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Varina: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.
With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions.
The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.”
Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the audiobook is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.
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“The unveiling of Varina’s sad story piques the reader’s curiosity. Much of what Frazier imagines is consistent with the incomplete historical record surrounding Varina, and he fills in the blanks to reveal a powerful personality that, while of her times, has much to say to us today in respect of how the impact of great events on individuals can affect the history of those events. Verdict: Highly recommended for general readers as well as anyone interested in American history.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
Quotes
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“The novel is at once profound and propulsive, especially as it describes her flight from Richmond, children in tow, Union soldiers on their heels…But no sooner do you sympathize with Howell does she betray her own deep-seated prejudices, ones she will eventually question and try to atone for (to a certain degree). Varina is a fascinating portrait of a complicated woman—one that holds a mirror up to our own time.”
— Amazon.com -
“Frazier’s interjection of historical detail is richly informative, and his descriptions of the natural world of the South are lyrical…A sharp, evocative novel.”
— Publishers Weekly
Awards
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An SIBA Okra Pick for April Reads with a Southern Flavor
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An Amazon Best Book of the Month selection
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A New York Times bestseller
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Selected for a Southern Book Prize Honorable Mention
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About Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier is the author of several books, including Cold Mountain, which won the National Book Award in 1997 and was made into an Academy-Award winning film. His second novel, Thirteen Moons, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at North Carolina State University.