The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by David
Davis.

~~~~~

BOOK REVIEW

_Huckleberry Finn in Love and War: The Lost Journals_. By Dan Walker.
PublishAmerica, 2007. Pp. 327. Softcover. $24.95. ISBN 1424194768.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
David Davis

Copyright (c) 2008 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published
or redistributed in any medium without permission.

As with Sherlock Holmes and other eternal characters, Huckleberry Finn
should never grow old and should never die. In an interesting
_gedanken_, Dan Walker, a professor of English accepts the events from
Twain's fragment, _Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians_ as part
of their canonical experiences, and builds a sequel from there. He
grows up the boys, as well as Becky and Sid, through the Civil War--the
crucifying experience of their lives, as it was in real life for many
19th-century Americans.

When readers-who-become-writers get emotionally involved with memorable
characters such as Huck, Tom, Sid and Becky, the wish or desire often
arises to see them grow up and to find out what happened later. Clemens
felt it himself, and toyed with the idea of Huck and Tom reuniting as
old men. Out of this desire comes, for some characters, sequels and a
longer career in their fictive world. _Jo's Boys_, by Louisa May Alcott
(1886), provides an example from the same period. Among professional
writers (as distinct from aspiring writers of fanfic) historical
fiction may be best understood as a sub-species of speculative fiction.
All speculative fiction addresses the question "What If?" In this case,
what if Huck Finn (the fictional character) became involved in the
events and major personages in the Civil War, especially the southern
military heroes Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson?

Historical fiction also often involves grouping historical persons into
dramatic circumstances which enable the telling of a good story, as
Gore Vidal does in _Lincoln_. In this novel, Walker clusters many
well-known military and political figures from this period. The premise
is that after the events related in Twain's fragment, _Huck and Tom
among the Indians_, Huck begins keeping journals which are later
accessible to others who had subsequent interaction with him, including
Sid Sawyer. The plot plays out thus: During the Siege of Veracruz
(March, 1847), Huck joins with federal forces who are involved in this
action, part of the Mexican-American War. He begins a foster-fatherly
relationship with Robert E. Lee, and in this same period has a romantic
encounter with Mariposa, a young woman of a noble Mexican family. Not
long after, still a teenager, Huck attempts studies at West Point
through Lee's instrumentality, but his efforts end in failure and he
departs abruptly. A few years later, events leading to the Civil War
are underway. Huck is involved with Union forces in the West; Tom has
an ambiguous role, as a correspondent and double--or triple--agent.
Becky is a nurse and Sid is a Union intelligence officer. Sid and Tom
cooperate in enlisting Huck's aid in a strike against Jackson, and by
extension, against Lee. In the crisis, Huck opts not to attempt to kill
Lee--as Huck might say--"I ain't no assassin and I ain't no parricide."
Instead (after the death of Jackson) he escapes West to an implied
reunion with his Mexican love. Sid survives the war and in later life
has time to contemplate his encounters with the redoubtable Huck Finn.

Twain worked this continuation ground himself in _A Double-Barreled
Detective Story_ (1902), a parody in which Sherlock Holmes visits
America. In Holmesiana, stories such as these are considered
"non-canon"--i.e. not a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Similarly, however, Twain's canon of what Henry Nash Smith referred to
as "the matter of Hannibal" has also been mined as the premise for many
continuations and retellings. Walker's book comes among a cluster of
these: _The Further Adventures of Huck Finn_, by Greg Matthews (1983),
_Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians_, as continued by Lee
Nelson (2003), _Finn_ by Jon Clinch (2007), and _Becky_, by Lenore Hart
(2008).

Walker, however, does not make reference to the events of _Tom Sawyer,
Detective_ (1896), or _Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy_ (unfinished, 1897).
Understandably, he opts not to invoke the events of _Tom Sawyer,
Abroad_ (1894) or _Schoolhouse Hill_ (unfinished), as they stand in a
different category as works of science fiction or fantasy.

A valuable part of this book, as a good read that gets you thinking, is
how Walker makes real the well-known "brother-against-brother"
struggles and divided loyalties arising out of the national conflict.
In his ante-bellum world, Huck was coming into maturity as a conflicted
resident of a state--Missouri--in which slavery was legal. If we
stipulate, following Walker, that Huck could have had involvement in
the Mexican conflict (1846-48), it makes sense that his subsequent
involvement in events leading to the Civil War would have inclined his
support towards the Union side. The possible politics of Sid, Tom and
Becky in such a context would be much harder to assess. Would Tom, in
particular, have been for the Union? Or might he have more likely gone
for the Confederacy? (Or, at least, for Missouri against Union
occupation, as Clemens was himself, albeit briefly?) Walker navigates
these murky waters well. A central insight of Walker's novel is his
equating Huck's sense of alienation from his Missouri society and
internal conflict with his conscience, with Lee's real-world struggle
with the irreconcilable calls of duty to the Union and his sense of
duty to his native state, Virginia. Walker makes us see this
connection, tying the fictional "St. Petersburg" to real-life Richmond.

Walker's characterizations, specifically the tone and the dialect, are
good. Huck's voice is a primary challenge, and in the journals segments
of this novel, Walker's Huck (who has been through a little more
schooling than the Huck of Twain's originals) rings fairly true.
Additionally, Sid's character is developed well in this novel, and
takes shapes as a more fully conflicted individual. Tom sounds and acts
just about right. Becky and Mariposa are less developed than are the
boys. This reviewer would also have liked to have heard more from Ol'
Jim. The level of detail for the battlegrounds and other sites is
impressive, and many of these data points are sure to be recognized by
students of the period. Overall, this novel should be most fully
enjoyed by aficionados of Huck and Tom who also happen to be Civil War
buffs. For readers who are not drawn in by the terrain and tactics of
military encounters, the "you-are-there" feel of some of locale
descriptions may be distracting.

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ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
Dave Davis is a researcher and analyst for a national copyright
licensing organization. Dave has an academic background in history and
library science.