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[New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1940. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1940, and many other editions since.]

In terms of presenting the events of the Revolution and their social impact without glorification or sanitization, Oliver Wiswell may be the best book ever written -- certainly it's the best one I've unearthed. It follows the title character, who is also its narrator, from the very beginnings of the armed conflict to its end, seeing events vividly through the eyes of an aspiring historian who is trapped within them.

The story begins when Wiswell, while riding homeward, stumbles over a mob who are in the process of tar-and-feathering a man named Tom Buell. In the process of rescuing Buell, he realizes that the mob is composed of his neighbors, men he has known all his life. That discovery marks the beginning of the end for his quiet life in a village near Boston. Soon he and his father, an eminent judge now crippled by a stroke, are run off their land and forced to take refuge within the British-held city. Wiswell's anger at the chain of events which soon leads to his father's death is matched only by his despair at having to leave behind the woman he loves, whose father is one of the ringleaders of the mob.

Over the course of the next eight years, Wiswell's fortunes take him everywhere from New York to London, from Paris to the Carolinas, giving him a first-hand view of the cruel civil war which is reshaping his native country. Although nominally possessed of an officer's commission in Benjamin Thompson's regiment, he seldom gets caught up directly in battles. Instead, he and Buell participate in the behind-the-scenes aspects of the war, from intelligence gathering to failed diplomacy.

This is a dense book, running to more than 800 extremely busy pages. Roberts does have a tendency to make them a little too busy at times, i.e. to allow his storytelling to be submerged by his desire to shoehorn in as much information as possible. But he had a gift for words which shines through his love for minutiae. There was only one short subplot -- Oliver's struggle to rescue one of his lady love's brothers from the clutches of Provost Cunningham -- which I found truly tedious. Far overbalancing it were many wonderful scenes that were biting, bitter, hopeful or poignant.

It's subject matter is more focused than Jeff Shaara's The Glorious Cause -- one man's story rather than a general account of the war -- but this book is far more successful at achieving an overall sense of what the Revolution was like from its figurative trenches. Roberts is a stronger writer, and has vastly less tendency to fall into hackneyed clichés. He also does a better job than many writers of dragging his hero around from place to place, so he can witness the important events of the war -- or at least hear about them while the news is still fresh -- without being too awkward and obvious about it. (He's less successful at making the movements of some of the supporting cast flow naturally. Henrietta and Mrs. Byles definitely get their marching orders direct from the author at times, rather than from internal events.)

While this is a book driven by its story rather than its characters, the cast members have enough life to them to carry the reader along. Oliver is too busy narrating events and mooning over his lost Sally to really take off, but the eccentric, enterprising Tom Buell is a lot of fun. Far from being merely a printer, Buell proves to be a master of as many trades as the situation and their survival demand. Chameleon-like, and a bit of a con man, he's a natural choice for the dangerous and uncertain life they find themselves in. The rest of the cast are a mix of fictional and historical, with the latter group including such minor luminaries as Charles Stedman and Benjamin Thompson. (Tarleton's in it just enough to justify a review; not enough to have any interest.)

On the down side, even here one finds a measure of that distasteful mix of arrogance and xenophobia which discolors nearly all RevWar fiction. But again the book's strengths outweigh its failures. It could be argued that its apparent flaws in that direction are justified by the storytelling style, i.e. that the attitudes expressed are reasonable ones for Oliver Wiswell, the character. I'd agree with that to about 90%, but there are times when Roberts' opinions seem to influence his objective presentation of events rather than simply Wiswell's subjective reactions to them. Whether that assessment is fair or a function of my heightened annoyance with the problem, I'm not entirely sure, but in this instance it doesn't affect my overall appreciation for the book.

Roberts' novels have retained popularity and tend to stay in print. Oliver Wiswell is currently available in a paperback edition, or can be found in many libraries. It's definitely worth reading.