Winston Groom (1944–2020)

(2009)Very good telling of the siege of Vicksburg. Groom is a good story teller and when he doesn't get bogged down in the minutiae of the individual battle scenes, this shines thru. (Booklist)Among the most visited of Civil War battlefields, Vicksburg here receives a narrative equal to its significance and popular interest. Though Vicksburg was obviously the strategic key to control of the Mississippi River, it was anything but clear how to unlock the place or to keep it locked. The military difficulties its geography presented to both attacker and defender underlie a perceptiveness present throughout Groom's account: he grasps commanders' options, senses the sturdiness of their military character, and dramatizes their choices in a way that awakens the inner armchair general in Civil War readers. Nor does Groom neglect the chain connecting the decisions of strategists to the tumultuous experiences of those on the receiving end, from Union and Confederate soldiers to plantation owners and their slaves. The present-tense flow in Groom's prose enhances vividness, just as it captures the fogginess of war that beset the minds of generals and admirals who conducted the Vicksburg campaigns, of which there were more than half a dozen before Grant's victory. A superior example of general-interest Civil War history, this is skillful work by Groom, also the author of several military histories and the novel Forrest Gump… (plus d'informations)

Having read this many years ago, I decided to revisit it if for no other reason than laughs. What I'd forgotten was that Gump was an 'idiot savant', something left out entirely in the film. Capable of high level math and good with the harmonica, Forrest was higher functioning that Hank's character would have us think; he was also a rather large fellow and didn't run across the country. His adventures included others not shown in the movie, though its not unusual at all. A good laugh when he meets Nixon who pulls him aside, rolls up his sleeve and asks, "wanna buy a watch?"... Not a Pulitzer winner but fun just the same!… (plus d'informations)