Rhett Butler's People

“Scarlett” was awful but made gazillions. “Rhett Butler’s People” may test the market to see if it is finally saturated with “Gone With The Wind” sequels or spin-offs and it thus might not make gazillions. Donald McCaig, authorized by the Mitchell Estate, for what that’s worth, has taken his own informed shot at the soap opera novel of Mitchell and, except for some odd and sporadic condensation of events and dialogue, it works well enough. The characters have a different emphasis: much more becomes known about Belle Watling and her bastard son, Tazewell, than in the original. Rhett becomes even more of a cipher at times, operating in the shadows and making money in mysterious but consistent ways to ride in at the last moment to save whoever needs saving.

There are new villains as Belle Watling’s father and brother become involved in a vendetta against Butler and O’Hara, along with another Ku Kluxer and there is the evil Andrew Ravenal who meets his just deserts at the right time and the right place. There is still the confusion over Rosemary Butler, Rhett’s sister, who seems destined to marry any man around who can breathe and who has not been left by another woman by death or design. Scarlett’s passion for Ashley still feels and sounds wrong, but that may because most readers of the original know that Scarlett and Rhett belong together and that’s the whole point of the story.

Tara takes its customary beating and Scarlett fights to preserve her pretty dresses and ribbons and keeps trilling “fiddle-de-dee” at odd moments. In short, there’s enough familiar there to keep the ball rolling. McCaig honored the somewhat overblown style of Margaret Mitchell by adopting it himself. I felt, without re-reading the original, that the portrait of Reconstruction in the South is much more accurate here: out-of-control KKK members, overthrow of elected governments and terrorism, but it is still perhaps underplayed in order to emphasize the noble mythology that sustained the South until the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s.

“Rhett Butler’s People” also takes us past the events of the original and wraps up more story lines, careful to make sure that Ashley Wilkes does not have to struggle to survive alone. I didn’t feel embarrassed reading McCaig’s work but I know that there were and are other books on my waiting list that might be more rewarding. That is, unless you are a Mitchell nut, in which case, indulge, indulge.