A DREAM OF KINGS is a novel of Civil War Days; an intense, lyric projection of Tom Christopher's growth to manhood, and a deeply moving love story.
Tom Christopher is an orphan, raised by his Aunt Sarah in a West Virginia river town. He shares a strange, lonely childhood with a girl whom Sarah Holmbrook has also taken in, Cathie. Through their early years these two children are sustained by their dream of a glowing God-like figure who never appears in the novel and yet pervades it-Abijah, Cathie's father, who has told the little girl that he will some day return a King. As Tom Christopher grows older, he comes more and more into conflict with Cathie, he is possessed by a feeling so powerful and so agonizingly unfamiliar that he believes it must be hate. At length he flees from his aunt's house, eventually to soldier under Stonewall Jackson, and through the violent months of war the redoubtable figure of Stonewall becomes one and the same, in Tom's mind, with King Abijah. The Tome is wounded, and when Stonewall Jackson dies he deserts.
Tom Christopher returns home, returns to find Cathie, and they realize they are in love and have always been. Because even Cathie has given up hope, finally, of Abijah, they have nothing now but each other...
There are a number of things about this book that make it extraordinary: the strong flavor of the period and the utterly convincing account of Civil War soldering, the fascinating gallery of secondary characters like Aunt Sarah, the lyric beauty of Mr. Grubb's prose. But the signal, unifying achievement is the emotional drive of A DREAM OF KINGS, the intensity of feeling that sweeps the reader through a profound experience.
