I love the Civil War. I mean, to be honest, I love history in general, but I really love the Civil War. This could be because I’m Southern bred, and like all good Southerners, the Civil War is a part of our DNA, like sweet iced tea or fried chicken. And any other Southerner who tries to tell you this is just a stereotype, like our supposed love of Nascar, is simply a self-loathing Southerner (probably living in California or New York by choice).  So when I discovered All Other Nights sitting on the coffee table of my friend’s parents, with a picture of the Rebel flag waving behind a tragic looking young couple, I of course picked it up. Yes, I am that person who peruses the books on your shelf and coffee table and judges you by what I find there. At least now you are forewarned.

All Other Nights was a fatal attraction for me. It’s the story of Jacob Rappaport, a young Jewish soldier in the Union Army who is given two impossible missions in quick succession. First, he must assisinate his uncle, a known spy, then he must woo and marry Eugenia Levy, a Jewish Southerner also thought to be a spy. This is the story of worlds divided by nothing more than the Mason-Dixon line, and the incredible loyalties such a line created, and in doing so, the worlds it destroyed.

Right, so between the Jewish angle and the Civil War angle, this book was getting bought, didn’t matter if James Patterson wrote the thing. Needless to say, the book had serious expectations to live up to.

The characters were interesting, because they were so deeply flawed. The main character, Jacob, is hard to sympathize with, until you remember he really is only nineteen, and he really thinks he doesn’t have a choice. He thinks he has to do whatever his superiors tell him, and this is his tragic flaw. Eugenia isn’t even as interesting as some of the other secondary characters Horn sets up, such as a war widow and the father of a spy ring, both of whom steal their respective scenes. The history of Jews in the Confederacy and Jews during the Civil War is fascinating (did you know that the 2^nd in command of the Confederacy was Jewish man named Judah Benjamin?). Unfortunately for the book, the plot gets weighed down by espionage, Jacob’s self-loathing, and too much coincidence (which is slightly more believable if you know how Jewish geography works).

Overall, the book was an interesting read, and the flawed characters enhance the tragic scene set by the fact readers know how the Civil War ends. The Southern Civil War buff in me was not terrible disappointed, but the ending did leave something to be desired.

Grade: B-