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The Widow of the South

by Robert Hicks

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LB said: " I usually give bad books 2 stars if they're well written; but this one, unfortunately, is getting only one. The writing is repetitive, bombastic, grammar structures massive, and the language is too convoluted for the simple concepts it's trying to co I usually give bad books 2 stars if they're well written; but this one, unfortunately, is getting only one. The writing is repetitive, bombastic, grammar structures massive, and the language is too convoluted for the simple concepts it's trying to convey.
The book looks like a feeble attempt to replicate the great Gone with the Wind, but it also looks like there is only one Margaret Mitchell. This book is plain ugly, crude, completely lacks the refinement of fine literature.
Additionally, I believe that while writing about real people under their real names, even if deceased, the writer must be ethical. This writer apparently decided to scandalize the heroine by throwing in an extra-marital affair which I doubt took place in real life. Maybe he should've thought about her descendants.
This lack of integrity on the part of the writer reminds me of a movie called "Cast a Giant Shadow", that came out in the 1960's and was severely criticized for the same. The movie is about an American WW2 veteran. Col. Mickey Marcus, who goes to Israel in 1948 to help w/the war effort. He was married, but his wife didn't go w/him; and sure enough, the movie gives him a paramour. Nowhere in his biography was there a mention of any love affair he had there.
To give credit where credit is due, I can say that some battle scenes are written well, w/vividness and expression, but that's pretty much it. Further on, it becomes just a piece of trash, sorry to say. I doubt I'll even finish it.
PS. Returned the book to the library, sorry. Went halfway through but couldn't go any further. Stopped at the point where John, the husband, rapes a black slave b/c a black trader whom he'd sold his cotton to earlier, turned around and resold it for more. And prided himself that he didn't kill the woman. Wow, what a decent wealthy white man. His and his wife's little shoddy amorous adventures. I really wish that somebody had told this writer not to waste time undertaking this project. He's no Margaret Mitchell and much however he tried to copy her great book, he never came close. He borrowed entire scenes from Gone w/the Wind but just butchered them. ...more "

Jul 29, 2025 02:51PM · see review