A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

3.0

 ‘There were only a few years left to her before she would have to marry and be closed up in a noisy house, trapped by domesticity.’ 

November 1864, Missouri. The American Civil War is raging and while the state of Missouri is officially Union, the southeastern part of the state is largely Confederate. Eighteen-year-old Adair Randolph Colley lives with her father and three siblings in the Ozark Mountain area of Missouri, where troops from both sides have inflicted terror and wrought havoc. The Colley family have survived by remaining neutral. But this ends when the Union Militia arrests Judge Marquis Colley on charges of treason and sets the Colley property on fire. The house is saved, but Adair and her younger sisters Savannah and Mary cannot remain there, and their brother John Lee flees into the hills. 

‘So at that time Adair and her little sisters had decided to walk north 120 miles to Iron Mountain where the Yankee garrison was, and it was a long cold walk.’ 

But Adair is arrested, denounced by a fellow traveller for helping the enemy. She is sent to a women’s prison in St Louis, and her health starts to fail. Adair and her interrogator, Major William Neumann, fall in love. Before he leaves his position at the prison for a combat role, Major Neumann provides Adair with the means to survive if she can escape, suggests that if she heads home, he will find her when the fighting is over. 

While we mainly travel with Adair as she struggles home, we also observe Major Neumann. At times it seems unlikely that either of them will survive, let alone make it to Adair’s home. 

This is a novel is more about the impact of the Civil War on non-combatants than on the battles. Ms Jiles opens chapters with excerpts from historical records, letters, and memoirs, immersing the reader in the period and providing the backdrop to Adair’s journey. 

This is the second of Ms Jiles’s novels I have read, and I picked it up to fill a particular niche in a reading challenge I am undertaking.  While I admired Adair’s courage and persistence, I would have liked to have seen more of Major Neumann. I finished the novel hoping for a brighter future for them both. 

Jennifer Cameron-Smith