Custer, Then & Now

Illinois-based Gerald Duff, a prolific writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, treads into dangerous territory in Playing Custer: A Novel. Not that danger scares off many writers, as historians and novelists keep tackling the subject of the Boy General and the West’s most famous cavalry-Indian clash. George Custer and Little Bighorn  fanatics, however, can be overly protective about their myths, heroes and fall guys. So how will they react to Duff’s literary novel, which uses multiple first-person accounts and shifts the story between 21st-century re-enactors and actual 19th-century participants? This intriguing novel might not find a wide audience—especially among hardcore Custer-philes—but deserves a look.

— Johnny D. Boggs, author of Greasy Grass: A Novel of the Little Big Horn