Rating: 
Summary: Antietam Fleshed Out
Review: Tom Parker's able reading of C. X. Moreau's terrific telling of the Antietam story works superbly on the one disc, 12-hour format. Parker maintains an authoritative, objective tone and recreates the individual voices--this novelization based on historical record depends on constant shifting points of view of all principals at Turner's Gap and Sharpsburg--with a non-histrionic authenticity. Indeed, his reading of Moreau's rendering of the thoughts and words of just about every major figure from Reno to A.P. Hill manages to sound genuine rather than offer the common stilted manner associated with so much of captured Civil War dialogue. The novel itself gives needed attention to the preliminaries to Antietam, notably the actions at Turner's Gap from the shifting perspectives of D.H. Hill and General Reno, who died there. As one who has read a number of the major works on and accounts of the Antietam battle, and who has visited the site many times, including on last year's 140th anniversary, this novel really puts the flesh and blood into the historical event for me. As a historical novel should, Promise of Glory does not substitute for the analyses, anecdotes, and accounts. It simply provides them a dramatic narrative context which, at least for me, puts the real people into the hills and rills and cuts and corners of that hallowed piece of Maryland. I recommend the novel to readers and, with this valuable rendering, listeners alike. I read it last year and just finished the listening and am greatly improved by both encounters. I recommend it especially to those familiar with the battle already. I do not know how it would work as an introduction. The MP3 format of this recording for those who have replay capacity for it on their CD players permits the handling of but one disc for the entire work. The studio work is very good--better than some other I have gotten from Blackstone--without the dropoffs, volume changes, echo chamber sensations, and telltale stop-and-restart pops lesser producers too often permit. The chapterization is a bit abrupt in the reading--I can't imagine there weren't a couple more seconds available to pause and go on more patiently--and the pitfalls of the CD versus tape system (the difficulty of replaying a missed or inattended section) remain, but the ten minute sectioning helps somewhat. None of these quibbles should dissuade anyone from getting this disc into his ear "as soon as practicable," as Lee himself might say. Finally, I know there is another Moreau work out there, out of print, somewhere, and would welcome some assistance in obtaining it. In the meanwhile, get this book and this recording.
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