Jordan County: A Novel

Shelby Foote is one of my favorite writers and as usual he combines Southern charm with a lot of history along with human feelings and you just dont want to put the book down. He knowss how to weve a story and keep your attention. i advise people to read it.

Author has an ability to translate a broad range of history into readable and realistic human interaction.Character development is excellent.For the serious reader.

Another great Shelby Foote book. Wonderful picture of the after war south.

Wonderful book! Perfect as described! Thank you!! Love it!! Shelby Foote, never disappoints!

I liked The story. I am always been captivated about the Civil War. And i learned about Shelby Foote from The Civil War television Show on PBS.

Clear powerful prose set by a mind teeming with rich details of Southern American history. Misguided to compare Foote to Faulkner (I think that happens because they're both Mississippians) because he has successfully created his own vivid style and voice.

The characters were so sad and lonely. They made me want to cry. The book was well written and I love his vocabulary but it was just too depressing for me.

Jordan County is one of Shelby Foote's early works written before he undertook his classic history of the Civil War. He wrote this imaginary narrative of Jordan County, Mississippi. It is a place where the sufferings of slavery, war, and Reconstruction are very real. The book is a collection of seven stories taking place in Jordan County. They move backward in time, from 1950 to 1797. Some of the stories are very short - only four pages. Some are longer - 150 pages. They all help us experience the county and traditions through the lives of characters as diverse as a black cornet player doomed by tuberculosis and his racial background. We encounter the Wingate-Sturgis family. They are the beleaguered and inadequate end of the century and end of an era leaders of the local aristocracy. We experience a half-wild frontiersman who builds a plantation in Choctaw territory only to watch it burn at the close of the Civil War. Foote's characters are magnificent. The book is more character-based than story based. They are intensely personal stories focusing on the feelings of the characters than the history they are living. The stories are an up and down experience to read. At times the story fails to carry the character contained within them. Shelby Foote gives us a determined though disconcerting work of fiction. His writing shows the influence and traditions of a William Faulkner. Foote's work is doggedly inimitable. Not recommended as a first read for someone new to Foote. Shiloh and Follow Me Down are better books to read if you are new to Foote.