The Year of Jubilo is
the kind of historical fiction where the incidents and characters are
entirely imagined but their possibility is all too real. The setting is
a Mississippi town right after the Civil War ended. Confederate soldier
and native son Gawain Harper returns home accompanied by Harry
Stribling, a fellow soldier and self-described “philosopher” whom he
met on the way. Gawain finds Cumberland mostly destroyed and occupied
by federal troops. Morgan Rhea, to win whose hand Gawain had enlisted,
has written him off as dead. Along with adjusting to the changed
conditions, Gawain and Stribling become aware of a conspiracy by a
Confederate officer to incite another rebellion across the South. The
leader of the rebellion has murdered Morgan’s sister and her husband,
and Morgan’s father requires Gawain to avenge the deaths.
Written by a Southerner whose prose has been compared with Faulkner’s, The Year of Jubilo takes its title
from an abolitionist work song about the time when the arrival of
Lincoln’s soldiers promises “the kingdom a-coming.” Cumberland,
Mississippi, hardly resembles a promised kingdom in The Year of Jubilo. The melancholy
tone, the density of the writing, and the many characters to keep track
of may discourage some readers from persisting with this admirable
novel.
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