Retelling 'gone with the wind'

babela · First Sergeant Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 21

When Margaret Mitchell decided to amuse herself by writing a novel about the American Civil War, she could not have predicted it would go on to win a Pulitzer, sell nearly 30 million copies and be made into the world's favourite film. It was rather easier, though, for her estate to predict that a second official spin-off, if done well, would supersede the critically panned 1991 sequel, Scarlett. So it was a long, hard search that led them to choose Donald McCaig as the safest pair of hands to carry the story into the new millennium.

McCaig, an experienced novelist of the Civil War, has produced a retelling of the story which diverges from the original book as much as the film did. Stylistically, structurally, but especially in terms of its portrayal of its hero, Rhett's People is a very different, but unexpectedly powerful beast.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/12/14/bomcc208.xml