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Sins of the Fathers
Jim Lehrer uses the backdrop of the
Antietam battlefield to tell a story about a few soldiers, what they did, and
the way a Park Service archeologist figured it out almost 150 years later.
Lehrer’s new novel, No
Certain Rest, tells several stories at once, and he does it with
efficiency and clarity. His images of the battlefield become real, and the
investigation about what happened leads readers toward rapid page turning.
Here’s an excerpt from about half way through the book:
“For more than an
hour, they read through newspapers and every scrap of material available. Neither
came across even a passing mention of the pistol or Randolph.
Don decided to ask the little old lady for some assistance. He went over to
her desk, grinned, bowed slightly, and said, ‘Pardon me, ma’am, but I’m
trying to find out what happened to a man named Albert Randolph. He was from
East Preston and fought with the Eleventh Connecticut in the Civil War.’
She showed a flicker of interest. But she said nothing. So he continued. ‘From
everything I was able to determine, he survived the war and returned to East
Preston. But there is no record, at least none that we can find, that shows
what happened to him afterward.’
She looked off and up to her right and repeated the name. ‘Albert Randolph.’
She said it again as if the repetition might trigger a memory, a fact.
‘I recall seeing something recently
about a man with that last name. Randolph. I remember it because I had a
nephew who met and married a young woman who had gone to a college somewhere
in Virginia named Randolph-Macon. That was years ago. Yes. But the thought,
the memory was within the last few weeks – or months. What was I looking at
when I saw that name Randolph? Let me think. Randolph. Randolph. The word is familiar
because I have seen it recently. Now where was that …’
She did not finish her sentence. Instead, she reached into a drawer in her
desk. She pulled out a file folder and opened it. It was filled with letters,
attached to their envelopes with paper clips.
‘We’re not good about answering our
mail here because we simply do not have the time and the resources,’ she
said. ‘But we read our mail. We read everything that is sent to us. That’s
more than most people do, isn’t it?’
Don agreed that was more than most people do. One of the most famous
archeologists in Britain was known within the profession for taking as many
as seven years to respond to even simple inquiries. He was constantly in
jeopardy of having his London flat repossessed, his water and lights turned
off, his grandchildren think him dead.
She began looking through the stack of letters. It was three inches high. ‘Let
me see if I can put my hands on that particular letter. It was from somebody
out in the west, if I recall. Somebody with a question of some kind. I hope I
have remembered correctly, and I hope I can find it.’”
Lehrer captures dialogue with equal skill
throughout No
Certain Rest. Civil War buffs will especially enjoy the descriptions of
Antietam as well as the structure of using a letter from Albert Randolph
throughout the novel, holding all the pieces together. Once again, Jim Lehrer
presents an interesting and readable novel that captures time, place, and the
way people behave, especially under stress.
Steve Hopkins, September 18, 2002
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ã 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC
The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the November 2002
issue of Executive
Times
For
Reprint Permission, Contact:
Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302
Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687
E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com
www.hopkinsandcompany.com
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