"Rhett Butler's People," by Donald McCaig. St. Martin's Press. 498 pp. $27.95.

By Katie Scarvey

Salisbury Post

Fans of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" always have a deuce of a time deciding whether to read the books that come around every so often that tantalize us with the idea of revisiting Mitchell's unforgettable characters. Will another author do them justice, or will they be forever sullied in our memories?

I passed on Alexandra Ripley's "Scarlett," published in 1991 — a decision most critics probably would have applauded. Still the book was a popular success.

More than 15 years later, I decided to give the next authorized sequel a shot, mainly because it came across my desk.

The Mitchell estate selected Donald McCaig, a well-respected writer of Civil War novels, to write the authorized sequel. The result is "Rhett Butler's People."

It's not a bad book, really, but it's still disappointing. McCaig knows his history, certainly, but Pat Conroy — who was reportedly being considered to write the sequel — strikes me as a storyteller who would understand these characters better than McCaig. (McCaig had reportedly never even read "Gone With the Wind" until being picked to write the sequel; Conroy, on the other hand, has said that he was raised by Scarlett O'Hara and that "Gone With the Wind" was the central book of his childhood.)

Rhett Butler, not Scarlett, is center stage in McCaig's novel. His story covers the period from 1843 to 1874, a much bigger chunk of time than in "Gone With the Wind." It's part prequel, part sequel and part parallel novel.

Rhett's outsider status, we learn, derives from his aristocratic upbringing in the Lowcountry — an upbringing that he wears uncomfortably, and eventually, not at all.

His father, Langston Butler, is a controlling rice planter and bully who aims to force his son to fit his mold of the Southern gentleman.

Rhett, however, has different ideas, as evidenced by his friendships with slaves, free blacks and women with soiled reputations, like Belle Watling.

The book opens with violence that has nothing to do with the Civil War and everything to do with Southern notions of honor. Rhett has been challenged by Belle's angry brother — although Belle has refused to say who has violated her honor.

The book follows the different incarnations of Rhett: the entrepreneur, the blockade runner, the husband, the adoring father, the last-minute Confederate soldier who joins only after the cause is lost.

The striking thing about this Rhett is how McCaig has cleaned him up.

Most of the scenes in Mitchell's novel that cast Rhett in a bad light — at least to any reader who doesn't have a white hood in the back of the closet — are cleverly spun in Rhett's favor by McCaig.

Nothing illustrates this more than McCaig's attempt to rescue Rhett from one of the most disturbing bits in Mitchell's novel — Rhett's arrest for killing a black man who has insulted a white woman. As Rhett confesses the crime, he asks Scarlett rhetorically, "What else could a Southern gentleman do?"

In McCaig's book, the man Rhett kills is his friend Tunis Bonneau, who has been falsely accused by a spurned white woman. And while Rhett is guilty of shooting him, he only does so at Bonneau's request, in order to allow him a humane death instead of the agonizing one he will surely face if the mob gets hold of him.

This is revisionist fiction, if you will, Rhett Butler made politically correct.

McCaig, however, rejects Mitchell's own revisionism as it applies to history. In the world of "Gone With the Wind," Mitchell implies that Klan activities were necessary to keep order. Unlike Mitchell, McCaig presents a more clear-eyed view of Reconstruction. To his credit, though, he makes the reader understand how such horrific activities might have flourished in the post-war South. Particularly affecting is McCaig's portrait of Rhett's brother-in-law, Andrew Ravenel, who morphs from a Charleston aristocrat fallen on hard times to fearless war hero to cruel Klan night rider eaten up by hatred.

While Rhett is rounded out as a character, McCaig's Scarlett is a paler, less interesting version than Mitchell's — a woman whose childishness and manipulativeness overwhelm the strength and magnetism she has in Mitchell's novel.

McCaig has added some new characters, including Rosemary Butler, Rhett's little sister, and Tazwell Watling, who may or may not be Rhett's illegitimate son. Although these characters never feel particularly real, they do add some interesting plotlines.

McCaig writes history well but struggles mightily with romance. I found myself cringing at some of his prose.

" 'Rhett, please don't mock me anymore.'

"His infuriating grin vanished. 'Honey, never again. I promise.'

"Each looked into the other's soul. Her eyes were green; his eyes were dark."

Rhett never mock Scarlett?

Fiddle-dee-dee.

Contact Katie Scarvey at 704-797-4270 or kscarvey@salisbury post.com.