When Johnny Came Marching Home Paperback by William Heffernan

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2012-10-09)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 300 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781617751271
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

In Heffernan’s best novel to date, a young, one-armed Civil War veteran investigates the death of a troubled fellow soldier in 1860s Vermont and Virginia.

“Heffernan swings his vivid tale back and forth between past and present, war and peace—a neat tour de force he pulls off with admirable assurance.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A solid historical from Edgar-winning Heffernan.” —Publishers Weekly

When Johnny Came Marching Home is a mystery, a love story, and William Heffernan’s best book to date. The novel tells the story of three boys who grow up in rural Vermont in a seemingly indestructible friendship, then see their lives ruined as they go off to fight in America’s “great and noble war.”

Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath—vividly presented with Heffernan’s meticulous historical research—the boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war’s end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath.

The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man who must investigate the crime. When Johnny Came Marching Home is a story about war and how it affects the lives of all who become a part of it, both directly and peripherally. Although set during the Civil War, this book casts shadows of what we endure today and the horrors to which young soldiers are subjected.

About the Author

WILLIAM HEFFERNAN (1940–2020) was the Edgar Award–winning author of numerous novels, including the international bestsellers The Corsican and The Dinosaur Club, as well as The Dead Detective, The Scientology Murders, When Johnny Came Marching Home, A Time Gone By, Cityside, and Beulah Hill. Prior to turning to fiction, Heffernan was a New York City newspaper reporter who was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize.