Rating: 
Summary: Good story, great writing
Review: Here is an indication of how much I liked Enemy Women: after I finished reading it last spring, I immediately picked it up and read it again. I've never done this with a book before in my life.There are a lot of reasons to like Enemy Women. It is gorgeously written--the author's description and choice of words are at once stunning but also very natural. It's as though Ms. Jiles was in the scene herself, observing all that was happening but discerning the best and most telling aspects of the scene to record. The characters are extremely compelling, especially, of course, Adair Colley and Major Neuman. Ms. Jiles gives us just enough insight into their minds to endear them to us and make us appreciate them, but also keeps us guessing as to what they will do next. I was impressed by the book's historical detail and accuracy. One can only imagine how much research went into crafting scenes including prisons and city life from Civil War-era Missouri. More difficult to re-create, perhaps, are Ms. Jiles' descriptions of every day activities from this period, from finding food in hard times to curing a cough. Also, Ms. Jiles introduces each chapter with an exerpt or two from an original source, which reminds the reader that Enemy Women isn't just a story, but is based on real events that affected real people just as the book's characters were affected by those events. I strongly recommend Enemy Women. True, it may take you a few pages to adapt to Ms. Jiles' unique writing style, which excludes quotation marks and includes a few run-on sentences. Yet I came to enjoy both the writing and the story, not to mention the history lesson.
Rating:
Summary: A PULITZER CANDIDATE IF THERE EVER WAS ONE
Review: Poet Paulette Jiles opens a chapter of her splendid debut novel, Enemy Women, with an eyewitness account penned in the 1860s: ".....On this same raid they went into the home of two of my uncles and took them out and hung them to their own gatepost. They were big men and were my mother's brothers. My mother was there and saw it all and as long as she lived she never got over the shock. And they called that a civil war. It was the cruelest war we ever had." Cruel may well be a euphemism for the atrocities suffered during the American Civil War, yet there was also great courage and strength. With deft narrative skills and the story of one young woman, Ms. Jiles has created an unforgettable portrait of a nation riven by mortal strife. In 1864, the third year of the war, Adair Colley lives with her family on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks. It is Confederate territory but the Colleys remain neutral. Adair has just turned eighteen when the Union Militia gallops onto their property, attempts to burn the house, and strikes her widowed father in the face with a wagon spoke before arresting him. To punctuate their visit the Militia "shot the dogs and took as many chickens and geese and pigs as they could catch." John, the only Colley son, seeks shelter in nearby hills. While Adair, believing there might be safety to the north, takes her two younger sisters and begins the 120 mile trek to Iron Mountain. They join "the streams of refugees afoot as if they were white trash." Any hope of finding a haven is destroyed when one among the walkers falsely accuses Adair of collaborating with the enemy, and she is taken from her terrified sisters to a women's prison in St. Louis. Filthy, rank, and cold, the prison is "like the Female Seminary of the netherworld. A ladies' academy in hell." Nonetheless, it is here that she meets her Union interrogator, Major William Neumann. They fall in love. When Adair refuses to sign a confession in order to obtain her freedom, Neumann helps her escape with the promise that he will find her after the war. However, there are still countless dangers to be faced as Neumann is sent to the Alabama front lines, and Adair braves a perilous solitary trek through uncharted wilderness and enemy territory to find what might be left of her home and family. Debilitated by her prison stay and a chronic cough which a "steam doctor" diagnoses as consumption she presses on, sometimes forced to steal for food and clothing. Adair is the embodiment of an innocent victimized by war as well as a reminder of the tensile strength humans summon when there is an intense desire to survive. With researcher's eye Ms. Jiles has illuminated a little known aspect of Civil War history, the incarceration of women. Her prose is artful, describing a new leaf as "already as large as a squirrel's ear, " or a man with "a pair of jaws like church pews." Painful in its authenticity, poetically rendered, Enemy Women is a book that will not be forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, wow. Cold Mountain, from a feminine perspective
Review: Adair Colley is an 18yo girl on the lam during the waning months of the Civil War. She and her family have been routed from their rural home by the Union militia, divided, some have maybe been killed, and when she's falsely accused of being a confederate spy, she's incarcerated in a prison for women in St. Louis. There, Major Neumann, her interrogator, falls in love with her, and she with him. He advises her to 'go over the wall' and promises to find her back in her little home town when the war ends.
The last two thirds of the book relate Adair's 'adventures' as she struggles to return to her home. Occasional chapters are devoted to the trials her lover faces as he works his way through the remainder of the war, gets discharged, and begins looking for her once again, but mostly, this is Adair's story - - - and it's terrific. Well-researched, with many quotes from letters, dispatches, and diary entries of the period, Enemy Women gives a feminine perspective to the Civil War.
Jiles' writing soars into literary realms in many places in this debut novel, and her portrayal of the diverse characters is amusing, horrific, true-to-life, and riveting. Cold Mountain, one of my favorite books of the past 5 years, was heavy going and sometimes plodding, often depressing. By comparison, Enemy Women is highly accessible, never confusing. Depressing at times? Yes, but leavened always by wit, compassion, and hope.
Do NOT miss this book. It was recommended to me by the manager of Cody's Books on Fourth St. in Berkeley, and she knows her business.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling (3 1/2 stars)...
Review: I didn't love this book, but the beautiful and subtle writing compelled me to turn the pages. The story of Adair Colley has a slow start. She is a young Missouri woman who is taken prisoner during the Civil War. While in prison, she is interrogated by Major William Neumann. Despite their differences, they fall in love. (There is no way to describe it without making it sound like some trite romance novel, is there?) They are separated and she travels the long journey home -- hoping to find her father, her sisters, her horse, her home, her life. Needless to say, it is a difficult journey. This novel is banal and contrived at times, but the writing is rather poetic and it does vividly portray the horror of the Civil War. I'm a sucker for historical novels, and the Civil War has always intrigued me. All in all, the story, despite its predictability, is compelling enough to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Authentic, beautifully written....stays with you..
Review: Enemy Women is a story about life during the Civil War, but it much more than "just" that. It is a story about life and loss, love and hate, hope and despair. It is a story about what happens when no one can remain neutral.
The story centers on a young Missouri girl, Adair Colley, who watches her father being beaten and dragged away by the Union Militia. Her brother escapes off into the mountains and Adair is left to take care of her sisters, the family home, and locating the prison where her father may be located. She is arrested while on the search for her father and taken prisoner in a womens' prison in St. Louis, far away from her home. Her life in the prison and her subsequent journey to find her sisters, shed light on the realities of the war on a day to day level.
Each chapter of this revealing novel begins with excerpts from historical accounts, from private letters and diaries and from military documents that vividly relate actual events that follow the journey of Adair Colley. They serve to emphasize the true face of the Civil War and the authenticity of the story and it's events, showing that the events portrayed did in fact have mirror images in historical fact.
The vividness of this story is not in the conclusion of the story but it is in the journey of Adair Colley. The author, Paulette Jiles, writes with a creative beauty and an intensity of observation that captures the reader and transports them through Adair's eyes and private thoughts into war torn Missouri and the chaos and wonder that coincide in amazing ways.
Paulette Jiles is an acclaimed poet and has used her beautiful, evocative talent to create a clear, realistic and unforgettable picture of the life of Adair Colley, strong and independent, and the perilous times in Civil War Missouri.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful writing about tragic events
Review: I have had this book on my shelf for two years and I finally decided to read it. I couldn't help but feel depressed and constantly anxious for Adair Colley and her situation. Which by the end made me admire her strength and courage. I did love the poetic air of this novel, and I will happily read Paulette Jiles again.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: What did I miss? The stellar reviews surprised me as I found the book to be tedious and without a spark of realism, (except for the historical abstracts which were the best part of the book and for which I gave the book 2 stars instead of the 1 star the fictional part deserved). Too many coincidences, two dimensional characters, disagreeable Adair, delusional major (what does he see in the mercurial Adair?) and dull dialogue disappointed me. It all adds up to a big D if I were grading it in school. The subject,Southern women's fate in the war zone during the Civil War, is a good one. Too bad the execution does not live up to its promise. The author does merit my thanks for including the historical notes which I shall re-read instead of finishing the book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Perspective
Review: I hadn't really thought about how women faired during the Civil war until I read this book. It was a different perspective to see it from. However, although I liked the main character, the author's style of writing threw me off. I found the lack of quotations and exclamations made the character's dialogue seem flat and it was difficult to determine the tone. I suppose this was supposed to be artistic, but I personally didn't like the style.
Rating:
Summary: Good novel about a brutal war
Review: This is one of the better Civil War novels I've read. The brutality that existed in Kansas and Missouri during the war always makes me wonder how the people there ever got over their bitterness and learned to get along. The story starts out with an attack on a man and his family by a group of Union soldiers, then follows the oldest daughter as she tries to find her captured father and ends up in prison herself. It's a well-written book and I really got a kick out of Adair. I enjoyed the story of her adventure.
Rating:
Summary: A Civil War Romance
Review: This is a vividly told tale of a young woman separated from all that she loves by war, who keeps her spirit high, finds true love, and deals with every hardship fate throws her way. There may have been many like her who did not survive, or who came through the experience defeated and lived out a miserable life; but this is one courageous and indominatable gal, and I suffered every page for her torment, and exhulted in every one of her triumphs.
|
