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Summary
Summary
"I'd been wanting for a long time to use the Civil War as a background, but couldn't imagine how to do it. One day while taking a walk it dawned on me that since my long-suffering characters Homer and Mary Kelly teach and work in Harvard's Memorial Hall, they could become interested in the memorial tablets lining the walls of the corridor, tablets listing the names of Harvard men who fell in the war. It was a way in." Jane Langton has set part of this dramatic story in the present and part during the great battle of Gettysburg. In the here-and-now, Homer and Mary Kelly try to trace the mysterious shame attached to the name of Mary's ancestor, Seth Morgan, a young student who served his country during the Civil War. In other chapters the secrets of what happened to Seth all those many years ago are unraveled in Jane Langton's inimitable style. The Deserter: Murder at Gettysburgis illustrated with authentic nineteenth century photographs, some of actual soldiers who fought and died in the battle, others chosen from anonymous photographs to represent fictional characters. Among these are Seth Morgan's pregnant wife, Ida, who trudges across the battlefield in search of him; Ida's younger brother, Eben, who sets out to bring Ida home but joins up instead; and Dr. Alexander Clock, who attends Ida's delivery in the Patent Office hospital in wartime Washington. Most importantly, readers will be introduced to that infamous skedaddler, Private Otis Pike, along with Pike's lady friend, buxom dancer Lily LeBeau. No three days in history are more dramatic in American memory than the battle of Gettysburg. Langton's characters take part (or refuse to take part) in the rush to battle on the first day, the fatal abandonment of Union trenches on the second day, the deadly charge to regain them on the morning of the third day, and the mighty artillery duel and final repulse of the Rebel assault that afternoon. As Homer and Mary combine clues from both the past and present, they finally solve the perplexing puzzle of what really happened to Seth Morgan. In a final chapter some of the famous men and women of the 1860's speak up, and Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural brings the story to an eloquent close. InThe Deserter, Jane Langton has once again outdone herself, which, as her legions of passionate devotees know, is saying quite a lot indeed.
Author Notes
Jane Langton was born Jane Gillson in Belmont, Massachusetts on December 30, 1922. She received a bachelor's degree in art history in 1944 and a master's degree in art history in 1945 from the University of Michigan. She received a second master's degree in art history from Radcliffe College in 1948. She studied at the Boston Museum School from 1958 to 1959.
Her writing career began with children's books. Her first book, The Majesty of Grace, was published in 1961. She illustrated several of her children's books. She wrote a young adult series entitled the Hall Family Chronicles. The fourth book in the series, The Fledgling, was a Newbery Honor book.
She also wrote an adult mystery series entitled the Homer Kelly mysteries. The fifth book in the series, Emily Dickinson Is Dead, received a Nero Wolfe Award and an Edgar Award. In 2017, she received the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award for the series. She died from complications of a respiratory condition on December 22, 2018 at the age of 95.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Civil War buffs will especially appreciate Langton's 17th Homer Kelly mystery (after 2002's The Escher Twist), in which the Harvard professor/sleuth and his wife, Mary, plunge into research in an effort to exonerate Seth Morgan, Mary's great-great-grandfather, a Harvard man suspected of desertion at Gettysburg. In 1863, in the battle's aftermath, Seth's pregnant wife, Ida, an independent and hardy New Englander, desperately seeks her missing husband as far as Baltimore and Washington. Meanwhile, Seth's comrade-in-arms Otis Pike, "the witty darling of his class at Harvard," provides some comic relief with his tendency to skedaddle and his scandalous involvement with actress Lily LeBeau. Homer realizes that the key to the mystery of Mary's ancestor's seemingly shameful action lies in ascertaining the particulars of Seth's relationship to Otis. The suspense builds as the author adroitly shifts between past and present. Period photos, an 1860 playbill for the Hasty Pudding show, quotations from Walt Whitman and loads of Harvard lore add historical weight. Fans of this generally lighthearted series, though, should be prepared for some graphic description of the horrors of war. (June 2) Forecast: Booksellers looking to observe the forthcoming 140th anniversary of Gettysburg can put this on display with Newt Gingrich's alternative history, Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War (Forecasts, May 12), as well as new nonfiction titles on the battle, such as Robert Clasby's Gettysburg: You Are There (Forecasts, March 10). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
How do you keep a mystery series going after 16 novels? Keep finding clever things to do with it. In this seventeenth Homer Kelly mystery, the Harvard professor and his wife, Mary, discover an odd branch in Mary's family tree. Some chapters of the novel are set in the present, as Homer and Mary try to figure out what happened between her great-great grandfather and another man; others are set during the Civil War, as we see the events unfold. The book is illustrated, scrapbook fashion, with vintage photographs of some of the characters (who are based on real people); there are also letters, posters, playbills, and other interesting add-ons. The author combines mystery with history so cleverly that we feel like we have visited Mary's great-great grandfather on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg. As always, Homer uses his unique intellect and insatiable curiosity to keep us entertained as he solves another mystery from the past. This remarkable series shows no signs of letting up. --David Pitt Copyright 2003 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Every family has black sheep, but what could Mary Kelly's great-great-grandfather Seth Morgan, Harvard class of 1860, have done that was so shameful no one ever spoke of it? Mary and her scholar/sleuth/cop husband Homer (The Escher Twist, 2002, etc.) like nothing better than foraging through archives and attics in search of truth. Now their research lands them smack in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg with the fighting men of Company E, Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Heroic deaths waited there for three Harvard graduates, two officers and a private not known for his bravery, but the evidence points to their classmate Seth's skedaddling to Baltimore. Or does it? Alternating present-day sleuthing that pits Mary and Homer against Mary's distant cousin, an avaricious Civil War groupie, with searing chapters recounting the very pregnant Ida Morgan's search for her husband--listed on the muster rolls as missing--as she moves from one field hospital to the next, the tale of Seth's desertion leads to the Baltimore stage and a coquettishly plump actress, to Washington theatrical playbills, and then back to the attic and to Harvard, where Seth is finally memorialized properly. Fine storytelling grounded in solid research and highlighted with vintage photographs and the author's trademark line drawings. An unabashed love letter to Harvard and librarians, and an admonition for hawks in our own time. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
A walk through Harvard's Memorial Hall inspires Homer Kelly and his wife, Mary, to inspect the marble tablets bearing the names of Harvard students and graduates who died fighting for the Union. Mary's ancestor Seth Morgan was lost at Gettysburg but is not listed with others of the Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The novel then becomes two stories, moving between the present, with the Kellys researching the scandal surrounding Seth's "desertion," and the past, where Ada Morgan, eight months pregnant, leaves Massachusetts to look for her missing husband in the field hospitals and morgues of Pennsylvania, then the depots and hospitals of Baltimore and Washington. In her 17th Homer Kelly mystery, Langton realistically but gently portrays those struggling to survive the effects of war: women laboring on the farms, displaced folks whose homes and crops were destroyed, and the wounded dealing with helplessness. Not only a tale of murder and identity theft in the confusion of war, The Deserter is a case study in genealogical research as the Kellys gather facts from family records, libraries, and archives. Michael Prichard leads the listener between the past and present with excellent pacing and a pleasing tone. Recommended for all fiction collections.-Janet Martin, FirstHealth of the Carolinas, Pinehurst, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
