Synopses & Reviews
Like America in the mid-nineteenth century, Emma Garnet Tate is a woman at war with herself. Born to privilege on a James River plantation, she grows up increasingly aware that her family's prosperity is inextricably linked to the institution of slavery.
As she tells her story in 1900, she is still prey to her childhood, to the memories of a life that was made bearable in the main by the indomitable family servant Clarice. She secedes from the control of her overbearing father to marry Quincy Lowell, a member of the distinguished Boston family. Living in Raleigh on the eve of the Civil War, Emma Garnet and Quincy, with Clarice's constant help, create the ideal happy home.
When war destroys the rhythm of their days, Emma Garnet works alongside Quincy, an accomplished surgeon. As she assists him in the treatment of wounded soldiers, she comes to see the war as a conflict perpetrated by rich men and fought by poor boys against hungry women and babies. After Appomattox, Emma Garnet sets out to take the exhausted Quincy home to Boston, where she begins the journey of her own reconstruction.
As in her five previous novels, Kaye Gibbons demonstrates her subtle mastery of detail and her unmistakable voice. Told in graceful cadences, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoonis a shimmering meditation on the divisions of the human heart.
Synopsis
In "On the Occasion of my Last Afternoon", Kaye Gibbons introduces us to the inimitable Emma Garnet, her life as a plantation slave owner in eastern North Carolina, and eventually to her direct confrontation of Sherman during the Civil War.
Sherman wants to use Emma Gamet's grand house as his headquarters -- not only for its size, but because he seeks vengeance on her for her husband's commitment to the Confederacy. But Emma holds her ground, agreeing to turn her house into a hospital, where she is forced to witness the war firsthand. She had not wanted to help Sherman after he and his marauders wrecked her carefully built world, but through the hospital, her life is forever altered. She comes to embrace slaves as human beings instead of "chattel" -- only to find that, even after "all she's done for them", they do not return her affection.
The miracle of the novel is in her heart's transformation -- in this extraordinary novel, we accompany Emma on a fascinating intellectual, political, and emotional evolution that only Kaye Gibbons could convey.
About the Author
Kaye Gibbons is the author of Ellen Foster, A Virtuous Woman, A Cure for Dreams, Charms for the Easy Life, and Sights Unseen. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and children.