The Confederate General Rides North

In this richly imagined, utterly original debut a mother- daughter road trip leads a young girl—a precocious Civil War buff—to a hard-won understanding of the American history she loves and the personal history she inherits. 

Eleven-year-old  Katherine  McConnell  is  so  immersed in Civil War history that she often imagines herself a general, leading troops to battle. When Kat’s beautiful, impulsive mother wakes her early one morning in the summer of 1968 to tell her they will be taking a road trip from Georgia  to  Maine  to  find  antiques  for  a  shop  she  wants  to open,  Kat  sees  the  opportunity  for  adventure  and  a  respite from her parents’ troubled marriage. Armed with a road atlas and her most treasured history books, Kat cleverly charts a course that will take them to battlefields and historic sites and, for her mother’s sake she hopes, bring them home a success. But as the trip progresses, Kat’s experiences test her faith in her mother and her loyalty to the South, bringing her to a dif- ficult new awareness of her family and the history she reveres. And when their journey comes to an abrupt and devastating halt  in  Gettysburg,  Kat  must  make  an  irrevocable  choice about their ultimate destination.

Deftly narrated with the beguiling honesty of a child’s per- spective and set against the rich backdrop of the South during the 1960s, The Confederate General Rides North gracefully blends a complex mother-daughter relationship, the legacy of the Civil War, and the ache of growing up too soon.

"A mother-daughter road trip forms the outline of Gable's debut, but the emphasis of this quietly moving novel is on the daughter's inner journey toward maturity. Eleven-year-old Katherine McConnell's passion for the American Civil War isn't surprising; she's been raised in Marietta, Ga., on stories of her ancestors' bravery during the 'war of northern aggression.' So when, during the hot 1968 summer, Katherine's mother abruptly proposes the two of them take a trip up the East Coast to collect antiques for her latest business venture, Katherine plots out a route that will take them past as many battlefields as possible. Excited about setting foot into Yankee (read: enemy) territory, Katherine gradually comes to learn the truth behind their trip. Katherine's narration, enriched by vignettes in which the young Rebel recasts her problems as those of a Confederate general, is credibly nave without seeming precious, while the Civil War narratives Katherine constructs add texture and weight, keeping this from becoming another maudlin child-narrated coming-of-age story." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Kat, a Civil War buff, comes to a hard-won understanding of the war history she loves and the family history she inherits.

Amanda C. Gable's short stories have appeared in The North American Review, The Crescent Review, Quarry West, Sinister Wisdom, Hurricane Alice, North Dakota Review, Art Times, Kalliope, Other Voices, and elsewhere.  She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart and and has also been awarded grants for her fiction by the Georgia Council for the Arts, the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and the Barbara Deming Money for Women Foundation. She received her interdisciplinary Ph.D. in American literature and feminist studies from Emory University and has taught at Denison University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.  A native of Marietta, Georgia, she currently lives in Decatur, Georgia.