DEVIL'S DREAM A Novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest

This fictionalized story of Confederate military leader Nathan Bedford Forrest's life moves between the Civil War battlefield and his earlier years as a gambler, adulterer, and slave trader. The often grating roughness of Scott Sowers's delivery is well matched to the crude, profane Forrest. Sowers's voice occasionally takes on a softer tone when the story dictates, for example, when Henri, a free Haitian black man who fights with the Confederates, converses with Forrest's wife in a mix of French and English. The characters of Henri and Forrest's black illegitimate son bring slavery and the meaning of freedom into the story. The novel ends with a whimper, but that seems to fulfill Bell's intent: quietly conveying the futility of war. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2011]