LANDSMAN

Based on the little-known fact that 3,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Confederacy during our Civil War, Melman's novel tells the story of Elias Abrams, a young Jew alone in New Orleans who enlists in a Louisiana regiment after being accused of a serious crime. The story is in the style and spirit of COLD MOUNTAIN, though often coarser. At the center is Abrams's passion for a girl he's never met, who wrote a letter "to a soldier." Daniel Oreskes's Southern accents wander around the map a good deal, but they are suitably atmospheric, and unlikely to discourage anyone with a taste for this kind of adventure/romance in which the gore is red, the language is blue, and the grit is the size of gravel. B.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2008]