Nostalgia Audio CD – Unabridged, October 1, 2013

Let's be clear: "Nostalgia" is the nineteenth-century medical term for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There is nothing nostalgic in this book about the Civil War. This is the story of a short period of time in 1864 in the life of one Summerfield Hayes, a nineteen-year-old young man from Brooklyn. If he's anything, he's a good baseball player who is overly fond of his sister. When we meet him he has become orphaned by the shocking deaths of his mother and father in an accident while vacationing in Europe. He displays little emotion about their deaths, as men are not supposed to show emotion, but his guilt about his feelings for his sister leads him to enlist for the Union. After only a few days in combat, Summerfield is left for dead in the field by his commander. Wandering about in the wilderness, the same wilderness from which emerged hellish cannon shot, gun fire, and grisly deaths, he gives himself up for dead, but is found and transported to a hospital in Washington, DC. There Summerfield lies in shock in a poorly ventilated facility with his fellow sufferers to his left and right while an overworked staff of doctors and aides rush about.Summerfield is subject to hallucinations, sees ghosts, and transports himself in his delirium back and forth to Brooklyn, to the battlefield, and to pivotal scenes from his childhood; he is rendered mute in his traumatized state. These extraordinary scenes sharply present us with the horrors of war and its awful aftermath. Dennis McFarland entirely enters the psyche of Summerfield and gives us his every thought and feeling. Enter Walt. Walt is the epitome of kindness and loving compassion. McFarland's portrayal sent me scurrying back to my ancient copy of "Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose," the Modern Library Edition from 1950. There I found "Specimen Days," Whitman's writings about the war and his journalistic observations from his time in hospitals as a nurse. McFarland's Walt is spot on. If anyone is faint of heart reading this book's scenes of war and death, he or she should hide from "Specimen Days" as well. Here's a brief passage that speaks to what Whitman did in those hospitals: "I am back again in Washington, on my regular daily and nightly rounds. ...Dotting a ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak and dishearten'd from typhoid fever. ...These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up. They always like it hugely (and so do I). ...The men like to have a pencil, and something to write in. I have given them cheap pocket diaries, and almanacs for 1864, interleav'd with blank paper." There is much more in "Specimen Days" worth reading.This brilliant gift of a novel from Dennis McFarland rivals "The Red Badge of Courage" in its exacting prose and its uncompromising portrayal of war and its aftermath. Giving us a living tribute to Walt Whitman is another gift for which this reader is exceedingly grateful. I highly recommend this novel without any reservation. It deserves a lot more attention and praise than it has received.

Abandoned, battered, and lost in the wake of the Wilderness Campaign, Summerfield Hayes,a 19-year old Union soldier,finds his way to a Washington military hospital. There, amid memories of his young life in Brooklyn and his recent ordeal in the Virginia woods, and surrounded by the horrors of the ward, Hayes encounters a wound-dresser known as Walt. Walt Whitman, as McFarland imagines him, is an enigmatic but completely convincing figure whose empathy and compassion offer some hope of recovery to the broken men he serves. McFarland's sentences are beautiful: if you tend to read too fast, as I do, you stop and reread them in order not to miss anything. The inner and outer world of the young soldier come alive on the page, allowing the reader to experience civilian life in 19th-century Brooklyn (including its baseball fields) as well as the stink of a military hospital during an agonizing Washington spring. This is a wonderful book -- highly recommended.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, I do like historical fiction in Civil War era, hoping this would follow in footsteps of Cold Mountain and Red Badge of Courage. Excellent writing. Book is really four separate themes, the protagonist's Civil War soldier experience, his amateur baseball career, the hospital recuperation and continuing flashbacks to life with sister and family in New York. The Civil War part was first rate. The 19th century amateur baseball very interesting. But I could never get too interested despite my best efforts in the hospital recuperation chapters. And the flashbacks to life in NY got tiring toward end of book. Maybe it was me, the reader, hoping for more of military historical fiction.

The author researched the history of the Battle of the Wilderness; old time baseball in Brooklyn; PTSD from the Civil War until today, and created a master novel which takes you back 150 years. I've been reading for 60 years or more, and believe this book deserves a high place in American fiction. I had read the author put Walt Whitman in there, and wondered about that. As with other aspects of history, it worked perfectly. The baseball angle led me to get a book on that era to learn more about how baseball developed. There are other things reviewers may write about, such as the brother/sister relationship. Overall, it is a book you could read several times. I plan on it.

Mc Farland has to be digested at a moderate pace because he really is a gifted writer of prose. Rare and occasional moments of confusion during his moves back and forth in time, but, in all, a really well-done novel of the struggles of enlistees during the war. His research and approach were, I thought, top notch. His incorporation of Walt Whitman right on target. In a way, one might say, this is the "Yankee" version of the wonderful book about the Confederacy, "Cold Mountain" Would recommend without question, especially to those who admire good writing.

This is the first of Dennis McFarland's novels I've read, and it's a masterful work. I really think it's a must read if you enjoy well-written fiction with sustained plots that keep your attention and character developments that illumine human life. In it you'll learn much about front-line combat chaos, post-traumatic stress syndrome, the early days of baseball, youthful yearning and longing, and the poet Walt Whitman. For its lyrical, insightful prose and superb storytelling, this book deserves a wide audience. It never disappoints.

I've read all of McFarland's novels and have been impressed with his prose as well as his narrative ability. Nostalgia is set in the Civil War and provides a vivid rendering of what we now would call PTSD and weaves Walt Whitman into the story in a seamless way. There are some graphic depictions of violence, but not as graphic as Homer was in the Iliad. McFarland is a superb writer and I recommend all his novels very highly.

This is a beautifully written novel. I found the depiction of the Battle of the Wilderness especially enthralling, especially the moving way the psychological effects of the fighting is dealt with.