The Campfire boys is a novel about camp entertainers in the American Civil War—the “USO for the Blue and Gray.” But it is also much, much more. It follows three brothers who are very good entertainers and very bad soldiers through some of the bloodiest days of the War—from the Peninsula Campaign to Gettysburg. It also gets deep inside soldier life and why laughter and pleasure may help keep soldiers alive.
Called “a splendid novel” and “enchanting read” by Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Campfire Boys reinforces the point of Williams’s earlier novel A Distant Flame that there were Unionist sympathies in the South throughout the war, even if they were expressed subtly. Part comic novel and part a tragic epic of the South’s terrible support for slavery, this new novel sheds light on something rarely written about in history or fiction: the role of entertainment in getting men through war.
Hardcover: 401 pages
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Philip Lee Williams’s latest book is the massive novel The Divine Comics: A Vaudeville Show in Three Acts, published in late 2011. His new novel, Emerson’s Brother, will be published in late spring 2012.
In 2011, the University of Georgia Press published a new edition of Williams's award-winning Civil War novel, A Distant Flame. This novel originally published by St. Martin's in 2004, was winner of the Michael Shaara Prize, given to the best single Civil War novel published in the United States the previous year.
Williams’s much-praised book-length poem, The Flower Seeker: An Epic Poem of William Bartram, came out in the fall of 2010. It was named Book of the Year by the national literary journal Books and Culture and won Williams his fourth Georgia Author of the Year Award.
All of Williams’s books are for sale at numerous online outlets and at many bookstores around the world. In addition, his works are in hundreds of libraries around the globe.
Symphony No. 17: Tenebrae
This symphony is subtitled "Tenebrae," which is a religious service in the Christian church but literally means "shadows" or "darkness" in Latin. It is a quiet, contemplative symphony, a single movement for full orchestra. (29'48")
Symphony No. 18: For the Civil Rights Martyrs
This work is subtitled "For the Civil Rights Martyrs" and is in memory of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, murdered in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 while working for Civil Rights. It is also in memory of all who died in the struggle. It is in two movements, "The Lynching" and "Souls."
One: The Lynching (15'25")
Two: Souls (14'25")
Symphony No. 17: Tenebrae
This symphony is subtitled "Tenebrae," which is a religious service in the Christian church but literally means "shadows" or "darkness" in Latin. It is a quiet, contemplative symphony, a single movement for full orchestra. (29'48")
Symphony No. 18: For the Civil Rights Martyrs
This work is subtitled "For the Civil Rights Martyrs" and is in memory of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, murdered in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 while working for Civil Rights. It is also in memory of all who died in the struggle. It is in two movements, "The Lynching" and "Souls."
One: The Lynching (15'25")
Two: Souls (14'25")
