Home >  A & E >  Books

'Nowhere Else On Earth' by Josephine Humphreys

Civil War rises again

Sunday, November 12, 2000

By Betsy Kline, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Nowhere Else On Earth By Josephine Humphreys By Josephine Humphreys. $24.95

Fans of Charles Frazier’s 1997 novel “Cold Mountain” may not be ready to venture once again into the backwoods of Civil War-torn North Carolina, but if you can’t resist a well-told story with that blend of blood and poetry, then risk a few engrossing hours with Josephine Humphreys’ new novel.

Set in 1864 Robeson County, North Carolina’s turpentine country, the book introduces a slew of heroes and ne’er-do-wells, enough to people a 19th-century Russian novel.

For villains, Humphreys has resurrected the nefarious Home Guard, the roving bounty hunters who conscript young men and boys for the losing Confederate cause.

Rhoda Strong, the 16-year-old narrator, is the daughter of a brooding Scotsman and his can-do Lumbee Indian wife. Rhoda’s mouth may be full of sass, but her heart is pure devotion to her Scuffletown kinfolk.

In the swamps of Scuffletown, descendants of lost Indian tribes mingle with poor and rich whites, freed and runaway slaves and Union deserters. Their only source of prosperity -- the turpentine that runs from the rich pine barrens -- has been nearly strangled by the war. Farmers are too afraid to work their fields by day because of the Home Guard’s deadly raids. Victimized right and left, Rhoda and many like her are fiercely loyal to their roots.

“Each clean yellow barrel stamped Spirits of Turpentine, Robeson County, N.C., held 32 gallons of our sun and soil and rain, our trees, our men, distilled. Our spirits indeed. Our essence,” she believes

That essence boils over into defiance and creates the explosive atmosphere that is the backdrop for Humphreys’ plot. As the war drags, Rhoda’s two brothers join others in the swamps to escape conscription.

One of these outlaws is Henry Berry Lowrie, and as much as Rhoda fights it at first, she falls in love with him. Henry’s Robin Hood-like sense of morality drags the citizens of Scuffletown into a conflict that outlives even the war.

Humphreys’ vigorous and complicated plot draws on her devotion to historic detail, endowing her story with the heavy death knell of truth. Her characterizations are strong and her language almost poetic, even when describing a massacre or a hanging.

“Nowhere Else on Earth” delivers many stirring scenes of sacrifice and personal glory but without the electrifying jolt of “Cold Mountain,” that left many readers shell-shocked. Humphreys’ novel stands proudly on its own, a tale of the unsung victims of war who stole back their own little victory in salvaging their dignity.