Evangeline
Ben Farmer
Overlook, Apr 2010, $25.95
ISBN 9781590200438
In 1755 the British army ruthlessly marches through one of their colonies Acadia to evict the unwelcome French citizens from their homes and loved ones. Families are torn apart without regard as ethnic cleansing of the French Catholics is the regal policy.
As part of the royal eviction, lovers Evangeline Bellefontaine and Gabriel Lajeunesse are separated, deported, and sent to different areas in the colonies that leave them several hundred miles from one another. Evangeline makes a concerted effort to find the love of her life. Her trek is dangerous but she believes it is worth it though he may be in the lower English colonies, out west amidst the French colonies, or as far away as the Louisiana bayous where many Acadians ended up after the “Great Expulsion”; she chooses Louisiana on a decade odyssey accompanied by trapper Bernard Arseneau and priest Father Felician.
Ben Farmer provides an intriguing novelization of the classic Longfellow poem. The story line brings to life the French-British conflict in North America as it intrudes on colonial existence. Although the history overwhelms the cast even the title character, readers will enjoy Mr. Farmer’s detailed impressive look at the impact of the hostilities between the French and British had on the North American colonists and the regional Indian tribes
Harriet Klausner
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