The Reluctant Patriot: A Novel Based on a True Story of the Civil War in Tennessee

by Susan Lohafer

Overview

In the early days of the American Civil War, Harry thought it was just a quarrel among politicians -- until his young son ran away to join a guerilla raid against the Confederates. Within weeks, Harry himself was falsely accused of sabotage, tried in a rigged courtroom, and sentenced to hang for treason. Based on true events and the real life of Harrison Self, this is a tale of eastern Tennessee, where loyalty to the Union survived long after the state had seceded. At times evoking the diaries, humorous tales, and adventure narratives of the period, it is the story of a man for whom love of country was not a given, but the result of decisions forged under pressure. In the course of his war, he will lose a son, plumb a daughter's love, and form a strange bond with the region's most controversial figure, W. G. Brownlow. Unremarked by history, Harry experienced, firsthand, the serial betrayals and surprising loyalties of a bloody war on his doorstep. How he survived -- and what he became -- is a suspenseful and moving tale of a soul's reformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951547110
Publisher:	Aubade Publishing
Publication date:	02/25/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	284
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

SUSAN LOHAFER is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A., magna cum laude), Stanford University (M.A. in Creative Writing) and New York University (Ph.D. in American Literature). During her academic career at the University of Iowa, she specialized in short fiction theory. Her books include COMING TO TERMS WITH THE SHORT STORY and READING FOR STORYNESS: PRECLOSURE THEORY, EMPIRICAL POETICS, AND CULTURE IN THE SHORT STORY, as well as the coedited volume SHORT STORY THEORY AT A CROSSROADS. Shorter works include the short story entry in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO AMERICAN FICTION AFTER 1945, a personal essay listed as a Notable Essay of 2011 in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2012, and a few short stories in venues like THE SOUTHERN REVIEW. For many years, she was the academic program director of the biennial International Conference on the Short Story in English. Her teaching areas included American Literature, short fiction history and theory, and a signature workshop course in the University of Iowa's M.F.A. Program in Nonfiction. She now lives with her husband in Tennessee.

Editorial Reviews

This is a novel about a bridge burning, a trial, and a hanging. But it is also situated in Civil War Tennessee, which means that none of those events will occur according to any expectations of normal. The characters -- from the Unionist Harrison Self to the dramatic Parson Brownlow -- are all historical enough. But Susan Lohafer has given them a special edge, as they seek to make sense of a world that is breaking into pieces around them, where friends are foes and one wrong glance may be worth your life. It is a fast book, it is an unnerving book, it is a polished, shining book -- all right then, it is a great book. --Allen C. Guelzo, author of Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction and Gettysburg: The Last Invasion.

Susan Lohafer's historical novel about the notorious bridge-burning incident of 1861 in East Tennessee is an engaging and poignantly written story about the disruptive effects of war on a close-knit community. Scholarly accounts depict the episode as a relatively minor one in the larger panorama of the Civil War. Lohafer, however, expounds the event's importance, presenting the bridge burnings as a pivotal moment for those directly involved, when the comforting routine of traditional farm life was abruptly and cruelly turned upside down. She centers her narrative on the real-life family of Harrison Self, a proud, pro-Union farmer who was implicated by Confederate authorities in the bridge burnings. In doing so, Lohafer crafts an eminently plausible tale of angst and heartbreak. Self, along with a host of other colorfully drawn characters, discovers that personal decisions made under wartime duress bring unintended consequences, which in turn call into question long cherished values. Harrison Self personifies this unfolding chaos as he loses control over his farm, his family, his very life. Readers will enjoy how Lohafer writes with an empathy that reveals both her understanding of the period and her respect for human complexity. Moreover, her novel shows that even seemingly insignificant events and people are every bit as integral to the Civil War saga as such great battles as Gettysburg or such great leaders as Lincoln. The Reluctant Patriot offers rich, literary insight into the minds of those Civil War-era Americans whose lives are otherwise left out of the pages of academic history. -Ben H. Severance, Professor of History, Auburn University at Montgomery

An exquisitely written love letter to America. Based on a true story, Lohafer gives us a moving account of the life of Harrison Self, a Tennessee farmer who, in an effort to save his child's life, is unwittingly dragged into the American Civil War. This is the amazing story of a reluctant patriot in desperate times as he endures the horrors of prison life, and, in one gruesome episode, the brutal death by hanging of an innocent boy.

In elegant and clear-sighted prose that brilliantly captures the speech of its time, this is a novel that is epic in its scope and local in its experience, making it a story of universal proportion. This is a book everyone should read, not only for its outstanding portrayal of life during America's Civil War, but to better understand the complex issue of race in America today. --Martin Roper, author of Gone

From the Publisher