Enemy Women

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This powerful, deeply moving historical novel is set in southeastern
Missouri during the American Civil War. The Colley family swear
neutrality, but this does not protect them when Union militia set their
farmhouse on fire and drag Adair’s widowed father away. Adair and her
two young sisters set out in search of refuge, but Adair is falsely
accused of collaborating with the enemy and is caged in a filthy prison
for women in St. Louis. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love
with her and allows her to escape. Surrounded by danger and
difficulties, she travels through vividly depicted perilous and unknown
territory.

Excerpts from historical records of the U.S. Civil War have been taken
from the archives of genealogical societies and are used effectively at
the start of the chapters. One such excerpt notes that “in general,
and whenever they wished, Union troops shot or hanged their prisoners,
as did guerilla foes.”

Paulette Jiles grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, and now lives in Texas
with dual Canadian–American citizenship. She has won the Governor
General’s Literary Award for poetry. Enemy Women is her first novel,
and it is a great one. The storyline is gripping; the prose, clear and
strong.