Damn fools make great protagonists, particularly in satirical novels. Their naïveté allows the reader to gain experience alongside them, and their cluelessness ensures that said experience will be funny as hell, too ... Refreshingly original. Here is an author capturing, with clarity, our current moment by flashing us back to the past. Dayle’s deft portrayal of American anti-Blackness, class exploitation and cultural uncertainty feels both accurate to the novel’s 19th-century setting and, soberingly, very contemporary.
This is not the typical Civil War novel, but the dark humor and commentary on race, class, and the American experiment in the midst of its biggest test make for an entertaining, thought-provoking read.
