Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-08-21

q richly embroidered story of
War.
AS in his previous novel of
an earlier period in Kentucky,
"World Enough and Time" Mr..
Warren has reconstructed
plausibly and persuasively dis
tinctive trends of the times.
This means much more than
putting down what people
wore and ate. argued over
and worried about. what their
houses looked like. You can
find such details In any
superficial Historical" novel,
but precious little Of what
really motivated people, why
they did or failed to do GER
tain things.
We Are the Same
MIR. Warren describes a
point in history with ample
detail and q minimum Of
words wasted on attire, food
and drink and polite CONVEX
sation. He digs deeper. He
: merely touches on the rest
enough to make his scenes
clear. As q matter Of fact,
though the surface Of our way
Of life has changed remark
ably in the last hundred
years. motives never vary
much, and our speech has
changed very little since the
guns were silenced at APP
pomattox, as Mr.. Warren
realizes.
Not that Band Of Angels"
IL . mere record Of the times
In fiction. It tells q dra-
matte story, but in telling it the
author unfolds in human
terms the more explosive is
sues Of the era. We see,
through the characters, slav-
cry and all it implied, the
rootless confusion of the
Negroes after they were freed
and the failure of the North
to do any intelligent planning
for them. the whitening of the
idealism that kept courage
high on both sides during the
war, the brutality and greed
Of the Reconstruction.
Sold at Auction
Alnantha Starr, who tells
the story. grew to adolescence
in the 1865 on her fathers
plantation in Kentucky. Then
the father. a widower, sent her
of to school at q dourly reli-
gious college in Ohio. Suddenly
he died. and when she hurried
back to his funeral. she was
seized by the sheriff. Her
mother. she learned. had been
a slave. though the girl looked
entirely white, and so Manly"
was a chattel of the heavily
mortgaged estate of her bank
rupt father. She was sold to
a slave trader, who took her to
New Orleans. where she was
sold again at auction. She
was bought by q rich, colorful,
violent man, in whom. as one
Of his servants said. kindness
was a disease" A former Afri-
can slave runner, he had set
tied down to the life of q
louisiana planter, and he was
good to his slaves. Finally
he freed her, and she went to
New Orleans and met the man
she married. captain in the
Union Army. a Harvard grad
uate. a lawyer and an intel
lectual. He didn't know her
secret. but when she told HIM
it made no difference. or did
not seem to.
Actually this isn't telling
enough Of the story to spoil
1t for you. There are many
characters and many compli-
cations. Manly" carries her
story far into the SOS.
Always Turning Up
Coincidence seems to pursue
the girl like a nemesis. Men
and women in her past life.
particularly those she had
rather forget. are always turn
ing up In the most unlikely
places. The former slave
trader who owns Manly for a
time is a rather confused
character. Her husband, To-
bias Sears. is interesting but
hard to grasp. He starts out
as an ardent friend OF the
Negroes. He insists on COM
manding colored troops and |
fights their battles during |
Reconstruction. He moves to
CT Tnllis witf his wifA and