Shelby Foote, delighted

Ron Chernow's Mark Twain sent me back to his Grant, which has now reignited my interest in the Civil War. 

I'm recalling the day we were moving Older Daughter into Rhodes and, finding myself more an obstacle to dorm-decorating than not, I went for a walk down East Parkway to find Shelby Foote's home. "Empty rooms now."

 

He'd been gone for several years at that point, and the property had fallen sadly into neglect. But I had no difficulty conjuring an image of him at work on his mammoth Civil War there, a twenty-year period he told Brian Lamb he'd delighted in.