Customer Reviews

Landsman: A Novel

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At the 2007 Louisiana Book Festival,I had the pleasure of hearing Peter Melman speak about his new novel LANDSMAN and was moved by his passion for historical fiction. Of course, I bought an autographed copy.

LANDSMAN focuses on the fate of a young man, Elias Abrams, the orphaned son on an indentured Jewish immigrant in New Orleans. Joining the Confederacy, Abrams tries to leave his sordid gang affiliations behind him but must return to face his past. The language is often rough and the violence unblinking. Historic details of New Orleans and the war-ravaged South are rich and evocative. And the conclusion is thoroughly satisfying. Everything Melman sets up at the beginning he pays off with dividends by the end.

In a year with new works from most major authors writing today, this debut novel remains my favorite work of the year. All the sprawl of Chabon's THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION and all the precision of McEwan's ON CHESIL BEACH in one fascinating, can't-put-it-down book. It's interesting that COLD MOUNTAIN continues to be a touchpoint for explaining this novel. It does concern a soldier in the Civil War on a journey to a woman, but where COLD MOUNTAIN (a wonderful novel, to be sure) descends into sprawl for sprawl's sake on occasion, LANDSMAN retains its locomotive-like forward thrust on every single page. Both a big-hearted romance and a taut, brutal story, this book had me riveted from the first sentence. And beyond the beautiful, pitch-perfect writing, it has one of the most disciplined narratives in recent memory. Melman keeps surprise after surprise like aces up his sleeve, and drops them onto the table one at a time up to the last thrillig page. I love this book and can't say loud enough that it should be on the bookshelf of every lover of the modern novel reading today.

This, the first offering from a wonderful new author, was considered by this reader, a masterpiece. The reviews on the cover do NOT overstate. This was a weighty, meaty, fully satisfying banquet "feast" of a read- a masterful blend of historical fiction, suspense, romance, action, war, sex, violence, remorse, desire, happiness. All were mixed and perfectly blended by way of a resplendent prose style and sprinkled with literary allusions, and served up in a lovely publication, for which you will want to reserve a place upon your book shelf and in your memory and heart for a long time.

Peter Charles Melman is a young author who has earned a Ph.d in Creative Writing. He has also earned this reviewer's respect for a well crafted, eloquently written,plot driven first novel.

The Landsman in the title has two meanings. It refers to one who lives and works on the land; it also refers to a fellow Jew who comes from the same district or town in Eastern Europe. The hero of the novel is 20 year old Elias Abrams who is orphaned into poverty at a young age. His loving mother dies in one of the infamous yellow fever epidemics which has ravaged New Orleans throughout its long history. He is the bastard son of a rich and cruel landowner. He has participated in a plot to kill his father but does not do the actual deed. That sanguinary chore is left to the evil Simon Wolfe who is the head of a gang called the Cypress Stump boys. Wolfe and Abrams grew up together in the Widows and Orphans Orphanage in New Orleans. The Crescent City had a population of around 4000 Jews at the time of the Civil War.

Seeking to flee from the murder charge Abrams enlists in the famed 3rd Pelican Regiment chronicled by famed historian Ed Bearss. Brutality and horrible accounts of death occur in the pages devoted to two battles in the Western Theatre: Oak Hills and Elkhorn Tavern fought on March 7, 1862. It was the most important battle during the war in which Indians participated taking scalps! During his military service Abrams is befriended by a scholarly professor who serves as an enlisted man: John Lee Carlson. He also falls in love with the New Orleans Jewess Nora Bloom whom he has never seen. He will later see Norah in New Orleans along with her prettier and older sister Josephine. Their lives will be complicated, tragic and ultimately triumphant.

The book tells of the lives led by Carlson and Abrams with many an intriguing plot surprise enchanting the reader. Two repulsive characters from the old gang plague Abrams during his time in the army and back home in New Orleans.

The book graphically depicts combat, prisoner of war treatment and the horrific hospital care available for Civil War soldiers. We also learn about Jewish life in the South during the nineteenth century.

Melman can write and one hopes the book is sold to as a motion picture story. It is a page turner which keeps the reader engaged until the exciting and unexpected last page! The book is well worth your time and money.

"Landsman" is not a genre I usually read. Once I read the first page in the book store, I could not put it down and had to buy it at full price. Melman captures the time, the characters and war in a most uncanny and realistic way. The battlefield and violence between men within the mean streets of New Orleans was hard for me to manage, but certainly integral to the story. The ending of the book astounded me. I sure didn't see it coming. I thought it was extraordinary and truly capped the solid character that Elias became with his own fortitude. I look forward to more work from Peter Charles Melman.

Fans of historical fiction will love LANDSMAN for its intricate recreation of Civil War New Orleans--especially the "seedier" side of the city--and Melman's pitch-perfect style, which is eloquent and somewhat stylized but not flowery. Frazier's Cold Mountain came to mind when I learned about LANDSMAN's plot, and I think the two novels do serve as good companion pieces, but LANDSMAN is is a wholly original Civil War novel, like none I've read before. The Jewish angle is certainly fascinating and I learned a great deal about Jewish involvement in the Civil War--and I'm a better person for it--but honestly, it's the story that hooked me and made LANDSMAN such a pleasure to read. Elias Abrams is a dark character, yes, sometimes brutal...but once it becomes clear he's trying to avoid the law AND his former gang mates for a crime he didn't commit--while fighting in the Civil War, no less--Melman really spins a page-turner that plays on our expectations of the "anti-hero on the run" story but ultimately makes it a fresh adventure, and in the process makes us love Elias by the novel's end. However, readers looking for a light adventure tale should know that the novel gets quite dark in places. This ain't light reading. LANDSMAN is densely packed, but beautifully and intelligently so. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderfull book and it should not be compared to Cold Mountain. It seems every Civil War book is compared to CM. I do believe CM is one of the best novels ever written but other civil war books are just as good. This is one of them. I really enjoyed this one. I really liked the characters and the story. If you enjoy books on the war mixed with a little romance, read it!

Peter Charles Melman's debut novel walks some well-worn paths. A Confederate soldier, age 20 and only 9 days into the service, has enlisted to escape a rough past with a street gang and a murder. An older man gifts him with approval and life wisdom. An epistolary romance with a girl back in New Orleans bodes well for the future.

But each familiar component has a twist. For one thing, young Elias Abrams is Jewish. He met his closest pal, Simon Wolfe of the ruthless Cypress Stump Boys, in the Jewish Widows and Orphans Home, though neither practices or even knows much about their religion. Elias's father was a wealthy plantation owner who seduced and abandoned his immigrant mother. Though based in the city, mother Gerta taught him much about herbal remedies before her death when Elias was 12.

His surrogate father in the field is neither a Jew nor a seasoned veteran of battle, but a near-sighted, newly-enlisted classics professor who cites Greek myths and writes literary pastiches to his wife and daughters back home. To keep the boy on his toes, a pair of cynical thugs who wear the same uniform have it in for him. When the commander of his infantry company receives morale-boosting letters for boys in the field from the New Orleans congregation of the Dispersed of Judah, he picks out Elias as a "son of the tribe" and hands him a missive of elegant good wishes from a complete stranger, 17-year-old Nora Bloom. On the one hand, Elias suspects both the law and his former gang buddies are looking for him in connection with the murder; on the other, the polite and inquisitive Miss Bloom poses an increasingly strong motivation to return to the city.

Melman's tale is meticulously researched, but the details of his narrative - the lay of the Missouri and Arkansas battlefields, the rush and roar of battle, the delicate waltz and lingo of innocent young love - only season it; they do not bury it. On the surface, the plot might resemble that of an old-fashioned romance novel. Elias bravely wields his courting pen, accepts challenges and responsibilities, and stumbles his way toward redemption for his murky and thieving past.

But there are also some gritty modern elements: searing though not lengthy battle scenes, plenty of salty language, and flashes of violence and eroticism (never, fortunately, together) that may add to or detract from the story, depending on the reader's taste. The Cypress Stump Boys sequences remind one of nothing so much as Scorsese's "Gangs of New York." There's even a sequence of anti-Semitic torture in a prisoner-of-war camp.

A calm, sagacious narrative voice guides us through it all: "...Abrams tends to prefer the character of women to men. Women fail, they know this, and he finds them beautiful in their admission of it. It is the casual resilience born of this admission that men do not share." Landsman is an undeniably fine and absorbing first novel by a promising talent.

The novel is set during the United States Civil War. Elias Abrams is an orphan who has grown up in the streets of New Orleans. He is a thief, a card sharp, can run a three card monte game, frequents saloons and bordellos, and is a member of a criminal gang. At the age of 20, fearing arrest, he flees the city and finds refuge in the ranks of the Confederate Army. He faces the privations of the Army in the field - lack of provisions, bad weather, the risk of injury and death - and the chance meeting with rogues from his past.

He finds himself in love with a woman, and looking for a new life, but events from his past must be dealt with. Part of the action takes place with the Army in the field, and part in New Orleans. There are some philosophical sections (he meets up with a new friend who is a classical scholar).

No, it is not Cold Mountain (not even close) - this novel has a different set of villains. The hero (if he could be called such) has appropriate papers. The novel contains violence, sexual content, and the rough language of the streets. It is written for an adult audience.

I have read most every Civil War novel ever written from Gone with the Wind to Spoils of War, and even Cold Mountain. Yes, the war was romantic and we love to read about heroism and love stories. But it was also dirty and fought mostly by those not so gentlemanly southern gentleman. The vast majority of Rebel soldiers weren't fighting to keep their plantations and human property - they were poor propertyless indigent souls fighting for "The Cause" and honor - and in this story's case, to keep from going to prision. This is a tale of the "normal" soldier, not a story of grandiose heroisms. I LOVED the view that Mr. Melman took of this sorrowful but grand period in our country's history. In fact, I think this would make a GREAT movie someday!