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Bernie MacKinnon

Goodreads Author

Born

in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada

Genre

Historical Fiction, Young Adult

Influences

"Flowers For Algernon" by Daniel Keyes; "Winesburg Ohio" by Sherwood A ...more

Member Since

October 2014

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My family moved to the U.S. from Canada when I was ten. After that I lived mostly in Maine and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono. My first two novels ("The Meantime" and "Song For A Shadow," both young-adult) were published with Houghton Mifflin but the current one, "Lucifer's Drum," is self-published and a historical thriller, set in the American Civil War. These days I live and work in Memphis, Tennessee. ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Will you be doing any readings of Lucifer's Drum anywhere?

Bernie MacKinnon I'm in touch with The Booksellers at Laurelwood here in Memphis and hoping to do a reading in January. When it is firmed up I will announce it to the …moreI'm in touch with The Booksellers at Laurelwood here in Memphis and hoping to do a reading in January. When it is firmed up I will announce it to the rafters for sure.(less)

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Your historical novel Lucifer's Drum centers on the civil war and is so rich in detail. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In all the research you did to prepare this book, what key surprises did you find?

Bernie MacKinnon Thanks Patti--The single biggest surprise concerned received wisdom--in intelligence, in official projections--and how resistant it is to facts. In th…moreThanks Patti--The single biggest surprise concerned received wisdom--in intelligence, in official projections--and how resistant it is to facts. In the case of Jubal Early's Raid, on which the novel is based, the U.S. War Department under Edwin Stanton remained smugly obdurate until the 11th hour, when Early's considerable Confederate force was barreling toward Washington. Only then did it spring clumsily into action. It made me think of President Kennedy in the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, when he lamented his reliance on "experts"--"How could I have been so stupid?" But it also made me think of the Cuban Missile Crisis a year and a half later, when Kennedy's battle-scarred antennae told him to circumvent the experts and trust his own instincts, which helped lead us away from nuclear catastrophe. Received wisdom is very hard to overcome, but a certain hard-won insight can get the job done. Another (related) surprise: how a historical event that seemed random at the time can seem almost divinely scripted in retrospect.(less)

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Combine Editions
Bernie MacKinnon’s books

Average rating: 4.05 · 37 ratings · 8 reviews · 3 distinct works

	Song for a Shadow 3.76 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 1991 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lucifer's Drum 4.64 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Meantime 3.89 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1984 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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14 posts
Bernie MacKinnon's Blog

From Lucifer's Drum: Remembering The Bloodiest Day In U.S. History

In its July 1864 raid into Maryland and eventually against Washington, D.C., Confederate General Jubal A. Early's 14,000-man force paused near Sharpsburg, site of American history's bloodiest one-day battle less than two years earlier. A technical victory for the North, the Battle of Antietam (a.k.a. Sharpsburg) is remembered just as much for Union commander George B. McClellan's squandered opport Read more of this blog post »

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Published on September 17, 2017 14:14 • Tags: battle-of-antietam, bernie-mackinnon, george-b-mcclellan, henry-kyd-douglas, john-b-gordon, john-c-breckinridge, jubal-a-early, lucifer-s-drum

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Bernie’s Quotes

“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."

(The Mill)”
― Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chekhov

tags: opinions, reticence, trouble

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“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. There are always reasons for murdering a man. On the contrary, it is impossible to justify his living. That’s why crime always finds lawyers, and innocence only rarely.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

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“There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man's life to know them the little that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.”
― Ernest Hemingway, American Lit for Idiots - a one act play

tags: learning, life, time

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