Road’s End is an historical novel set in the deep South between 1900 and WWII. It is the family saga of three generations of women ruled by passion. Helen Fitzgerald has a chance encounter with a dark and exciting man on a hot August night in 1898. He has come to Charleston in search of guns and money for the Fenian cause. When he sails back to Ireland with his pockets filled with her father’s … gold, Helen is left with an unborn child. She accepts a marriage proposal from a quiet, gentle man who has loved her from afar but she is unable to accept his love and life in rural Alabama. Her husband’s inability to win her love and his jealousy over the love she has for her child changes him. Their life together shapes their daughter, Anna. She sees what her mother’s indifference does to her father, how this unrequited love twists him into something dark and unkind. As she grows into a young woman, Anna, in her turn, is torn between the good man who loves her and the stranger in their midst who tempts her with the unknown. While her choices are different from her mother, they are nonetheless as painful to those who love her. It is the happy occasion of Anna’s daughter’s wedding that brings all the secrets of the Carroll women to the surface. As a strange, wealthy, and exciting man enters Rose’s life, will she follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother? Will her future be one of heartache and loss? Road’s End is a story of love, betrayal, and dark secrets.
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The characters in Road’s End are people I’ve known my whole life–the hardworking men and women of the Deep South. Barrett has a remarkable ability to hone in on the dark motivations in the human heart, especially the female human heart. We all want what we want, but we’re not necessarily willing to bend others to our will to achieve it. Enter the often hard but sometimes joyful world of Road’s End. You won’t regret it.
The best novels allow us to ‘live among their pages’. “Road’s End” certainly does that. Like the most complex of wines, this book – once started – is difficult to set aside. You want to savor every nuance. More than romance, more than historical, more than saga, Road’s End is all of those – and more.
This is a story of strong women who love with more passion than wisdom. And it is the story of the men powerful enough and sensitive enough to arouse that passion within them, and damn the consequences.
When I was a child, I was allowed to watch black and white movies which I didn’t realize were, even then, already decades old. To me, they were vibrant and real. Such was the skill of the actors and actresses. Road’s End evoked that same emotion within me. The characters, their passion, their heartaches were all vibrant and real. Such is the skill of the author.
It is to be hoped that this multifaceted author soon returns her literary efforts to this time and place of tarnished gentility and bold dreams.
“Road’s End” is one of the most beautifully written of the many Southern Literary stories I’ve read. Simply put, this book is exceptional.
The plot spans three generations of head-strong Southern women who are more often ruled by passion than good, practical sense. The ending has an unexpected twist, and the authenticity of the novel speaks of its author’s own Southern roots. Not a classical or typical romance, but the love and passion is definitely there.
Highly recommended. Very readable. Vivid and compelling.
The three generations of women include Helen, the matriarch, who as a young Charleston belle in 1899 follows passion, not practical sense. Forsaking marriage to the safe young man she’s known since childhood, she ends up pregnant by a fiery Fenian who then flees home to Ireland. As a result, she soon finds herself married off to a farmer in Road’s End, West Alabama.
Helen’s story, as compelling and heart-rendering as it is, soon segues into her daughter Anna’s tale. With her fervent struggle for independence and love, Anna is the strong emotional center of the novel. Anna escapes Road’s End, albeit paying a high cost for the privilege, and ultimately returning, only to re-confront the same hard choices that drove her away in the first place.
Anna’s daughter, Rose, becomes the third generation of Carroll women featured in the novel. Engaged to one man, but pulled by her attraction to another one, she faces much the same dilemmas as her mother and grandmother before her.
Spanning the era from before WWI to the beginning of WWII, the book has a historical gloss (and the history is accurate), and will certainly appeal to fans of historical novels. There’s also a subtle feminist theme as the women confront hard choices and struggle to escape the confines of their culture–yet the novel is not judgmental or harsh in dealing with either the choice or the culture.