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A review by stephenmeansme
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
3.0
An alt-history bildungsroman set in an early 20th century where the Confederacy won the American Civil War. And the world sucks pretty hard! It's interesting that the narration opens with the hook that the narrator is "writing this in 1877, [but] I was born in 1921" but doesn't actually resolve this obvious time-travel bait until almost the end of the book. It's fitting in a way, given what we see of the narrator's character, but it also encapsulates the book's mildly frustrating pace.
It's rather unevenly scoped - I would have liked a more circumspect narration, where the alt-historicity is hinted at without a bunch of name-drops of famous people in unexpected destinies. They don't come out of nowhere, diagetically, but they do seem a bit gratuitous after a while. That, or I would have liked a grander scale, where events are narrated in full rather than written off or left hanging. That's a harder ask for a book that's less than 200 paperback pages.
Finally, the women characters are a bit under-written. Moore doesn't fall into the trap of having them all talk the same - in fact all the characters have fairly distinguishable voices - but rather they don't quite escape their roles as counterpoints to the narrator. Again, this is probably something that could have been avoided in a slightly longer book.
3.5 stars rounded down. Good thing the Union won!
It's rather unevenly scoped - I would have liked a more circumspect narration, where the alt-historicity is hinted at without a bunch of name-drops of famous people in unexpected destinies. They don't come out of nowhere, diagetically, but they do seem a bit gratuitous after a while. That, or I would have liked a grander scale, where events are narrated in full rather than written off or left hanging. That's a harder ask for a book that's less than 200 paperback pages.
Finally, the women characters are a bit under-written. Moore doesn't fall into the trap of having them all talk the same - in fact all the characters have fairly distinguishable voices - but rather they don't quite escape their roles as counterpoints to the narrator. Again, this is probably something that could have been avoided in a slightly longer book.
3.5 stars rounded down. Good thing the Union won!