Philip Lee Williams, assistant dean for public information in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has just published his 14th book, a new novel entitled The Campfire Boys.
Williams, winner of the 2004 Michael Shaara Prize for his novel A Distant Flame, tells a story that’s never really been told in fiction before-of Civil War camp entertainers.
Filled with high spirits and hilarity, it is also a book of extremely accurate history, telling the story of the Eastern Theater of the war and, in particular, a Georgia unit called Cobb’s Legion Infantry.
The novel is the story of the three Blackshear brothers-Jack, Michael and Henry-and how they turned a boyhood love of performing in their Georgia hometown of Branton into one of the most famous campfire acts of the Civil War.
Much more, though, it’s a book of war and its consequences and how we try to turn away from it with entertainment.
Williams, a 1972 graduate of UGA, has published 10 novels, three books of creative nonfiction and a volume of poetry. He will be inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in March. (See story).
