Marly Youmans' new book, 'The Wolf Pit,' packs a wallop

Marly Youmans, a mother of three, uses that universal reaction to great extent in her new novel, "The Wolf Pit." In describing the horrors experienced by battlefield soldiers in the Civil War, she claims the cries of those young boys were loud enough to be heard by all the mothers in heaven.

War, she shows us through the character of Robin, a Confederate soldier, and Agate, a speechless mulatto slave girl, is "barbaric." As Robin views the dead men, both Union and Confederate, laying side by side, joined in the blood of the battlefield, he thinks:

"Such a waste of Virginia's men, fountaining and bursting up into the summer sky, Such a waste of the enemy, spilling over the lip and into their own trap. Never more would those boys exult and leap under a fighting sun nor court at twilight nor spade the soil for roses beside a cottage door.

"They would never be old men with houses and children and grandchildren growing up to be handsome young women and men bound to a family and to country."

Joining other Civil War writers, Youmans painstakingly did the research to make the details factual. But she gives the reader a new take on the war. She portrays the psychology of war, depicting the strategies. Her strategies, however, are not so much on the battlefield as in the mind.

Take the case of the young soldier from Louisiana named Beaufevre. He maintained his sanity and quieted his rumbling belly by reciting, over and over, ingredients he remembered for holiday cooking.

"All night Robin kept waking cold to the core. Once he heard Beaufevre talking, more rapidly than he had ever heard him speak before, 'for sweet pickled peaches, 100 pounds of peeled peaches, 50 pounds of sugar, 10 sticks of cinnamon, 20 small spoons of cloves, 10 small spoons of allspice,

Robin learns images give him strength and soon constant images of two green children, a brother and sister, found in a wolf pit in Ireland some 800 years ago, run through his mind. Those wolf pit images sprang from the pages of book he found during a scavenging hunt for food.

Youmans writing ability spills forth as she sensuously describes the slave Agate's first encounter with an orange one Christmas Day.

"My teeth crushed the first sac of pulp, and its juices sprang forth, with the slippery ova. Even after the seeds of each had been palmed and juices tasted on the tongue and swallowed, the little bag remained, the last of each waning moon, chewy and slow to break up. The sweetness, the sourness shot slivers of pleasure at its mark."

As Robin fights on the battlefield, Agate fights her own battle to survive loss and degradation. Her new owner, discovering that the young slave can read, cuts out Agate's tongue.

While Robin glances wolves in a distance from the battlefield - "hadn't seen one in several years, forgotten the way they could trickle away between trees like silvery water" - Agate's relation to the wolf pit is to pit knowledge and truth against evil.

Youmans' ending packs a wallop when the reader, along with Robin, discovers how wolves emerge from the heart of the pit.

Her musically mesmerizing style of writing ranks Youmans as one of today's most talented writers. How she weaves words together in a resonance of sounds and meanings makes it delightful to read just one page, without tying the whole story together. Kind of like how actor James Earl Jones can enthrall an audience by just reading names from a phone book.

Since she was born in Aiken, S.C., Youmans has been called by reviewer William Starr of "The State" South Carolina's largest newspaper, "The best writer South Carolina never knew it had."

Now New York tries to claim her since Youmans lives in Cooperstown, N.Y., right next door to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But many will remember her growing up right here in Jackson County. Her parents, Hubert and Mary - for whom the book is dedicated - still live in Cullowhee.

"We are very proud of her," said her mother. "I wish I could say she got some of her ability from me. Maybe I can take some credit in that all her young life I lugged loads of books home to her from every library I ever worked at. She read, read, read - under the covers when she was supposed to be sleeping, under her desk when she was supposed to be doing her math work in school. (Don't ask her to balance your check book!) Words have always been easy for Marly - she talked in sentences on her first birthday."

Marly Youmans, whom Publisher's Weekly calls "a writer and storyteller of the first order," just completed a whirlwind book signing tour in the Raleigh area.

"I'm really pleased with the response readers have shown," said this author of "Catherwood" and "Little Jordon."

Back to Archive: 12/06/01.