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This story has everything ? Civil War heroics, survivor guilt, social history, the most believable rendition of Walt Whitman ever attempted in a novel, and an ending of 19th-century fantastical proportions I personally found quite refreshing. Truly, it's nice to see a writer of "literary fiction" employ fantasy to so much profit, and in a first novel, no less. I love this book for many reasons, one of which is for its originality, its pure and innovative voice, and the risks Adrian took. Chris Adrian is a medical student, but I hope, purely for selfish reasons, he has the good sense to give up the blade and take up the pen for more novels like this one.