Unlike Trout Fishing in America (1967), Confederate General from Big Sur has no traditional characters. The novel is narrated by Jesse, a mild-mannered theological student, a minister without a church. In the absence of a calling, Jesse retreats into a passive and fatalistic acceptance of the world around him. He becomes an observer who refuses to judge or analyze.

The focus of the novel is Lee Mellon, a self-proclaimed Confederate general.

Mellon, the unreflective, and sometimes cruel, man of war, is Jesse's opposite, but both he and Jesse are examples of the American literary character — Huck Finn, Ishmael, Jay Gatsby — who creates a reality that matches what he envisions and needs. Mellon is a man without ideology, without worldly ambitions. He is alienated from the political and social concerns of his society. As his link with the Confederacy implies, Lee Mellon is a loser in the eyes...