Purgatory
by Jeff Mann
Lethe/Bear Bones Books
978-1590213759
272 pp., paperback; $18
Salvation
by Jeff Mann
Lethe/Bear Bones Books
978-1590214060
277 pp., paperback; $18
Two years ago, Jeff Mann's Purgatory saw print; a historical romance, set against the dying days of the American Civil War, it told the story of how two men met and fell in love. And were there ever two such star-crossed lovers: Private Ian Campbell, infantryman, short, compact, dark, erudite; and Private Drew Conrad, cavalryman, tall, muscular, blond, and illiterate.
Not to mention that Private Campbell fights for the Confederate States of America, while Private Conrad fights for the Union.
Campbell's company is retreating from Union soldiers when they manage to capture Conrad. The company's leader, Campbell's Uncle Erastes, systematically tortures Conrad, as do other members of the company; Campbell nurses Conrad, ostensibly to keep him alive and prolong his suffering. But Campbell, already an appreciator of male beauty, falls for Conrad, and the latter soon begins to trust the former; eventually Campbell even begins to contemplate the unthinkable—helping his prisoner escape and leaving with him. Before they can enact their escape, however, their plans are discovered; but a timely Union attack allows both men their opportunity.
Now, Mann continues the story of Privates Campbell and Conrad, as they flee to Campbell's family farm in West Virginia. Salvation opens almost as soon as Purgatory ends. Both men are in deadly danger: both are wounded, and deserters; hence, they must evade both Rebel and Union forces, as well as unaffiliated Raiders practicing banditry. Moreover, they must keep their growing love a secret, lest even the kindness of the strangers they meet be turned against them: being found out as either a deserter, “enemy” soldier, or sodomite is a capital offense.
Mann's research into the time period, especially the conditions endured by the soldiers, is evident from the very first page of Purgatory, for he pulls no punches: war is presented in all of its dirty, brutal “glory.” Soldiers not only battle each other, they battle hunger, illness, disease, lice, and hardship. Moreover, he presents the brutality of men during wartime not to be gratuitous, but to show war honestly: he also uses it as a foil for the truly good people that Campbell and Conrad meet on their travels, and naturally (these are novels written by Jeff Mann, after all) the cruelty that both men have enacted and/or endured find its way into their sexplay.
By the time this story takes place (March-April 1865), many of the characters have invested four years into the conflict: emotions run high, ranging from anger, hatred, revenge, patriotism, and yes, even exhaustion. To Mann's credit, he does not present his characters one-dimensionally: the story is told from Campbell's point of view, but Southerns/Northerners are not presented in a purely good/evil dichotomy; each character is allowed to be his/her own complex, conflicted self—and even to change over the course of the novel(s). Characters' motivations and experiences cannot be assumed upon first meeting them; Miss Tessa, a freed slave who shelters both men on their journey to West Virginia, best expresses this sentiment:
“It's all just so mixed up. Rebels who hates Negroes and wants to use 'em cruelly...Rebels who treats us kind and fights to keep invaders off their land...Yanks who loves Mr. Lincoln and the Union and believes in 'mancipation...Yanks who just wants to fight and crush and who don't care 'bout us black folks one way or th'other...” (Salvation, pp. 158-9).
Both Campbell and Conrad acknowledge that after four years of battle, neither side can claim the moral high ground, each having committed atrocities to the other—atrocities that they have participated in.
Any reader interested in the story of Campbell and Conrad should buy both Purgatory and Salvation, and read both, in order; reading the entire story, and seeing the hell that both men suffer, only makes their arrival into heaven all the sweeter.
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Keith Glaeske is a medievalist and collector of speculative fiction currently living in Washington, DC. His articles about medieval literature have been published in Medieval Perspectives, Traditio,and Ériu.