The Amalgamation Polka

An Awe-Inspiring Masterpiece:

It is the rare work of literature that has the ability to transfix the reader by the sheer brilliance of the author. Very few books have the ability to capture a mood in a way that allows the reader to actually feel that he is part of the scene he or she is reading about.

The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright is precisely such a book.

The Amalgamation Polka describes the activities of the Fish and Maury Families of Upstate New York and South Carolina (respectively) in the period before and after the American Civil War.

Liberty Fish, is the son of extreme abolitionists living in New York. His mother is the estranged daughter of slave-holding parents in South Carolina. Liberty provides our link between the two radically different families as we travel with him during his childhood and as he grows up, enlists with the Union army and subsequently deserts his unit to search for his Grandparents.

The skill of this book is to provide the reader with a vivid account of the chaotic scenes before, during and after the civil war. The book opens with a scene of "bearded ladies dancing in the mud" who then chase a slave girl and molest her. The reader soon becomes aware that these are actually Union soldiers that have looted a mansion in the deep South (presumably during Sherman's March to the Sea). We do not encounter the "bearded ladies" again but this first glimpse allows the reader to know that we will be taken out of our usual comfort zone as we confront what might otherwise be stale stereotypes.

Ultimately, Stephen Wright is successful in describing how (in the face of monumental changes and horrific events) people change the way they look at the world to explain to themselves, why they should still hold on to their precious preconceived notions.

This is most aptly shown in his depiction of Liberty's Grandfather, Asa. A staunch advocate of slavery who has gone mad and is attempting to perform experiments to turn black slaves white in a strange attempt to justify his proclivity towards amalgamation.

Others have commented that the storyline is convoluted and rambling, but I feel that this is precisely the effect that Mr. Wright attempts to convey in order to describe the psychological upheaval American's faced in confronting and beginning to dismantle the system of slavery in this country. Indeed, the insightful reader will find much in this book which will shed light into the motivations of individuals in the current political arena.

After reading this book, I have become even more interested in digging deeper into the history of Civil War era in the U.S. My next book will be The March by E. L. Doctorow.

An excellent set of books to read before The Amalgamation Polka would be Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Red Badge of Courage. Both of these books capture the sense of upheaval that is perfected by Wright in The Amalgamation Polka.