book is primarily about people, and about a certain time in history.On a personal note, as a woman struggling with work and kids and house, Lucy's description of life at the turn of the century made me feel downright liberated, as well as proud of all the women throughout the centuries that have fed and clothed 'a mess of children' through good times and bad. Her description of getting up every morning to make a dozen sandwiches made me think of all the trivial little things Moms do to make life go on for a family, and how it all counts somehow in the end. It was amazing to me that Allan could describe the universe from a woman's point of view with such seeming accuracy and poignancy!