Landsman

A stirring, evocative and unforgettable epic novel of the Civil War in the tradition of Cold Mountain and Widow of the South.In the summr of 1853, in Lafayette Co. Louisiana, eleven year old Elias Abrams loses his mother to yellow fever. Greif-stricken and alone he becomes embrioled in the street life of New Orleans. After being accused of a crime, in order to escape arrest, he enlists in the third Louisiana Regiment, where thousands of Jews will fight for the Confederacy. The chaos of life at the front is broken in the form of a letter written by a young woman to a soldier to lift his spirits. Elias's courtship of sweet Nora Bloom becomes heady with true romance and escapest longings.Before long Elias's past catches up with him and he realizes he must face his demons or lose the woman he loves. Peter Melman has crafted a riveting tale of redemption and romance in the midst of this nation's most bloody and convulsive confilct.

New Orleans is not as he Remembers It. The Blend of Mediterranean hues and architecture, the two- and three-stories of masonry and stucco, the stone arches and loggias and courtyards and delicate wrought-iron gallery grillwork, all seem to possess a quaint peculiarity now, as though, cautiously disembarking the steamboat in the early morning air long after Special Officer Dalrymple, Abrams has arrived to foreign shores. The scores of French-speaking Orleonois strolling on the boulevards further add to the city's steamy exoticism, and with them, the notion that such exoticism inevitably fails in the face of sterner, domestic truths. Live oak limbs along the levees now give the impression of sagging more despondently toward earth, the bales of cotton that once clotted the docks, seemingly too spare in number. Where is the balm of memory, the soothing familiarity of past life and love? There, at the corner of Old Levee and Dumaine, where Abrams once held Angeline's hand in his and kissed her knuckles gently, for free, because she had asked him to. "Like you was my beau," she had said, suddenly shy. "Like we was groomed to be good, you'n me." Or there, before the St. Louis Cathedral, where General Jackson has sat warlike for the past five years astride his charger, a bronze reminder that battles may be fought for New Orleans, and lost. In the Summer of 1853, In Lafayette City, Louisiana, eleven-year-old Elias Abrams loses his mother to yellow fever. Grief-stricken and alone, he becomes embroiled in the street life of New Orleans. After Elias is falsely accused of a crime and in order to escape arrest a decade later, he enlists as a private in the Third Louisiana Regiment, where threethousand other Jews will ultimately fight for the Confederacy. The chaos of life at the front is broken in the form of a letter written by a young woman to "a soldier" in order to lift his spirits. Elia's courtship of sweet Nora Bloom becomes heady with true romance and escapist longings. Before long, though, Elias's past catches up with him, and he realizes that he must face his demons or lose the woman he loves. Peter Melman has crafted a riveting tale of redemption and romance in the midst of this nation's most bloody and convulsive conflict. Landsman is transfixing and transporting, as well wrought as any classic work of historical fiction.

As fictional characters go, few embody such striking contradictions as cardsharp Elias Abrams: Jewish by birth, he joins the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Indeed, the question of duality runs deep through this novel -- not only is Elias a Jew defending the right to oppress a people, but after he helps to commit a horrific crime, he finds himself unexpectedly overtaken by the power of love. Exploring themes of literature, redemption, atonement, and love, this novel delivers a startling dose of moral ambiguity, keen insights into the human condition, and unexpected moments that devastate with their casual simplicity.