Book Review: The Wolf Pit

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Wolf Pit     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Marly Youmans
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Historical
FSG, Sep 2001, $24.00, 352 pp.

His Confederate peers call him Robin for singing "Who Killed Cock Robin?" as he bravely goes into battle with his enemy. His chain of command thinks he is a courageous warrior calmly willing to die for the cause. Instead, Robin uses the nursery rhyme along with family pictures, Psalms, and a child’s novel to survive the horrors of war that eats at him every moment he breathes.

While back in Robin’s Virginia home, Robin’s mother Aemelia notices abused but intelligent slave Agate Freebody on the trader’s block. They communicate and Aemelia uses Agate's hidden money to purchase the brave young woman. Aemelia frees Agate and the two become more like mother and daughter. As both pray for Robin’s safe return, Northern soldiers capture him and send him to infamous "Helmira" prison in Elmira, New York. Meanwhile, the war goes on seemingly forever in spite of the obvious wishes of the two women.

THE WOLF PIT is a deep historical fiction novel with two parallel subplots that are tied together through Aemelia. Both of the stories are well written and dig deep into the events of the Civil War that impacts, motivates, and ultimately shapes the key protagonists by 1864. The tales of Robin and Agate share gloom and doom with some light of happier times with the former’s being in his past and the latter’s in her future. Though the characters seem removed as if the reader sees them from the present looking back rather than walking alongside them in 1864, Marly Youmens provides a strong tale that clearly focuses on a pivotal point in American history.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner