Robert Hicks

BIO

Robert Hicks, the author of THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, was born and raised in South Florida. In 1974 he moved to Williamson County, Tennessee; in 1979 he moved to 'Labor in Vain,' a late-eighteenth-century log cabin, near Leiper's Fork, Tennessee.

Working both as a music publisher and in artist management in both country and rock music, Hick's interests remain broad and varied. A partner in the B. B. King's Blues clubs in Nashville, Memphis and Los Angeles, Hicks serves as 'Curator of Vibe' of the corporation.

Back to top.   

AUTHOR TALK

October 2005

In this interview Robert Hicks, author of the Civil War novel THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, discusses how he first became interested in Carrie McGavock's story, and the personal motivation behind her actions as a grieving mother. He also explains his initial idea of approaching a major past event from the perspective of a small group of ordinary people, and details his hands-on involvement in the preservation of the Carnton Plantation as a historical memorial.
Question: How did you become interested in Carnton and Carrie?

Robert Hicks: In 1987, I was asked on to the Board of Directors of the struggling house-museum, Carnton, taking on every role possible, from garbage hauler to president of the board. Those years of hands on service have connected me with the ol'place, the cemetery, and it's story.

Q: In real life, what do you think was Carrie's motivation for digging up the bodies and reburying them in her backyard?

RH:As I say in my author's notes, the original gravesites could not be properly maintained where they were. The McGavocks, and those in the community, who joined in the effort, were trying to protect and preserve it from oblivion. She had watched many of these boys die in her house, in her own beds, on her own floor.

I don't think we need Dr. Freud to explain Carrie's role in the site design as you see the graves of the dead boys extending out from the family cemetery where her own children were buried. Truth is, the cemetery itself became an extension of their family cemetery. Giving credence to this argument is the all-telling detail that neither John nor Carrie McGavock ever deeded nor legally separated the military cemetery from the rest of the farm. Though they had 30 to 40 years, respectively, to separate the cemeteries, they never did so. Account, after account, tell of her daily pilgrimages to the cemetery and how she carried the cemetery book on her at all times; and yet, she didn't consider the future of the cemetery and deed it to some patriotic organization? Point is, both she and John died believing they had provided for the future of the cemetery forever. I am convinced that she believed her family would be taking care of it for all time because, to her, it was her family cemetery just as much as the plot where her own children were buried. 

Q: In your author's note you say, "… I have concluded that Mariah may well have been the most complete human of them all." Why?

RH:From the bits and pieces I've gleaned out of accounts and stories of now long-dead descendants who knew her and from one interview she gave, Mariah comes across as a woman aware of the darkest aspects of the world around her, yet serene and at peace with that world and her circumstances. Neither bowed nor broken, she seems to have made peace with life.

Q: Aside from Mariah and Carrie's relationship, the book doesn't really address the issue of slavery. Was that a conscious decision on your part?

RH:When I decided to write the story as fiction; I reread every Russian novel I had ever read and many I'd never read before. I finished most of them, long before I ever opened any history of the Battle of Franklin or the Civil War. That was the kind of story I wanted to tell --- how epic circumstances would transform the characters of the story as the characters, themselves, transformed each other. That was the story I was tackling. While I've read much nonfiction about the Civil War, the political conditions leading up to it, Southern history and slavery, I was neither trying to write a military history of the Battle of Franklin nor a study on slavery or state's rights. I wanted to simply tell a story about a handful of folks caught up in this epic drama Walt Whitman called, "the defining point in American history."

Q: How much research did you need to do before you wrote the book? What did it entail?

RH: A good seven years of Russian novels and countless accounts of the Civil War and ante and post-bellum American history. The book's bibliography sums up my attempt at research.

Q: How long did it take you to write the novel?

RH: Seven years of reading, research, outlines and failed 'starts' and two years of actual writing.

Q: How historically accurate is the novel? For instance, were the generals real, did the battle take place the way you depicted it? Was there someone named Cotton Gin? Were the town dynamics as you portrayed them? And if so, how were you able to know so much information about people and events that happened such a long time ago.

RH: Carrie, John, their children, Mariah and a host of others in the story did very much live. The generals are very much real --- six of them were killed at Franklin. Some of the other characters are composites of others that lived then. While I make no claim to be a historian, the battle I described is as close as I was able to understand it from both the excellent narrative accounts and histories that have survived and from gleaning details from the more enlightened men and women I'm surrounded by. But in the end, don't be tricked, there remains a reason why it says 'A Novel' on the cover.

Q: What is Carnton like today? What is your role there?

RH:After struggling through a nearly fifteen year restoration based on scholarship and study, Carnton is shining again. Without a significant endowment, affiliation with a patriotic organization, or public money, the nonprofit association that owns Carnton, has carried on a restoration on par with the best scholarship in the nation today. Personally, I've held about every role imaginable on the site, but most of my concern these days focuses on building financial underpinning for the site that will go on way after I'm not around. I hope that everyone who reads these words will someday make their way to Carnton, the McGavock Cemetery and Historic Franklin with its other wonderful Civil War heritage sites, like the Carter House and the McLemore House.

Q: Have you read any of Carrie's letters that she wrote to the soldiers' families? What was her voice like?

RH: To date, I have never read any of the many letters that are attributed to her hand as not one of them has ever surfaced. One of my greatest hopes is that with this book, they will begin to emerge from old trunks and attics as her story comes before the public --- that the day will come when ebay is covered with them.

Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.

Click here to get the audiobook from Audible.com.