by Stephen Wright
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Product Description
Born in 1844 in bucolic upstate New York, Liberty Fish is the son of fervent abolitionists as well as the grandson of Carolina slaveholders even more dedicated to their cause. Thus follows a childhood limned with fugitive slaves moving through hidden passageways in the house, and the inevitable distress that befalls his mother whenever letters arrive from her parents. In hopes of reconciling the familial disunion, Liberty escapes--first into the cauldron of war and then into a bedlam more disturbing still. In a vibrant display of literary achievement, Stephen Wright brings us a Civil War novel unlike any other.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
As Good as the Hype....?, 2008-10-31
This book came with high praise emblazoned on the jacket-which sometimes precipitates disaster!-but I soon warmed to this lyrical and expressive book; similar in style to EL Doctorow.
Like a polka the novel flitted from time and place to begin with,but the chapters of Liberty on the packet ship and Roxanas life on the plantation are superbly told.
Yes, the book does fall away a bit in the last quarter where Liberty visits Redemption Hall to encounter the deranged madness, but the book is still worth a read and keeps you aware that the amalgamation polka is still being played.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent book on context of Civil War, 2008-01-12
The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright starts out in the clouds of literary bluster, like the billowing smoke rolling across the battlefields in this imaginary tale of Civil War veteran Liberty Fish. Listening to the first chapter or several challenged my auditory mind to focus through the mushrooming cadences of adjectives and adverbs to find the storyline.
But once I did, I was hooked on the vivid characters and riveting plot of an abolitionist finding his way through the bloody caldron of war to explore his slaveholding maternal roots, only to emerge from the experience a better man for it, and more resolved to the inalienable rights of all men.
I highly recommend this enjoyable book. It is well worth the read.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 An Awe-Inspiring Masterpiece, 2008-01-09
It is the rare work of literature that has the ability to transfix the reader by the sheer brilliance of the author. Very few books have the ability to capture a mood in a way that allows the reader to actually feel that he is part of the scene he or she is reading about.
The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright is precisely such a book.
The Amalgamation Polka describes the activities of the Fish and Maury Families of Upstate New York and South Carolina (respectively) in the period before and after the American Civil War.
Liberty Fish, is the son of extreme abolitionists living in New York. His mother is the estranged daughter of slave-holding parents in South Carolina. Liberty provides our link between the two radically different families as we travel with him during his childhood and as he grows up, enlists with the Union army and subsequently deserts his unit to search for his Grandparents.
The skill of this book is to provide the reader with a vivid account of the chaotic scenes before, during and after the civil war. The book opens with a scene of "bearded ladies dancing in the mud" who then chase a slave girl and molest her. The reader soon becomes aware that these are actually Union soldiers that have looted a mansion in the deep South (presumably during Sherman's March to the Sea). We do not encounter the "bearded ladies" again but this first glimpse allows the reader to know that we will be taken out of our usual comfort zone as we confront what might otherwise be stale stereotypes.
Ultimately, Stephen Wright is successful in describing how (in the face of monumental changes and horrific events) people change the way they look at the world to explain to themselves, why they should still hold on to their precious preconceived notions.
This is most aptly shown in his depiction of Liberty's Grandfather, Asa. A staunch advocate of slavery who has gone mad and is attempting to perform experiments to turn black slaves white in a strange attempt to justify his proclivity towards amalgamation.
Others have commented that the storyline is convoluted and rambling, but I feel that this is precisely the effect that Mr. Wright attempts to convey in order to describe the psychological upheaval American's faced in confronting and beginning to dismantle the system of slavery in this country. Indeed, the insightful reader will find much in this book which will shed light into the motivations of individuals in the current political arena.
After reading this book, I have become even more interested in digging deeper into the history of Civil War era in the U.S.
An excellent set of books to read before The Amalgamation Polka would be Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Red Badge of Courage. Both of these books capture the sense of upheaval that is perfected by Wright in The Amalgamation Polka.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Both The Real Thing and A Merciless Parody, 2007-01-25
"Wright's title refers to a racist editorial cartoon of the period, which depicted "an amalgamation polka," where whites and blacks dance together in genteel costumes. This was meant to suggest, one presumes, that other mutually enjoyable physical activities might occur between the races later in the evening. Race mixing was the great shibboleth of slavery advocates and segregationists from the dawn of American history almost to our own time and many of the characters in Wright's novel are obsessed with it." Andrew O'Hehir
Stephen Wright is one of my favorite authors. I was introduced to him by my best friend who recommended his book "Going Native". I read this book in almost one sitting ten months ago but left the last chapter until now. I wanted to be able to leave the last chapter for a time when I needed solace and understanding. Who else will tell you that our country is screwed, always has been and always will be. Who else, as in most of his novels, infers that this 'is both the real thing and a merciless parody'? And, who else writes such marvelous prose? Exactly, maybe no one.
Liberty Fish, yes that is his real name, grows up in a house used as a station on the Underground Railroad, but his mother was raised on a large South Carolina plantation and his father is the son of a Northern industrial family that has profited greatly from the slave trade. Liberty's parents want to destroy the institution that made their families rich, and this perversity runs through the book. When Liberty visits the devastated Redemption Hall, his mother's birthplace, and meets his maternal grandfather, Asa Maury, the old man is a bitter, angry, hardened bigot. Yet, faced with the destruction of slavery, he is facing the racial dilemma, and is trying to solve it. Liberty survives the horrors of war at Antietam. He is taken prisoner by the rebels, then deserts from the Union Army to go find grandfather Asa. There he works with his grandfather to escape the collapsing Confederacy and hijack a ship for Brazil, where slavery remains alive and well. This harkens us back to Liberty's childhood where he is educated by a one-eyed former slave named Euclid, taken carousing by his Uncle Potter and sworn into the secret fraternity of pirates by a strange character Fife. Where does this all take us? That journey, my friend, is for you take.
Stephen Wright may see bloodshed and tumult of the Civil War period as good examples of our American madness. Despite the parody or maybe because of it, Stephen Wright gives us a new vocabulary, 'sheconnery', 'buckra, and 'gallinipers'. Fitting words for the occasion. What do they mean? You decide.
One of the characters, a southern lady sums this book up the best 'This war,'" she says to Liberty, "'this horrible evil war, it's never going to end. You do understand that, don't you? Even after it's over it will continue to go on without the flags and the trumpets and the armies, do you understand?'
There is so much to say about this novel. Stephen Wright may be having as much difficulty as we are in understanding what is happening in our world today, but he is able to articulate his thoughts in remarkable prose. I do not have the words to express the mastery of Stephen Wright's prose,nor will I try. Suffice it to say that he has led Liberty to the conclusion that "Life ... makes mongrels of us all." So Very, Very Highly Recommended.
prisrob 1-25-07
5 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
 Let's be reasonable., 2006-12-24
I have never before submitted a review on amazon but feel compelled to do so in this instance. This book is terrible. The characters, scenarios, and dialogues are almost without exception trite and formulaic to the point of inducing nausea.
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