Oldest_Living_Confederate_Widow_Tells_All
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
1989 novel by Allan Gurganus
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is a 1989 first novel by Allan Gurganus[1] which was on the New York Times Best Seller list for eight months. It won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,[2] was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and sold over four million copies.
The novel is written as supposedly dictated to a visitor to the nursing home of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, who was married around 1900 when she was 15 and her husband, Captain William Marsden, was 50.[1] Through this motif, the novel explores issues of race and personal relationships in the historical context of the American South. According to the author's web site,[3] "If Captain William Marsden was a veteran of the 'War for Southern Independence,' Lucy became a 'veteran of the veteran' with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home — complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper."