Tietam Cane Lance Levens 9781611792911 Books
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Though the year is 1963, twelve year old Tietam Cane of Macon Georgia is locked in a never-ending war for the Confederate South. Raised in the country, tutored by his kill-all-the-Yankees grandfather, Tietam's knowledge of the world is bound within his 11 Volume Photographic History of the Civil War and the old man's ritual reenactment of lost battles. Beneath the boyish bravado, Tietam's heart aches, longing for the parents who left him behind as a toddler when they fled to New York City where, according to his grandfather, they now thrive without him. But gradually, Tietman realizes that he lives in a cocoon spun by his grandfather's lies, his rage, and brutal family secrets. Trapped between the Civil War and the present, Tietam also realizes that this violent legacy threatens his life and his hopes for the future -- a world without war and without the ever-present hate.
Tietam Cane Lance Levens 9781611792911 Books
I enjoyed Tietam Cane quite well. Being from the South and quite into genealogy, I’ve discovered that my adult (teen-40ish) male ancestors of the Civil War period were almost all Confederate soldiers, half of them dying on the battlefield. It was sobering to discover this and to reflect upon how radically it changed the lives of their fatherless families. Most of the women did remarry, but the devastation wrought by the war was severe, and I could appreciate Junius’ suffering at thoughts of ‘the boys’ (young soldiers who died for the Confederacy). At the same time, it was interesting to watch his grandson Tietam’s oftentimes-painful shift from ‘little rebel’ to someone with a more open mind. My favorite part of the book, though, was not so much the arc of the story as how Tietam perceived his world. I loved reading his commentary on everything and everyone—and how half the time he didn’t understand why he reacted the way he did. So little was planned or thought out, which is how it is so much of the time. Beautifully written and left me wanting to know more.Product details
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Tags : Tietam Cane [Lance Levens] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Though the year is 1963, twelve year old Tietam Cane of Macon Georgia is locked in a never-ending war for the Confederate South. Raised in the country,Lance Levens,Tietam Cane,Fireship Press,1611792916,FICTION Historical General,Fiction - General,Fiction : Literary,FictionLiterary,Historical - General,Historical fiction,Literary
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Tietam Cane Lance Levens 9781611792911 Books Reviews
Tietam Cane is the best thing I've read in a long time. The pacing, character development and story telling are all superb. Mr. Levens manages to write so poetically that you find yourself wanting to read it aloud to someone (I, in fact, did do that more than once) but all of this is achieved without a bit of self-consciousness. One never feels as though the author is trying too hard. His words are descriptive and vivid while maintaining a sort of sparseness which leaves you wanting more.
When you close a novel and immediately wonder when the next book is coming out, you've found a treasure. Tietam Cane is that treasure.
If you like Huckleberry Finn, read this update set in 1963. Tietam Cane, the 1st person narrator, is a perceptive, funny, voluble 12 year old suffering from being too perceptive and too compassionate in a world of Southern grotesques. His grandfather has infused Yankee-hatred and Southern irredentism into Tietam (named for Antietam) until all he can think about is The War Between The States. He narrates his adventures, crises, and discoveries, including discoveries about slavery. The book deftly combines humor and horror, though I would say it is suitable for so-called "young adults." The book also has a relationship to Frank Stanford's The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You.
The craft in the novel is excellent in every dimension. The rhythm of incidents, the disclosure of character, the proportions of information in relation to the importance of things, the unfolding of the climax -- it is a well designed and smoothly running machine. The most prominent feature for me was the narrative voice, which is consistent and inventive for the duration of the novel. I'm sure there were thousands of decisions to be made to get it right without without exaggerating the accent or losing the thread, and to do that and add invention is no small thing. The characters are interesting and adequately distinguished.
I was also struck by the emotional force of the novel. Grandfather Junius' gratitude for Tietam's understanding of what "the boys" mean to him, wounded, dying of thirst, crawling to a gore-dyed lake, is every bit as moving and persuasive as -- but I don't want to give the plot away. A bonus is Tietam's relationship with his dog. This is the best characterization of a dog I can remember in a book where the dog is not the main character.
This novel could have as its epigraph Stephen Dedalus' statement, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Read this and see whether Tietam can throw off the dead hand of the past.
At first, I disliked Tietam Cane. The precocious twelve year old, while obviously bright, was a racist and bigoted. He even had plans to kill the one Yankee he knew in school. And, as a reader, you had the sense that Tietam would have carried out the deed if he had the opportunity. Thankfully he didn’t. However, as I read further and learned more about his upbringing, I couldn’t help but to feel sorry for him and even began to like him. The burdens of the past laid heavily on Tietam, who nickname derived from the most vicious battle of the Civil War, Antietam. The boy grew up without parents (who had run away to New York to be “Beatniks”), raised by his grandparents. His grandfather was so into the Civil War that he still heard the voices of dying Confederate soldiers. It was a heavy burden for a man to carry through life. His father had, as a young teenager, attempted to shoot the Yankee commander of one of Sherman’s raiding parties after they had stolen the family’s food and valuable. The Yankee commander had everyone in the family brought in at gunpoint and forced them to witness the cutting off of the boys right hand so he could no longer shoot. The severed hand became a reminder of Yankee cruelty. The father passed on his hate to his son and his son was not attempting to pass it on to his grandson. Now, in 1963, Tietam is still living in the Civil War. There are surprising twists in the last chapters of the book which allows the reader to experience an epiphany as we, like Tietam, learn that things are not as they appear.
I was drawn to this book because I am a Southerner and although Tietam, the character, was six years older than me, some of what he experienced was my experiences. Although there were no severed hands stashed away in family basements (as far as I know), I had a teacher in the late 60s tell about her grandfather trying hide their valuables and food from Sherman’s Calvary and being hanged for it. His neck wasn’t broken and the as the soldiers rode away, his mother cut him down with a butcher knife and the man went through life with a terrible scar on his neck. I don’t remember if it was the same class, but there was also a picture in a North Carolina history book that showed a late 19th Century Ku Klux Klan lynching in Moore County. Having been born there, I looked at the photo with horror, wondering if I was related to any of those who had done such a despicable deed. As one German philosopher taught, “The past weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
At the end of the book, the reader realizes that Tietam is going to be okay. The weight of the past has been lifted. I enjoyed this book. It is a quick read and Levens is a gifted storyteller. I learned about this book when Levens spoke to a writer’s group in Savannah.
I enjoyed Tietam Cane quite well. Being from the South and quite into genealogy, I’ve discovered that my adult (teen-40ish) male ancestors of the Civil War period were almost all Confederate soldiers, half of them dying on the battlefield. It was sobering to discover this and to reflect upon how radically it changed the lives of their fatherless families. Most of the women did remarry, but the devastation wrought by the war was severe, and I could appreciate Junius’ suffering at thoughts of ‘the boys’ (young soldiers who died for the Confederacy). At the same time, it was interesting to watch his grandson Tietam’s oftentimes-painful shift from ‘little rebel’ to someone with a more open mind. My favorite part of the book, though, was not so much the arc of the story as how Tietam perceived his world. I loved reading his commentary on everything and everyone—and how half the time he didn’t understand why he reacted the way he did. So little was planned or thought out, which is how it is so much of the time. Beautifully written and left me wanting to know more.
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