SOURCE: Glastonbury, Marion. “Fighting Words.” New Statesman 108, no. 2788 (24 August 1984): 22-3.

In the following excerpt, Glastonbury provides an overwhelmingly positive assessment of Civil Wars.

The British edition of Civil Wars, Rosellen Brown's third novel, has arrived peppered with transatlantic hyperbole. According to the blurb, it took five years to complete. (Coming from a publisher, is this a boast or a lament?) The cover proclaims its contents ‘skilful … passionate … fascinating … consistently absorbing … absolutely gripping … intricacies of perception … justness of language … a brave and fine work’. Can Vogue, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and Ms Magazine all be right?

Yes, surprisingly, they can. There's enough here to exhaust anyone's supply of superlatives. Also enough to raise a wry smile at the honour accorded to the author by the media to whom her implicit challenge is in part addressed.

Teddy and Jessie Carll met as activists in the Civil Rights...