Wilderness!

About the Book

This is a simple story, simply told, of four families of Civil War Days – their hopes, dreams and fears, their loves, jealousies and conflicts; but, above all, their loyalties and friendships. It is a story of life and death, battles won and lost, war and peace, against a background of ordinary, everyday life.

The ready will recognize the families as “everyone,” with trials and troubles, tears and laughter, as they strive to maintain some semblance of the orderliness of their previous lives, before the United States became divided and friend was pitted against friend, and brother fought brother.

About the Author

Bondurant Flewellen (Marie Bondurant Swecker Flewellen) is a native-born Virginian whose ancestors settled in the colony of Virginia in the 1600’s and early 1700’s and who says, “Once a Virginia, always a Virginian.” The author has lived also in Texas, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Florida. She always returns to her “real home”, Virginia, where relatives, friends, memories and scenery provide sources of renewal and comfort. She loves traveling, experiencing other cultures, oil painting, and playing the piano as well as writing. She feels that without the love and support of her family, she could not have written her books. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York and Columbia University, New York City, she has lived in both urban and rural settings, and says that she hopes she has acquired some wisdom and experience in her 71 years. She hastens to add that “while this novel has a historic base and time frame, the characters and their words and actions are definitely fictional; and if there are inaccuracies in historical fact, I hope I will be forgiven. I did considerable research and reading prior to “Wilderness!” but I certainly may have slipped up!” Her long social work and counseling career years – including teaching and private practice – have no doubt enlivened the already vivid imagination of the small elementary school child who many years ago sat in front of a picture window in her old Victorian home, writing stories and poetry. For this writer, after many personal tragedies, life is still one adventure after another.