Céline

This vivid memoir . . . is remarkable less for its account of battles than for its revealing portrait of a family under stress. . . . Her story is a rich account of a nineteenth-century immigrant family's struggle to survive on its own terms, in conflict not only with much of American culture but with itself.

Perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the transformation of Louisiana's French community . . . Céline [is] a significant work, one that is of interest to American social historians, feminists, southern and Louisiana historians.

A fascinating and intimate account of both the struggle of an older immigrant generation to hold on to tradition and of the psychological conflicts between mothers and daughter.

Geary is a first-rate editor. His introduction provides a critical, unobtrusive appraisal of the memoir. He has corrected confusions, made identifications, and allowed Céline to tell her own story.

A worthy addition to the remarkable collection of memoirs on the Civil War by Southern women such as Julia LeGrand and Sarah Morgan Dawson . . . A first-rate account.