Gone with the Wind continues

Book Review

Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig was somewhat disappointing but helped remove the bad taste in my mouth from Alexandra Ripley's Scarlett. This book deals with Rhett Butler's life prior to coming to Georgia and meeting his Scarlett O'Hara. It covers his life in Charleston and the infamous dual that takes place which results in his being shunned from Charleston society and by his father. It's interesting to read about the back story but what I did not like was how McCaig concentrated too much on Rhett's sister Rosemary. Her character was too much like Scarlett in that she had a forbidden love while married and caused scandals by acting upon it. I'm sorry but antebellum Charleston society was way more strict with their ladies and Rosemary's actions were way out of character. I know he was trying to introduce more characters to make the book interesting but missing from the book was more historic detail. I did not like how he glazed over the scenes we are all too familiar with. For example, when Scarlett and Rhett first meet. We all know what happened from Scarlett's point of view but I was looking forward to more from Rhett's head other than, "Wow, she is like no one I have ever met". (no that is not a direct quote, but that was the gist of it.)

What I did love was the interactions between Rhett and Scarlett that he did cover in detail. Loved them! After getting bored with Rosemary and her endeavours I skipped over them right to where Rhett and Scarlett were mentioned. The conclusion of the book was most satisfying in that McCaig ignored Ripley's writings and made up his own conclusion as to how the love crossed pair of Rhett and Scarlett end up. So if you love this story of Gone with the Wind you must pick this book up. But I must warn you, you need to read the actual book of Gone with the Wind. If you only saw the movie then you will be confused.