Devil's Dream — Madison Smartt Bell

With the same eloquence and grasp of history that marked his award-winning fictional trilogy of the Haitian Revolution, Madison Smartt Bell turns his gaze to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the most celebrated and reviled general of the American Civil War. Here we see Forrest on and off the battlefield; we see him treating his slaves humanely even as he fights to ensure their continued enslavement; we see his knack for keeping his enemy unsettled, his instinct for the unexpected, and his relentless stamina. As Devil's Dream moves back and forth in time, a vivid portrait comes into focus: a rough, fierce man with a life full of contradictions.