Introduction

“Riveting…. Rich in historic detail and moral complexity.”--Geraldine Brooks, New York Times best-selling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March

A haunting and beautifully written novel about a Confederate soldier whose own personal war follows him into the afterlife—until one fateful day when his encounters with a modern-day couple change everything.

A ghost in his deserted childhood home in Virginia, Tom Smiley can’t forget the bloody war and its meaningless losses, nor can he shed his revulsion for his role in the Confederate defense of slavery. But when a young couple moves in and makes his home their own in the early twenty-first century, trouble erupts—and Tom is forced not only to face his own terrible secret but also to come to grips with his family’s hidden wartime history. He finds an unexpected ally in the house’s new owner, Phoebe Hunter, whose discoveries will have momentous consequences for them both.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1
Some might think there's no life in the house, but I know otherwise. I've made friends with the mighty black snakes who take up winter residence. One has grown from a thin, stringy, mean-looking fellow to a thick band almost six feet long and round as my wrist. He enters the house when the days shorten by climbing the gnarled, vine-covered tree hovering over the back porch. Dropping from a low-leaning branch, he traverses the roof and stretches upward along the wood siding to enter the attic window, triangular snout tap-tapping, seeking entry. Hail has splintered the windowpanes, and he slides over the edge into the attic to hibernate. Sometimes he noses his way through the lime and horse-hair mortar on the central fireplace chimney and drops into the rooms below in search of mice. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

Did you find Tom Smiley’s ghost frightening or a sympathetic character?

Who was your favorite character–Tom or his sister Mary? And why?

Did Tom remind you of some soldiers who served in Vietnam, and in what way?

How did the Smiley family’s life change from the beginning of the war to the end?

What was the turning point for Tom when he finally realized what he was fighting to protect and for whom?

Why did Tom stay in the Confederate Army after he became disillusioned?

What do you think of Mary’s response to slavery? How often are we guilty of not imagining ourselves in others’ shoes? What harm does that do? Could she have done more for Sukie?

Do you think the family should have regretted their treatment of Ma when the soldiers were coming to the house and kept it secret, or should they have written it off as justified at the time and told Tom? Do you think that would have made a difference to him in keeping his secret?

How did Tom’s thinking change from the time he enlisted until his last days as a ghost in the house?

How did young Tom’s risk-taking get him in trouble at the beginning of the war and in its early days?

And then when he was in prison? Do you think he was right to take those chances that got Bibb killed?

Why did Tom lose himself in guilt about Bibb’s death? What was he keeping himself from feeling?

What would you have done to rid your house of a ghost? Would you have done something different from what Phoebe did? Or would you have just ignored it?

Did you learn something from reading this book that you hadn’t previously known? What was it?

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