Ned Christie's War

To be completely frank, after I read Robert J. Conley’s Cherokee Thoughts Honest and Uncensored, I was very surprised that the same author had written Ned Christie’s War. Never mind the fact that they are completely different books, one is a historic fictional narrative, and the other is a collection of essays. In fact when I first read Cherokee Thoughts, I assumed that Robert Conley was the editor of the book, with other authors contributing essays. I thought this because honestly, Ned Christie’s War was not on the same level as Cherokee Thoughts. I honestly thought that Ned Christie’s War could have been easily read by someone much younger than us, and that a simpler overview of his life would have done just as well.
While I did enjoy Ned Christie’s War I did not think it was that great of a book for us. I thought it was an interesting book, and a very easy read, and fun break from reading more difficult books. However the content was really masked by the perspective and obvious bias of the book. I didn’t feel like I was reading the work of a well informed historian, I felt like I was reading the bitter ramblings of an author scorned. Some of the things said in the book eventually sounded less and less like what the characters were thinking and more and more like what Robert Conley actually thought. I think it is important for authors to get their point across, but it is more important that they remain unbiased in their writing. Of course this rule does not apply as stringently in a novel as it does in a more scholarly work, but it still does apply. I think that some of Conley’s comments took advantage of the flexibility of that rule of bias. I think that Conley spent too much time telling his audience what to think and not enough time laying out the story for them to decide.
All in all, I thought that Ned Christie’s War was an interesting and quick read, but in my opinion that’s really all it was worth. I thought that Conley’s other work was not only more pertinent and applicable to our studies, but it was also a better example of what Robert Conley can write.