This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Reviewed by Steve Leshin for Readers' Favorite
In the novel 1877: A Northern Physician in Southern Ungoverned Spaces by David Cornish, MD, there is a questionable presidential election result, increased racial tensions, white supremacy groups causing terror in cities and towns, rigged elections, a depressed economy, and health crises as well. Sound familiar? Yet, this historical novel begins eleven years after the end of the Civil War. The setting is a local town in South Carolina where former slaves, now freedmen, have assumed roles of authority, vote, and some are even elected to public office. They face the wrath of a paramilitary group called “Red Shirts,” encouraged by former Confederate officers. A race riot breaks out in the town of Hamburg, caused by this group, and many lives are lost. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the need for federal troops to keep the peace in the southern states during the Grant administration, and the dynamics between the Republican and Democratic parties at the time are incorporated in Cornish’s novel. New medical innovations are mentioned through the dialogue of the main characters as well as future inventions.
David Cornish's 1877 has compelling characters who give the reader a sense of the selfless work of medical doctors in South Carolina during that time, both black and white. There is Dr. Charles Noble, an army colonel who runs a temporary army hospital in the town of Aiken. He and his wife Elizabeth leave Boston with their children and settle near the hospital. His assistant is Rufus Porter, a freedman who is anxious to help. A young African American assistant named Emma Holloway, with ambitions to become a nurse, and a Dr. Franklin Adams, also black, befriend Noble and his family. The story progresses at a steady pace. Tension builds with some graphic descriptions of medical procedures as well as violent incidents that happen to some during Dr. Noble’s stay in the small town. All this is told with a carefully researched historical background that gives an evocative relevance to the storyline. Cornish's 1877 is a powerful novel with a message.
