Costco Connection - November 2004

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT COSTCO BOOK CLUB

Jimmy Carter paints a Revolutionary
War story in The Hornet‘s Nest
President, humanitarian, no velist

By Tim Talevich

Jimmy Carter has led a peripatetic, they know about the Revolutionary War, even fruitful life since leaving the White professors in colleges, they’ll say they remem- ^Book ^Giveaway

House in 1981. He’s been a prolific ber the skirmishes around Boston,” says author, having penned 19 books that Carter. “We remember that Paul Revere rode cover his memoirs, political and reli- a horse in the middle of the night. We remem-gious beliefs, thoughts on aging, and more. ber that George Washington crossed the

He has taught classes Delaware in a storm … and that Benedict at Emory University Arnold was a traitor. But that’s about it.” in Atlanta and built In truth, the battles that shaped the final homes for Habitat for outcome of the war were fought in the

Jimmy

Carter

RICK DIAMOND/ WIREIMAGE

Humanity; as hobbies South—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and he makes furniture in North Carolina—until the battle of Yorktown his wood shop and in Virginia ended the major hostilities does oil paintings in his in 1781. studio at his Plains, The war’s soldiers and victims were set-

Georgia, home. Above tlers like Ethan Pratt, the son of a shoemaker all, he has worked un- who moves in 1766 with his wife, Epsey, from tiringly through the Philadelphia to North Carolina, then to the Atlanta-based Carter backwoods of Georgia, in search of greater Center to promote world health, peace and opportunity. (Carter’s first American ances-democracy, efforts that earned him the Nobel tors undertook the same journey and fought Peace Prize in 2002. in the Revolutionary War; his grandmother’s

And now Carter is a novelist, a first among name was Pratt). The Pratts become friends American presidents. In The Hornet’s Nest, with their neighbors, Kindred and Mavis he explores the story of the Revolutionary Morris, and with a young Indian, Newota.

Costco has 10 autographed copies of Jimmy Carter’s The Hornet’s Nest to give away. To enter, print your name, membership number, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send to: The Hornet’s Nest, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088, or fax it to (425) 313-6718.

No purchase is necessary. Entries must be received or postmarked by December 1, 2004. Void where prohibited. Employees of Costco and their families are not eligible. Winners will be notified by mail. One entry per household.

Join the Costco Book Club and send your feedback on this month’s book by e-mailing bookclub@costco.com. Book Club members receive a free monthly e-mail newsletter.

War through a lesser-known perspective: the Initially, many Southern settlers had no increasingly difficult for anyone to not make Deep South. It’s a meticulously researched quarrel with the British; indeed, many of achoice about the conflict. work, seven years in the making, which Carter them were the beneficiaries of generous land At age 80, Jimmy Carter maintains an created from letters, diaries, his own exten- deeds from the Crown. From an Indian per- exhausting schedule. He travels extensive library and the story of his own family, spective, the British offered pro tection sively to monitor democratic elections who settled in Georgia in the 1760s. from settlers encroaching on in the Americas, Africa and Asia, and The Revolutionary War, Carter tells The their lands and breaking treaties. to support the Carter Center’s conflict Connection in a phone interview, was our But British tax policies and other mediation efforts in trouble spots most important war. Yet it’s also possibly the issues enraged a growing number around the world. But he writes when least understood. of colonists. As the revolutionary he can, and loves the craft.

“If you ask the average American what struggle deepened, it became “I’m a farmer still,” he says in his soft Georgia tone. “I get up about 5 o’clock. I read my urgent e-mail, then scan over The New ous memoirs and nonfiction works. York Times and Washington But my first question immediately was: Post. And then I begin to write How can he handle a novel? The answer or do research. I write sometimes is: smoothly and engagingly. from 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning until

President Jimmy Carter would choose to write about the South in his first novel, The Hornet’s Nest. After all, his ancestors were true Georgian pioneers, and Carter’s heart and soul remain rooted deep in Georgian soil, no matter where his journeys have taken him.

It makes perfect sense that former

That’s mostly due to his careful atten- noon. And so my work is pretty steady. I rarely tion to detail. He shows us how settlers have writer’s block.”

Ethan Pratt and Kindred Morris carved their In The Hornet’s Nest, Carter set out to fill farms from wilderness and scratched out a gap in our understanding of American his- a living on the land. And, as the story pro- tory. He’s done so accurately, completely and gresses, we see the life-altering choices that colorfully. He even created the oil painting people of the era—American settlers, British for the book’s cover. and Indians—must eventually make. And next? The former president just fin-

The Hornet’s Nest is available in most ished a nonfiction book, Sharing Good Times, warehouses and at costco.com. but adds quickly that he isn’t done with fic-