cover image Battlefield

Battlefield

Peter Svenson. Faber & Faber, $21.95 (289pp) ISBN 978-0-571-19798-9

In 1987 Svenson, an artist, purchased 40 acres of Virginia land and discovered that he owned much of the Civil War battlefield of Cross Keys. As Svenson built a house and learned to farm, he became increasingly interested in the long-forgotten 1862 encounter between Richard Ewell's Confederate division and the Union forces of Charles Fremont. Past and present interface as Svenson juxtaposes depictions of the battle with accounts of his struggle to produce a crop of hay. The death-grapples of blue and gray regiments echo in Svenson's modern-day war against mini-malls, pesticides and similar late-20th-century detritus. This chronicle is a gem--a moving military pastoral whose excellence commends it to a wide audience. First serial to the Washington Post Magazine; paper back rights to Ballantine; BOMC, History Book Club and QPB selections. (Feb.)