cover image The Charging Bull of Terry County

The Charging Bull of Terry County

Carl Stevens. CreateSpace, $14.95 paper (225p) ISBN 978-1-4904-6174-8

Larry Treegarden has been struggling with alcoholism his entire life. As a young man, Larry returned to his Indiana hometown after World War II and married, but his infidelity led his wife to divorce him%E2%80%94only to remarry and divorce him twice more. To make matters worse, Larry's brother died during WWII and his younger son died in Vietnam; in 1976, his elder son wants to publish his great grandfather's Civil War journal. But when Larry refuses to allow the publication of the journal it leads to startling family revelations. Stevens sets out to write a vast commentary on American war, but succeeds only in drawing together disparate themes, crafting needlessly obfuscated prose, and leaving readers confused. Additionally, the book's conclusion is contrived, and none of the characters are particularly engaging.