Meet Robert Hicks

I had the great pleasure of speaking with Robert Hicks, the author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country, when I attended the SIBA Trade Show.  Robert has been called the most respected Civil War novelist in the US, and he is that and so much more.   He is a real Southern gentleman with a passion for life.  He is passionate about music, his collections, the South, preservation, and the battle of Franklin, just to name a few.  He got a little gleam in his eye when he spoke about his dog, Jake, the World’s Greatest Dog, and told me that it was hard to leave him to come to the show.

Robert grew up in South Florida and Tennessee and now calls Tennessee home.  He said his father reminded him daily that “No one is better than you and you’re not better than anyone.  You can do anything you want.”  Robert  worked in the music industry for years and is still involved in the B. B. King Blues Clubs.  He became involved in the preservation and restoration of the Canton House in Franklin, Tennessee.  In doing research for the restoration project, he discovered that the Canton House was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War – the Battle of Franklin.   This research eventually led to his two books.  Robert said he wrote his books as fiction, because “fiction is superior to history,” and that “storytellers keep history alive.”

Robert’s latest book, A Separate Country is about Confederate General John Bell Hood’s life after the Civil War.  In doing the research for it, Robert was surprised to discover that everything he’d learned about Hood wasn’t true.  While he didn’t write the book with this in mind, he’s hoping historians will re-assess the life of Hood.   Hood did write a book, Advance and Retreat, but Robert told me that it’s very dry and there aren’t many copies around these days.   I asked Robert why he chose the title A Separate Country and he was happy to tell me that he came up with that title himself and it represents the fact that New Orleans is like a separate country, that John Bell Hood and his wife Anna Marie almost formed their own separate country when they had eleven children and that the South (particularly after the war) is a separate country.  Robert loves New Orleans and did much of the research for this book there, as well as on line and by reading books. Robert said Louisiana writers have been very kind to him.  Speaking of A Separate Country, James Lee Burke said, “the narrator’s voice has the historical authenticity of Ishmael’s or Huck Finn’s.”

A Separate Country is an Okra Pick book.  An Okra Pick book is a book that is Southern in nature and has been chosen by SIBA booksellers to hand-sell.  (Robert was a good sport and let me take a picture of him with his Okra Pick sash on.  You can click on the picture to enlarge it.)   Robert told me that he just hopes he writes good fiction and that he wants to write great fiction some day.  Personally, I think he’s already doing that.  He was so much fun to speak with – make sure to go see him if he tours near you.