by David Madden
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Amazon.com Review
Although set during the Civil War, David Madden's latest novel really takes place in the terrain of the mind. Sharpshooter is a story of the dislocating and disorienting effects of war. The narrator of the story is Willis Carr, who is 13 years old when the story begins. Taken prisoner by the Confederates, he gains his freedom when he joins them as a sharpshooter. As Willis tells his story, he is swept along by events he does not comprehend. This is to be expected from an adolescent boy; however, Willis later discovers that older soldiers have the same problem, only vaguely recollecting the events that unfold around them.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent fictional memoir, 2008-07-29
A surprising look at the Civil War from the perspective of a man trying to process his own experience many years after the fact. Willis Carr was the product of a Unionist family in East Tennessee. At age 13, he was caught up in a war he did not understand when he followed his father and older brothers on a mission to burn railroad bridges. Captured and offered a choice between joining the rebels and being sent to prison in Tuscaloosa ("The very name sounded like the end of everything holy.") Willis chose the Confederacy, and became a sharpshooter. The first third of the book is Willis's first hand account of his experiences in various battles, from the sharpshooter's nest in the tower of Bleak House overlooking the Kingston Pike and the Tennessee River during the siege of Knoxville, through the horrors of Devil's Den at the battle of Gettysburg, to guard duty at Andersonville Prison, where he first learned to read and write -- in Cherokee -- from a black prisoner. The remainder of the book chronicles his quest, later in life, to sort out his memories, fill in the gaps, and find out "what really happened" during the war by retracing his steps and talking to other survivors along the way. More introspection than action; thoughtful exploration of the mind of a soldier, the importance of physical and temporal perspective, and the fallibility of memory. Quite a remarkable read.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Is There Inner Peace, 2008-05-08
This is a unique way of telling the story of a boy from Tennessee, Willis Carr. The first part of the book deals this boy of thirteen who is a sharpshooter in the Confederate Army. In the second half of the book Willis returns from the west where he had a drinking spree. He has a need to come to terms with his part of the Civil War where he had been a sharpshooter. He travels to the battlefields trying to answer his question: was it War or did he commit murder? By Ruth Thompson author of "Natchez Above The River" and "The Bluegrass Dream"
Writing as a Small BusinessQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelTravelersThe Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early SettlersNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil War
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Not Your Standard Historical Fiction, 2002-02-23
This is a strangely-told Civil War novel. It's the remembrance of Willis Carr, who was drawn into the war at 13 in the hills of East Tennessee. Many localities from that area are mentioned in the story. Sharpshooter is strange because it is told by the narrator many years after the war and he doesn't seem to remember actually being a part of the events. It's a good effort, but could have been even better. Madden's work is pretty well received by critics, probably because he does such a nice job of making "history" readable.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Among the best of recent Civil War fiction, 1997-02-21
Madden's novel is both entertaining and challenging. The first half is a young adults conversion from non combatant
and Tennessee farm boy through an East Tennessee rail road raider and into the CSA army as a sharpshooter. The second half of the novel presents the soldier after the war as he returns from an alcoholic binge in the West. His personal recollections are hazy but he confronts the question: "Was it war or was it murder?" By touring the
Civil War battlefields and bumping into assorted veterans, some of whom are truthful and some are liars, he confronts his battlefield wounds of his body and his psyche. Not your usual Civil War novel and at times it may make you restless
but Sharpshooter does the work its sets out to do
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