What do You think about Charleston (2003)?
This book brings you the classic Southern family, torn into two parts—one obviously virtuous and one completely unscrupulous. The novel takes you on a journey after the splitting of the family through the American Revolution on past the Civil War, all with the backdrop of slavery in Charleston, South Carolina. Lives on all sides of the wars were disrupted, and the city itself could not escape the destruction. Jakes details the fall of this once important city to a town of rubble and decay. While certainly not up to par with Jakes’ North and South Trilogy, this novel still showed signs of what make those books so great. Jakes’ ability to weave significant historical events into a work of fiction is incredible, and I greatly enjoy it. It helps you to understand the context on which those events occurred and gain an even greater picture of them.
—Kyle Kerns
Historical Fiction, with more accurate History about Charleston & the State of South Carolina than one would imagine. The characters are used to move the historical narrative along.I am from Low Country so have a bias toward this book. When he started talking about the Huguenots that settled near Santee, my people, I wanted to pack up and move back.Think I probably will as this book made me homesick. I'd heard all these stories growing up how the "Swamp Fox" fought here and Sherman burned there etc.It is a good read but if one isn't interested in the Southern History it would be boring as the novel aspects are not so gripping as the story of the City itself.
—Lori
This book is a continuous loop of finding love and losing love. It is filled with stories about family against family. It is a true soap opera in a book woven together with the common themes of Charleston and slavery. My eyes were opened to the fact that adultery probably has not increased in our society as much as I originally thought. It has just become less acceptable and therefore more visible as an issue. It also amazes me how you can degrade the life of humans. It had to be extremely hard to change your thoughts on the freedom of blacks when you have lived in a culture ingrained with the idea of a subordinate race.
—William
