cover image Matty's War

Matty's War

Carroll Thomas. Smith & Kraus, $9.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-1-57525-206-3

In creating this Civil War novel, the authors (educators Carole Shmurak and Thomas Ratliff combined their names into one nom de plume) drew from the experiences of the 400 known women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the Union Army. As the story opens just before Christmas 1863, narrator Neely Allen greets her 16-year-old cousin, Matty, who has come to live with her in rural Connecticut from wartorn Kansas Territory. Although her aunt and uncle expect Matty to attend boarding school with Neely, Matty has other ideas: she intends to enlist in the Union Army. Matty's letters to Neely at school chronicle her experiences as a soldier, describing--in sometimes tiresome detail--arduous days of marching, battles with Confederate troops, her friendships with fellow soldiers and the ordeal of concealing her gender. Given this epistolary technique, the war-related action is necessarily second-hand, yet the narrative (which includes quotes from actual letters written by female Union soldiers) effectively conveys Matty's courage, anguish and intermittent self-doubt, and includes a level of detail often absent from Neely's more generalized account of her tame, typical life at home and school. Intermittent heavy-handed prose sometimes strains credibility (""The beauty of Ma's best china plates and damask tablecloth was soon lost in the clatter of knives and forks and the happy sounds of feasting""). Still, the novel offers a little-known perspective on women's roles in the Civil War and will likely please historical fiction fans. Final artwork not seen by PW. Ages 8-13. (Feb.)