Varina

A Novel

By: Charles Frazier

Narrated by: Molly Parker

In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.

With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions.

The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.”

Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the audiobook is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.

On my top 10

Chilling and surreal and two words I would use to describe this gloriously poetic book.

politics, poetry and people

History presented poetically is what keeps it alive. what bridges our past to our present, looking with hope toward our future. Charles Frazier creates paintings with words and stories which sing songs of American people, places and politics. Well worth listening for style and story.

Narration a disappointment

Narration brings this otherwise excellent Frazier book down a disappointing degree. Clearly delivered and well-articulated, it is understandable, but that’s the best that can be said of it.

Draws you in...

Beautiful, rich storytelling filled with texture and a sense of being there with the characters.

Awful narration

The narrator used a monotonous tone throughout, making it difficult to differentiate which character was talking. She seems not to have read the book herself. Words, especially proper nouns, were mispronounced all through the book, and her inflections are extremely awkward. I finished the book only because I was reading it for a book club.